Writing My Novel: Sequence One Done!

A week ago, I wrote about how I've been using the advice of Alexandra Sokoloff on structuring my novel. Well, using the screenwriting tricks she talks about on her blog, I have planned my novel structure. It comes out to eight sequences and a total of 4 Acts (okay, so most people say 3 Acts, but I say 4 just because it makes it easier for me to figure things out).

For my young adult novel, I am shooting for about 80,000 words, which works out perfectly with 8 sequences - roughly 10,000 words per sequence. Of course, the beginning will probably be a little bit longer than the ending, but at least it gives me something to aim towards as far as page count and word count. On Tuesday I finally finished sequence one! Yay!! It came out to be almost 12,000 words. I know it is going to need a lot of revision as it's far from perfect, but I'm just so happy to have the first part finished and actually down on paper. Sometimes, it seems like the beginning is the hardest part for me to write. It's all about getting comfortable with the main characters and feeling out the tone of the overall story. It's difficult to make those decisions, so now that I've gotten my feet wet, so to speak, I'm over the first hurdle.

Sequence two will get its start today, and I plan to introduce a new POV character. So far, the story has been told from two points of view - the witch and the main heroine, Parrish. The witch only got one little scene, and with the exception of a short, two page news article about the CDC, the rest has been all Parrish. It makes me nervous to think about introducing a new POV in this next section. Noah Vincent, the handsome guy Parrish has had a crush on for all these years, has already been seen in the book, he just hasn't gotten to be center stage yet. I have no idea if introducing a new POV like this will actually work. I hope it does because in Sequence 3, we're going to start seeing things from the Villain's POV, then in sequence 4, I go to Crash and Carmen as well. By sequence 5, I'll have given the reader a peek inside 7 different character's heads, plus the random news articles, internet posts and such that go along with the outbreak of infection and the rising of the dead. I might even add an 8th point of view later for a short look into Trench's head - the big bad zombie who is a slave of the Sorceress.

OMG, it sounds like a mess doesn't it? I really hope I can pull this off! It could just be one of those things you're not supposed to do, but to me, it seems to make sense. The only real way to know is to write it and see. As Virginia Kantra always says, "There is no right or wrong in writing. There's only works and doesn't work." Wise woman.