Monday, June 7, 2010

Uh-oh...

Sometimes, the writing muse just takes over.

Perhaps 'writing demon' is a better descriptor. Every writer has been 'in the zone' at some point, where they can't eat, sleep, or think about anything but words. Oh, those all-consuming words. They struggle to come out, sometimes sluggishly, sometimes so fast that you can barely type them out.

I was struck with inspiration while writing last night. I think that I have enough material for a FOURTH novel in what was supposed to be a fantasy trilogy, and now I feel totally overwhelmed. I have gotten rid of 22,000 words, written another 30,000 (taking 10,000 of that material from an old work), and somehow formed a basic outline of my plan... I hope. I think I can use about half of the 22,000 false-start novel and about 10,000 words from my infamous archive of old junk to make 'Mirror, Mirror' come to life again.

Confused? So am I.

Here is where I need some reader input. If you have read The Second Sister, Wolf's Eyes, or the first part of The Witch's Daughter, feel free to chime in. Tell me what you think of this plan.

The third book, The Witch's Daughter, will be completed as-is, in my usual three-part, first-person format. I'm about half way done already.

The fourth book, Mirror Mirror, is going to be a hodgepodge, but it works PERFECTLY with the grand plot structure I was originally going to include in The Witch's Daughter. The first 25,000 word part will be from Ellie's point of view. The second 25,000 word part will be from Cate's point of view. The third 25,000 word part will be from Ailynn's point of view. So, like, mini versions of the first three books to wrap it all up. Cool, right? Or am I just crazy?

Do you think I could pull this off if I was careful? Do you think jumping viewpoints is too confusing for readers? I think I got it to work for 'Chopin at 3:00 in the Morning', but I never expected to try the viewpoint-swapping experiment again. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments. I'll probably have another post up later today (more about the craft of writing, less about my own confusing plotlines).

2 comments:

Lauren said...

Having read all of your novels, I don't think changing the point of view would be confusing. You already start every part by stating who's story it is and who is recording it. Plus, I find the voices of the narrators to be very distinct. It's hard to say if you can pull it off since The Witch's Daughter isn't finished. For readers anyway (HINT. I'm kidding). But a fourth "wrap up" novel could be really interesting. Particularly if their stories come to intersect more with the whole Mogra/Umbra/pendant thing. I see possibilities here. So... no, I don't think you're crazy. Am I crazy?

DaughterofEris said...

I honestly love the idea of 4th book! Hell, even a 5th, 6th, and 7th book too. I'd love to see what you could do to the other fairy tales such as Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid. I think it would be interesting to have a story whith all three character's POVs, and I'm sure you could pull it off. In all honesty, I thought that the Witch's Daughter was close to being as good as The Second Sister. I enjoyed the fact that it was told from Ailynn's POV, when in the first two books, the story was told from the more femmimine character, the "girl" in the relationship if you will.

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