Like It’s Been There All Along

Things are getting down to the very end in our plotting and scheming sessions for the Ghost Series. Only the climax of the final book really remains up in the air, but there are still surprises waiting for us as we see where our characters go. For instance, during a recent dog-walking-and-novel-plotting excursion, two of our characters decided to wouldn’t you like to know right in the middle of the finale.

By the end of the walk, it felt like that was the way we’d always intended it.

That’s a strong indication that what you’re onto is good, when it immediately acquires a sense of familiarity, when it retcons itself into your whole conception of the narrative. That feeling means that this new idea fills gaps without pushing all your other pieces out of place. You might not have even recognized consciously that the gaps existed, but the structure suddenly holds its shape better.

There’s still a long way to go before we get around to actually writing these scenes. We need to do our outlines, and create stubs, not to mention that what we’re talking about is the very end of Book 4 of a tetralogy. A lot could change by then, even with a process as methodical as ours.

A writing partner is someone to share the discovery of what’s been there the whole time.