Thanks!

A bit of everything - Part 1+2 are pretty much at copy/proof. Part 3 still needs some substantial rewrites and then Part 4 is probably line edits

Yes it is 😄 well main body is written, mostly editing and doing some significant rewrites in part 3

Rewrite Rosie looks like she is getting a reprieve - she lives to fight another day!

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It is very sad! The world they live in breaks the best of them

Part 3 of WIP is biggest rewrite section including whole new chapters written from scratch - started writing last night and wow I wrote a lot of dross! Just wandering until I found the plot. But got there in the end. I think… Now to find out what is salvageable!

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Sam is tall, broad shoulders, with russet hair that Rosie cuts for him, he has piercing blue eyes. Rosie is slightly shorter, honey coloured shoulder length hair that curls naturally at the end. She has hazel eyes, a quick smile and cheeks that redden quickly - especially after drinking Sam’s cider!

They are a couple yes - a bit mismatched but when their relationship is working they bring out the best in each other

A toss up Rosie or Sam! Rosie has more energy, she’s the social heartbeat pulling everyone into her orbit. Sam has a more reserved outlook but when he is out with Rosie, amongst the valley, you see his inner joy coming through. But like all things in the novel the joy is fleeting

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No! No “ly” words will survive the purge of ‘26 - I will not stop until they are all removed from my personal lexicon - only, really, lying - they are all gone!

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Thanks @njpinto.bsky.social for pointing out my over use of “ly” words in my writing - let’s just do a quick scan of the first draft…. Fuck

A twist executed well can be one of those things that can leave you thinking about a novel for weeks. My frustration comes when it feels contrived. There is nothing worse than a twist for the sake of shock and nothing more - still looking at you game of thrones final season!

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Ah that moment when you realise there is no amount of cuts and inserts that is going to save a draft - it just needs to be put out of its misery and completely rewritten.

Oh well it will be better for it! The characters have grown up a little since its inception!

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Yeh mine the same - first draft is the bones then add character moments and background texture

Jessica’s true feelings for Alistair will never be defined. I think one of the issues with first person pov is that all characters get filtered through his lens, they lose some of their autonomy. By leaving her feelings undefined she gets to keep her agency.

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Manuscript - A War of Words - ink is failing creating lines all over the page

Part 2 - here we go…

(Yes I am aware my printer almost certainly needs something doing to it!)

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I feel I have been overly focused on Alistair recently so let’s talk Isabel. Isabel loves the rain (less so the cold) so she will often use the opportunity to get out of the Kine, walk the hills as the rain swirls round her, then warming up again in front of the fire.

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Alistair is a story teller - he is constantly creating narratives of the world around him, the people and objects that inhabit it. It is a great strength but also one of his biggest flaws. It tends to inflate the significance of the immaterial and reduce people to symbols.

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Told you it would! Haha. I definitely could go back to past tense writing but it would need to fit the story - something I never thought I would say when I started writing!

“It is cruel that the right choice will be forever struggling against moments of pain, of toil, of sorrow where the wrong choice will remain unblemished and unburdened. But such is life. “

To be fair the first is more ambiguous to Alistair than the reader - I think if he made a different choice the reader would want to slowly throttle him!!

The second remains an unknown and will always remain so even with the third book - I think he sums it us well himself…

I tend to write tragedy but the endings tend to be more ambiguous than happy or tragic - both of my completed works finish with a difficult choice for Alistair for which there is no clear right or wrong answer - just different. I like to leave to reader work something to ponder!

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In the process of writing out and consolidating some characters in WIP - talking through writing out one character who dies originally with my wife:

Her “nobody dies then”

Me - says nothing

Her - dawning realisation of the character that has to die in their place “oh no…” 😂

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Alistair gets an innocuous ankle sprain at the start of book 2 and then does everything in his power to do as much damage to it as possible in the name of masculinity. In doing so it does become something he has to live with, flaring up when over worked.

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I have been working on character focus. I have a tendency to add characters and use them sparingly. I want the world to feel lived in but I have been wasting focus on characters that have one line/scene and then disappear. I have used the space to develop key characters instead! #writingcommunity

Really positive session with the local writing group this week. Having the ability to receive constructive criticism of a WIP makes a huge difference. You don’t realise how blinkered you can get to your own writing until someone relatively impartial reads it!

On to the changes!

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A little late to this! There is a lot of death - particularly in this current WIP - not MC but certainly significant characters.

As a rule I don’t like killing off characters simply for shock value - their deaths need to be meaningful I want the reader to care about them.

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Too many! It is an interesting dynamic - I have tried to steer clear of hero worship/absent father tropes - Alistair sees the flaws in his father but his fathers world view is seared into his psyche

I guess the closest thing we get to a someone we could consider an “objective” antagonist is Alistair’s father Alan. He is not a cruel man but a selfish man with too much power. He is the mirror to Alistair- the man that he risks becoming.

This is am interesting one. Not sure how define antagonist in this WIP because to Alistair almost all characters around him become antagonists by the end as he is eaten up by frustration and failure. 🧵
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28 when we start. Still young and idealistic - a very different 34 year old by the end!