Changing History: Rearranging Chapters in Your Fantasy Novel
I’m still in the revising, rewriting and editing stage, but I’m close to moving on to the next scene. I’ve spent the last few nights revisiting old chapters and old scenes and my notes and chronology of events.
In the first version, I didn’t necessarily write the chapters in chronological order. But in order to avoid confusing the reader, I’m going to rearrange.
So, what used to be Chapters 7 and 8 are going to become 3 and 4. Not only does this help me keep the sequence of events in the proper order, but it also lets me stay with the first group of characters a little longer before switching to my second main story line.
Moving these chapters meant adding a day to one story line and starting the second one a little bit later, but the changes were minor, and the whole thing makes a little more sense that way. I don’t want the reader to have to figure out that I’ve just jumped back to yesterday, and I certainly don’t want to have to explain it. And time travel is just not possible in the universe I’ve created.
Working on Chapter 8 (now Chapter 3) last night, I reworked a lot of the first scene, resulting in a fair amount of new material, which is good. I’ll be moving on to new stuff over the weekend.
Although I’m nowhere near the initial goal of writing 1,000 words a day, I’ve been working pretty steadily. I think I’ve taken two days off over the past two weeks. And despite all my editing and revising, the word count keeps growing, too, which means I must be getting somewhere.
Fantasy Writer’s Progress Report:
- Consecutive days of productive writing:Â 7
- Chapters complete: 7
- Word Count: 28,206
