Added extras

It's become increasingly apparent to me over the last couple of weeks that something has been missing in my current work in progress.

The story is pretty much unfolding in the way I kind of thought it would. Sort of. But even though all the plot points were hitting there was something a bit... flat.

Something a bit... empty.

Too many... ellipses.

A light bulb started dinging in the back of my head as I reached the half-way point and realised that no way is there enough words in there.

Usually there's more than enough, and I get the pleasure of knowing that soon after I've strained my wee heart out putting all those words on the page, I get to go through and cross at least a quarter of them out.

But if I take in the superfluous words as well, then what I have on my hands is a novella.

I don't have anything against the form per se. "The Body" and "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" are perfect examples of the excellence this format can achieve. It's just that I thought there was more stuff going on.

And then I worked out what had happened. I got the character A viewpoint, going on nicely. Got the character B viewpoint, acting in perfect harmony and coming in gently for a nice co-mingling of plots at just the right point. Ohhh sexy.

Now I just need to have that third eye watching out. The point of view that's going to corroborate a whole lot of testimony right up until the point that it actually doesn't. (Or until it does. Who can tell? You'll need to buy the book at the ever-extending release date to find out.)

It seems like a lot of extra work to be right now, but at least when that finally occurred to me, all the other troubles I'd been having on the way through started to work themselves out.

Onward, ho. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

(Unless or until I kill her off.)