First Draft Blues

 I'm on the last action chapter of the novel, and I'm not happy.

I don't feel I put enough tension into the book, and I don't have a horrible monster to defeat. At least, he's not horrible enough.

Worst of all, I haven't figured out two key elements of the plot.

If this sounds like the whinings of a literary hack, you're possibly right. However, I've heard the same complaints from many excellent authors whose names you would know.

It's called the first draft blues. You know what you want to happen to your characters, but you haven't yet figured out the purpose of these actions or events. Or, if you have, you haven't quite made it happen and you're not sure why. What's not working? Incredibly annoying.

Time and space and distance are the keys to this, usually. Often. In many cases. Sometimes. Once in a while.

So, before I start this chapter, I go back and I edit. Editing isn't just looking for mistakes in spelling and punctuation, or missing words and extra words. Editing means looking at the development and examining the text to see what hasn't been explained, what isn't needed, and what else needs to be in there for it to all work.

This is a short blog because I have a lot of work to do!