New Book, First Draft Update

Hello all,

I finished the last sections of chapter six, the entirety of seven, and am over halfway done with chapter eight. I don’t really call the parts of a chapter ‘scenes’ any more, primarily because some have more than one literal scene, when the PoV character goes from one location to another with no break in the text. Scrivener calls the separate text pieces within a chapter ‘sections,’ and, at first, I sort of balked at thinking of them like that, but now that I’ve thought more about it and have written out many sections, I think they are pretty spot-on with their nomenclature.

The writing went a bit slower than I had hoped, but there were a lot of names I had to come up with for side-characters showing up for the first time that had only been roughly described/named in the outline synopsis (lead member of team 2, partner of team 2, lead member of team 3, etc.), and I try not to take character names lightly, even side characters. I like to include names from various nationalities, and, hopefully, use names that make sense for who they are. Part of choosing a name is also determining how it is pronounced. If I can’t find a reliable source for that online, I base the pronunciation on other words from said language, or, if that’s also difficult to determine, maybe choose a different name from the same language/region that I can find a pronunciation for.

I also had to come up with some interesting veer for a few encounters that take place in these new sections (veer who were not described at all in the synopsis, aside from ‘they deal with a veer,’ which isn’t very exciting or interesting). And those, too, needed names, along with natural environments they are from, their looks, abilities, etc. Almost all the veer are inspired by various creatures of myth or legend from around the world, though I do put spins on them, magical or otherwise, while trying to stay true to their origin. In fact, I was going to have a zouyu in the book, but after doing deeper research, I found out that it was probably based on a panda, rather than a large feline, which I wanted for that particular scene, so I ended up switching it to a nekomata, with my owns twists, in order to avoid putting in a zouyu that wasn’t at all close to the original myth.

So that’s where I am with the first draft. I hope those who celebrate Thanksgiving had a good one, and hope you all stay safe and healthy the rest of the holiday season. Until next time, happy reading!