by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The first of the two novels I’m working on ends in a cliffhanger. I know exactly how the novel ends. What I don’t know is how to build up to that point. As it stands, everything up to the midpoint is pretty good and stable.
Everything past the midpoint is still something of a struggle. So, I’m going to do a lot of thinking as to how to re-imagine the second half of the novel to amp up the drama, conflict and tension.
I’m fully prepared to simply follow the outline I have for this first novel, but I have very high expectations for myself. As such, I may find myself tinkering with the specifics of scenes and their subject matter a lot more than I might otherwise.
But one thing that’s really helping is I finally have some sense of the totality of the work. So, it’s easier for me to plant things within the outline with an eye to the macro.
Anyway, in general, things are going reasonably well. Or, to put it another way, after a lot of work, I definitely feel the momentum is in my favor to wrap these two books up at some point in the near-ish future. I’m thinking I have about one more year of slow-but-steady work ahead of me to finish these two novels.
Once I finish them, I will try to sell them. If I can’t get past the traditional gatekeepers, then I’ll just self-publish and piviot to the next big creative project, whatever that may be.
