Approaching the Final Frontier

Last night I finished Chapter 14, which is essentially a chapter length scene involving the three primary characters, and the introduction of a character first mentioned way back in Chapter 3. I think it all came out pretty well. There's a lot of subtle little things that have to be handled just right, and I really can't talk too much about it because it builds off of the conclusion of Season 2, and I don't know if anyone's gotten that far yet. I'm happy with it, and I think it builds on things nicely.

Which brings us to Chapter 15. Now I'm in the new newer stuff, which means it's the stuff I've gone over the least in previous rewrites, which also means it's the stuff that's the least polished. And that was proven no sooner than the first page of this chapter, which I pre-read a couple of days ago, and it was really really *really* bad. Like, so bad it was kinda discouraging. But I brooded over that for a couple days while finishing the other chapter, and I started to get ideas for how to fix it up. The structure of the scene is solid. It was just the writing that left a lot to be desired. I'm not being my self-depricating self here. It really was not up to the same standard as the work I've been doing the past few months.

However, my skills have improved a lot just over the last year or so, and I wasn't so intimidated by the badness of it that I didn't think I could find a way to make it work. And so I took a gun assembler's two best friends out of my toolbox -- a file and a big hammer -- and went to work. My approach was to keep the spine, but file everything else out of there, hammer the material a bit, and then start clean. And I think I did pretty well. The first paragraph alone, which features the first conceptual appearance of something that plays a big part later on, is frikking amazing. It's a quantum jump over how this chapter used to open. And I went on to beat the crap out of most of the first page, and it came out pretty strong.

That's good for the self-confidence.

From this point on, though, is where the heavy lifting begins. This chapter has four scenes (even though the first scene is really three parts), but I think the last scene and the 2nd to last scene need to be swapped around, and I need to crunch all of these scenes into a shorter timeframe, or else the hospital scene in the next chapter is too far out for it to really work. I might be pushing it as is. If I have all of these scenes happening over that same weekend ... it should work out.

The second scene in this chapter is the Alexis scene I mentioned a couple of posts ago, and it's one that I'm still dreading for the same reasons I mentioned then. It is, however, a fairly well written scene already, so that's a relief. There's also a Kelly and Ben at the Diner scene, which introduces a couple new faces, brings back a particular waitress, and sets a few wheels in motion. Chapters 13 and 14 threw a few monkey wrenches into the works, and Chapter 15 throws in a few more. By the end of the season, there's all kinds of good shit going on all over the place.

I didn't realize it until I paged through it a few days ago, and put this chapter into perspective next to my plans for the later seasons that only just came together over the past few weeks, but Chapter 15 -- even though it may not seem like it right now -- is extremely significant. I just can't tell you all the reasons why.

But man, that first paragraph .... tremendous.