Fourth Book: The Research Hiccup

There’s a funny thing about a research: if it needs to get done, you need to do it.

If not, you’ll find yourself in the pickle I’m currently in.

Now, pickles are tasty, so I don’t mind all that much, but here’s the issue: I had made a note in my outline several many moons back (no, that’s not a typo) to watch a certain film before I reached a point in my Fourth Book just shy of the third act's end. Believing I had ample time to do so, I casually shrugged it off and got to work.

Except, while the film was patiently parked at the top of my Netflix queue, we never got to watching the one that was equally patiently sitting on our kitchen table until just this past weekend, our limited viewing time instead dominated by the prevalence of amazing and new television shows desperately clawing for attention. I wasn’t able to send the Netflix out until only Wednesday or so, so it will be clear into this next week now before I can watch and move forward.

Which means, I’m stalled. I could move on to the next chapter and continue the tale, but I simply don’t work effectively that way, choosing instead to build on what came before when coming up with what’s next. Though it’s outlined and I know precisely what will occur in the next section, the minutiae have yet to be defined, and it’s the minutiae that makes or break a narrative.

What to do? Well, I put the Fourth Book away for the time being and picked Trezka up for the first time in some months, reading it with refreshingly clear eyes before giving it that promised third round of edits. Some takeaways:
  • It clearly needs this extra attention.
  • I love the second and fourth quarters of the first act. The others, they need some work.
  • I need to change one of the main character’s names because it’s the same of another protagonist in another book.
  • The pace needs to be picked up in several areas.
I’m now into the second act, which I’ve contended for some time that I’m simply head-over-heels for. While that remains the case, the first chapter needs to be built upon, the narrative reading at times like a skinless cadaver of a tale, and there are plenty of opportunities to tighten and expand the world I’ve created.

I plan on immediately returning to the Fourth Book when given the chance, but until then, this is amply filling my time. I wish I could work on the Children’s Book more, but, with some program limitations, that can only be done at certain, far too infrequent, times. Still, I think (I think) I should be able to nail my New Year’s resolution.

Only fifteen days left to do so!

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