"Allen Bridge" blog #10...

Act II is coming along nicely and the current page count is 50. So far I've rattled off a few scenes, which have moved with purpose and speed - one of which was perhaps a little too brief, so I ended up extending it, which is quite a nice opportunity, especially after tightening the first act's belt by 10 pages recently.

I'm about to get to a lengthy dialogue scene between central protagonist Miller, and a curious character called Harland Mumper (whose brother has recently been murdered), at a location called "The Black House". That scene will get into some real meat concerning the town itself, as well as set up lots of stuff that'll come into play afterwards, particularly during the climax.

However, that's still to come, the stuff I've been working on these last couple of days has involved Miller finding himself positively affected by a muse, discovering some odd goings on behind his back, and Ryman entering a real struggle.

The flow has been a little stunted these last couple of days, but then again there's been a lot of descriptive action - which takes just as long (if not longer) to write than dialogue, but takes up a lot less space vertically (hence a lower page count after a writing session). However, I'm rather pleased with what's ending up on the page - that time re-drafting the first act has really helped improve my confidence with the central story, as well as my approach to how I tell that story, and even in the simple practical terms of getting it from my head onto the page.

Act II is where the meat and potatoes of the story come together, whereas Act I requires you to establish a hell of a lot in as brief a time as possible, so Act II finally affords you the chance to really sink your teeth into the motivations and characterisations, and indeed history, that you created during the planning stages. Act III allows you to bring everything together and go out with a bang (be it positive or negative), so really, Act I is the toughest act to write - and I'm beyond that now, so it's proceeding along nicely now that the plot has room to spread its wings.