Early $10 Preview: Page 149

I think this is as good a time as any to talk about my writing process.

I mentioned a month or so ago that I had FINALLY scripted the entire rest of the chapter! It takes a while to do something like that.

I'm already off-script. Lol!

Well, that's not quite true.

Each chapter is made up of a series of beats I want to hit to be able to tell the story I want to tell. So far, Chapter 3's beats have been:

• Oakewood conducting research (This chapter is about research, so need to bring this to the fore)
• Briar visits and delivers Tess's news (Establishes the state of the Baker family & their conflict; the plot B of this chapter)
• Belfry sees Avery (Introduces some new characters, gives Bel some advice she should take but won't)
• Oakewood takes the kittens to meet the Guppy (introduce new characters, establish that no one has seen Tam's kind before, ABROAD!!!)
• Enter Milo (the driver of research this chapter)
• Booth setup (how close to the surface conflict is bubbling)
• Walk through the festival (Cameos galore, show mixed reactions to Tam)
• Crow scene (Establish the depth of prejudice that can exist & Oake's attachment & Tam's desire to help)
• Visit Isaiah's booth (cameo!)
• Visit the apothecary (cameos!)

A lot of the meaning has been retroactively added to the script as I work on pages. For example, I knew I wanted to introduce Jason and Avery because I like showcasing different family dynamics and I wanted to give Piper and Anthony some more depth. When I got to that scene, I'd had enough comments from readers saying "I bet they know what she is!" that I knew I had to address that explicitly. Then, I wanted to sow some more worldbuilding.

Anyway, to circle back around to this page. 

This was completely off-script. I knew I wanted to hit the apothecary, and I knew I wanted Tam to help. But after the last page (also off script) I knew that I couldn't just leave it at that and move on. That would be unfulfilling. So she gets fixed up, Oake gets some emotional depth, and RJ and Twitchy get a little more screen time.

I don't think I had been planning on softening Oake's heart this early, but things just kinda progress as they want to sometimes. Plus, he's got baggage!

Also, as the future of the story shores up in my mind, I see more clues that need to be littered in the past -- e.g. where I'm drawing now. The way I tend to write is by story beats ("I want THIS to happen, and I want it to mean THIS"), like I noted above. I often break them down into points that need to be hit. So for Booth Setup:

• Establish the current conflict between Belfry and Tess
• Show Briar's reaction to it
• Show the festival's booth setup
• Cram more cameos in
• Give poor Walter more screen time

When I get to that scene, I'll script up a few pages and try to naturally fit in what I want to fit in. Walter needed to be given some time where he got to be a nice guy, instead of fumbling his parenthood duties. No one really had any opinions on him. Hell, I didn't really have much of an opinion on him. I wanted to change that. He'll have more screen time later in the chapter too.

In the same vain, Ainsley was never going to come back after the first few pages of Chapter 1. But I realized that they needed more depth and time to be seen as a rational, 3-dimensional character. So they came back for Oakewood's introduction. From that, I decided they had an unlikely friendship, which will play a part later. 

It all just kind of fits together. You've got all these puzzle pieces and a rough idea of the picture it's supposed to look like, and they can fit together a thousand different ways. You just have to work at it bit by bit, and see where you can fit the pieces together.