What the story needs

G'day dear reader

I'm back on target, 18,500 words done or about a tenth of my target  in only four weeks. If I can keep up the pace I will finish the first draft earlier than expected (in about 9 months).

As can be seen I'm half way through ch4, which like ch3 is looking for a title. I have a penchant for one word chapter titles something that reflects the general thrust, which is curious because as can also be seen  I generally write three scenes per chapter each from a different point-of-view (POV). This often makes it hard to to find a common theme. If I had to give a reason why I do this I would say the chapter titles give a rough guide to where I am in the overall story, making it easier to back-fill  or edit past events so they flow seamlessly into the present.

For example:  Chapter 2 has changed from "Campaign" to "Leaders"  The original referred only to Hyatt's goal of taking over the world. I had not yet written Rowena's scene where she asserts herself over her companions (including her parents). So 'Leaders' better reflects the chapter as a whole;  my two major characters,  antagonist Hyatt and protagonist Rowena,  (incidentally half siblings) being shown to be leaders.

I write in Word on a PC running Vista making extensive use of outlining  - Chapters styled as "Heading 1", P'sOV as "Heading 2" and scene-lets (groups of  paragraphs) as "Heading 3" again for reason of tracking the plot/storyline.  The styling (colour and size) is my own and the headings are set not to print when I print a chapter to take along to read at my writers group

The POV character Ashford  is the renamed Lee (reasons in previous post) who turned from enemy to friend. Why? "It seemed like a good idea at the time".  I make this up as I go along.

Also from the outline you can also see I currently have five (5) POV Characters: Ashford, Jorgena, Rowena, Hyatt and Sarah. I don't count Hedley because his POV is only in the prologue. Five is a lot to handle and give distinct voices to.  (I had three in book I rising briefly to five 5 midway, dropping two and bringing them back at the end of book II - whatever suited.) 

What the story needs the story gets.

I'm still not comfortable with so many P'sOV but I feel the story needs it so I just have to grin and write it besides when I started writing (with intent to be published) I wasn't comfortable with anything I produced: description, dialogue, POV,  naming, grammar or punctuation.

In my experience writing is learned by writing. Learning only stops when the writing stops.

Ooroo for now