I’m always willing to learn more about the art of storytelling. This has led me to re-examine what I’ve written so far on ‘A Falling of Angels’. My heroes relationships are intertwined with his character development, but also with the tangled web of his investigations into the corruption that allows murderers to remain unmolested. If they have the right connections. That and their shadowy supplier and master, whose motives will remain unclear. Right up into the planned volume “Shifting States”.

One story thread is about Paul Calvins relationship with another, similarly afflicted and brain damaged character, and how he assists her recovery. The problem was that key story elements were the wrong way round. Well perhaps ‘wrong’ isn’t the right word. Out of sequence? That’s probably more like it. That’s what was getting in the way. I kept stalling on story threads and couldn’t move the larger narrative forward.

So I’m spending the next day of two restructuring what’s been written so far. I liken this part of the writing process to editing and cutting a movie or TV show. All the scenes have been shot in mostly the right order (Well, kind of), now it’s time to shuffle elements around and hunt down continuity errors. The idea being to bring out an improved product. Threads need to be unpicked and rewoven. Fortunately this is at a relatively early stage of the game, so there’s only 30,000 words to patch into a better constructed tale.

I do a lot of episodic writing. I get an idea, put together a story, and then the fragment goes into file while I work on something else. Then at a later date it’s pulled out of the file, reworked, rewritten; and if it seems any good, completed. If not the story sits on file until I can find a use for the idea. It’s not as though I’m working under any deadlines, apart from those I impose on myself.