A Risky Strategy - Word Count 57,406 (wp) 71,000 (pr)

I took a bit of a chance with my work in progress. So far, the entire novel has been told from two points of view, and as described in my last post, both those characters have been to the extremes and we've finally seen their true nature. A couple of events have occured which prettly clearly signalled the end of Act 2 and I wanted to start Act 3 with a distinct shift.

So, 300 pages into the manuscript, I introduced a new POV character.

Hmmm. He gets a whole chapter to himself, in his own world, away from the rest of the plot (up until its last few paragraphs, that is). Now, he's not an unknown character. Other characters have spoken of him, mostly in fearful tones. He's kind of become a bogey man and he was always going to be introduced into the action at this stage, but it was only really when I sat down to write this chapter that I decided to put him front and centre.

I hope it works in the overall arc of the plot. I hope it gives things a kick in the arse just when the reader thought they'd been to the limit. The chapter starts in a pretty gruesome way, and it would almost work as a stand alone short story. I really like it. I just hope it works.

In other news ...

News indeed. It was a big day here in Norn Iron. To quote Vince Vaughn in Swingers, "Baby's all growed up." Yep, our overpaid leeches finally got their arses in gear and formed a government. This is good news, so long as it sticks. It also adds greater weight to some of the themes in my work in progress. When this draft is done, I'll be going back to make some tweaks that reflect our interesting times.

And I got some other good news, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention it...