My old guitar

Progress!

I finally figured out how to connect up a moment from early in the book to the climax. I love when that happens, when bits and pieces seem to link themselves together without my having to think very much. I did that once in a short story, and a reader who was also a writer commended me on having woven the victim’s silver ring through the story. (Since she was a friend, I admitted to her that the ring had been the last thing I thought of, after which I went back and planted references.)

I have a few mentions of various plot points toward the end that I’ve marked with plant reference earlier, because there’s stuff that simply can’t come up for the first time on p.385. It’s not that there need to be a ton of references every twenty pages throughout the book, but my gut approach is that if something is going to be a big deal at the end, it should be mentioned no fewer than three times in the body of the book. That way, the reader can nod and recognize that they were being led to a particular destination without it being so screamingly obvious that when the big moment comes, they’re muttering, “It’s about freakin’ time.”

There’s a lot of middle to clean up yet, but I’m so happy that the climactic section is coming along. Even if I don’t wrap up the entire draft by day 14, this challenge has definitely been worth doing if only to put the climax in order.

See you tomorrow!