Rethinking. Removing, and Adding

"The Husband" has been on vacation for the past week. We didn't go anywhere special, so those of you housebound wives know that I didn't get any vacation! Anyway, I didn't get to write--I should say, I didn't get to use my fingers on the keyboard. I did quite a lot in my head, though.

You see, the posts so far have been teasing about the middle part of my story; the reason for doing so is that I wrote three to four chapters of the beginning third, but writer's block formed a wall I could not break through, so I decided to forget the first chapters--put them on the back burner--and concentrate on the middle, as if I were writing a new story that began when Sarah and her friend fell into the passage and entered the parallel universe.

Now, though, I have my middle "story" sorted, I have to go back to the beginning, delete a couple of characters who apparently don't belong, but add at least one who has intruded into my mental draft.

Those of you who have kept up with my other blog probably know that I won an award for the first chapter of this book, I was one of the five Finalists in a contest through the East Texas Writer's Guild in cooperation with Venture Galleries and Caleb Pirtle. If so, you may have read the first 1500 words, words that introduced a scene from four hundred years ago--a pregnant Jane Bulcock being taken, with several other alleged witches, to be tried and executed by hanging.

Present day nineteen-year-old Sarah Jane Bulcock, born in England raised from the age of nine or ten in Texas, travels back to England to help her aunt settle the estate of her recently deceased English father. Sarah's father, a descendant of the original Bulcock family, left Sarah with some intriguing items--items which will become important in her quest to find her way back to the present and so define her future--and change her mind about a lot of things...

Conflict--a rethinking

In the middle of the night--or rather, the early hours of the morning, I realized the chapter I've been working on doesn't have enough (or any) conflict. So I've been re-writing it and adding as much as I can.

So far, I have intensified Sarah's dislike of Elijah (he really is a rude, uber-male) and since she herself is a "Miss Bossy-Knickers" (according to him) she feels the need to stubbornly oppose any of his ideas or suggestions. She accuses him of being controlling. He says if he doesn't take the lead, who will--he knows more about Lancashire and Ravenwood than she does; however he also says he doesn't think they are in Ravenwood at all, now--Sarah says of course they are. We shall see who is right.

The producers of the argumentative shouting seem to have disappeared in a puff of smoke--or at least, a billow of mist. The only things in the forest clearing are three black crows, two of which show evidence of a tussle--feathers flying, They bumble off as our two friends (or non-friends, if you like) arrive in the clearing.

With Sarah hanging back, and Elijah crashing through the undergrowth, they are about to encounter, well, let's see, will it be Herne the Hunter (or Herne the Horned god?) Whoever they meet, will they be help or hindrance? Friend or Foe?

I'll tell more when I get Sarah and Elijah--well, somewhere out of the woods.