by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
So, at the moment, I have the first half of this first novel sketched out. But the second half — for right now — is a big old blank. I have a general idea of how the story ends, but I need to distract myself to get some inspiration.
This is not the first time I’ve found myself in such a situation. In the past, of course, I’ve been able to go on little writer’s retreats to brood on things. But, alas, that’s no longer possible.
As such, I might read a book or watch a movie or something. Something, anything, to let me run in the back of my mind some way to flesh out the second half of the novel.
One issue is I’ve completed the “fun and games” element of the story and I have to figure out how both to keep the investigation going while also having the “bad guys close in.” I need to, maybe reimagine some of the details of the story instead of be stuck in a specific box of how I think things should work out.
But I have a limited amount of time. I have got to get going. I need to finish up this first novel’s outline so I can start working on writing again as well as start to work on the other novels in the project. Whenever I get past this type of obstacle and actually finish an outline I feel a great deal of accomplishment.
The only thing that is annoying is while I feel the new version of this story is a lot better, it pushes me back the timetable AGAIN. But I did what I felt I had to do to make the story as interesting as possible. The previous version of the story not only forced readers to wait way too long for something to happen, but also drained the “fun and games” portion of the story of any drama.
Now, with this new version, there is something of a literary onion element to how the story is told. We get to unravel a mystery and that keeps the readers reading. There is some dramatic tension that didn’t exist before.
