Friday, February 27, 2009

A breakthrough!

I have been struggling with the structure of the novel--whether to go in chronological order, or how to let the events unfold as I found them out. My solution is that I am going to start at two points in the story:

Prologue-ish: William Daniel Goodman arrested newspaper article
Ch. 1: Backup to when Katrina is auditioning for the show. She is asking a friend of hers in the rape crisis training course if she knows anything about Dan Goodman.

And so forth, back and forth between the show leading up to when Kat is told about the incident, while at the same time, following Dan as he is arrested, beaten, and slandered. Probably all of that in the first Act of the book. That way the audience can be introduced to Dan at his highest and lowest points before the details of the case begin to unfold. The first Act will end with Dan taking Kat into the green room and asking, "How much can I trust you?"

Begin Act II: In this section, there will be multiple flashbacks to the night of the alleged incident, each time adding more details (as Dan remembers more). Kat begins to meet more of the players of the story, people from Dan's past, and people at the theater. This section leads up to the arrest. It ends with a voicemail message: "911. Call my lawyer."

Act III: A few weeks after the arrest, awaiting trial. The lawyer has brought in an investigator, but they are not getting what they need so Kat goes undercover. Dirty pasts of all at the theater are dug up. Charges are made against the villains, driving the main villain to suicide.

Denouement: All goes back to "normal," though Dan never gets his job back, and there will always be an unsettled air hanging over the town.

FIN

Progress? Yeah?

Monday, February 2, 2009

Following the leader...

I haven't posted in a while, either, lolasangel:

In the meantime I have learned that too much planning can be just as paralyzing as too little planning. Today, I am jumping in and writing the second draft. (Not all of it, obviously.)

I know my characters, though they don't all have last names yet. I don't think they need definite names until they are introduced in the book, though, and some of them may not be mentioned for a while. For now, I have Will Goodman, my victim, and Kat Need-a-last-name, my detective. I'm starting with a newspaper article about the crime (as a prologue), then picking up "three months earlier."

I have been overly concerned about genre conventions this past month. I know my genre, even if I am more familiar with the television version than the printed word. Now I need to just write my genre.

So, here goes.

I'll give you a weekly Monday update from here on out...