Three Days of the Novel

T Minus Twelve Hours...

With a scant twelve hours to go, I can feel the adrenaline starting to flow. I still have to whip up GB's Special Beef Stew when I get home tonight and take care of a few chores around the homestead before midnight, so I don't have any major interruptions this weekend.
The good news is: I have a plan. Surprise!
Actually, all you Losties will appreciate this. The book will basically be a short adventure wherein the hero breaks into a wizard's stronghold to "take care" of said wizard. While he's making his way through the gauntlet, his origin and history will be told in a series of...
Wait for it...
Wait...
Flashbacks!
It came to me the other night on my way home. I was trying (Inside my head, it would be WAY too out of character for me to actually write this stuff down...) to organize the book in a straight "origin, adventure, resolution" timeline and it just hit me. Flashbacks. So simple and yet so elegant a solution to the problem of introducing a completely new character to readers and yet keeping the plot moving along at a swift and interesting pace. Devoting a third of a short novel to a character's origin would be a big snooze otherwise...
A few of the soon-to-be-written-down plot twists are boiling away in the back of my brain as well.
Yay!

posted by Greybishop @ 12:04 PM