I’m at a fork in the road with my novel. Both literally and figuratively. I’m at a third of the way into the book (planned length, so this is all theoretical but after over a dozen novels I do kinda have a feeling for where I am in the story) so this should be act two, depths of the canyon by the end of it, so act three can be the struggle upwards towards climax and resolution. Roughly. I am not a plotter. Given this is the third book of a trilogy with two novellas in-world that have bearing on the overall plot arc of the trilogy, there’s a lot of moving parts I have to keep track of and make sure I don’t leave them parked on some siding somewhere with the jungle growing up around them while they slow-burn into rust piles.

To keep this train on the tracks, then, I have to throw the switch at just the right time to send my characters in the direction they need to be going to drive the plot towards the ultimate destination. I, the author, have a foggy idea of where that is. Which is my problem. I want to get there but first, I have to do justice to here. If I don’t, I risk losing my readers behind at that fork in the road, wondering how I got there from here, and they are confused. Which generally leads to them DNFing the book or leaving bad reviews. One way I can help my readers follow me is to send my characters off on a wild goose chase, then have them backtrack and try again. This also accentuates the effects of a try-fail sequence. You don’t want things to go too smoothly for your band of characters. They should be wondering when the other shoe will drop – your readers certainly are. If nothing does happen, readers tend to be disappointed. After all, a book with no conflict and resolution is a bit boring to read.

Another way, which is likely what I’ll be doing in this novel, is to have the characters set off on a path which is difficult, and just keep throwing obstacles in their path. If you set up a realistic scenario – a plant-collecting expedition on a world of rocky spires and swamps accreted around them over millennia, as cover for a rescue mission – then you can believably make the conflict feel very real. Throw in unreliable guides, hostile environment, and lack of intel on the location of their objective and it starts to seem downright impossible.

Next, I have to decide how much of this to elide over. If I follow just the expedition on it’s long, doubtless tedious path (mosquito-equivalents, swamp monsters, treachery) it could consume a book-length segment of it’s own. But that’s not what this book is about. Which means that I’ll write highlights, with bridges up and over the boring bits, until I get to where I want to be in roughly eight chapters. While keeping in mind the ultimate goal of the plot. Character development on this sort of thing tends to be the kind that happens naturally. If you can call itching from head to toe ‘developing’ that is. I’ve spent time in tundra, which is a swamp with a solid sheet of ice three feet under it. The mosquitoes call it heaven on earth. Humans call it something else.

Hopefully this will work! I’d rather not have to rip ten thousand words out of the book and try over if I find myself at the end of the line staring at a blank wall. That’s never a good place to be. I think, just writing it out here has helped me decide what to do in the book. Thank you all for being the Duck today.