Meniscus: Resistance | nichepoetryandprose

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Starting a new book 2

Today, I finished the rough draft of my new book in the Meniscus Series. This book will deal with discovery of a secret that will bring down the nasty Dock-winders.

The working title of the book is Meniscus: Resistance.

Before you become amazed at my productivity, remember that my Meniscus stories are in narrative poetry and are a quick read. At this early stage, this book has 11,600 words.

The next step in my process is tedious, but very helpful.

I create a Table of Chapters. Each ‘Chapter’ in the table is described by ‘What happens,’ ‘Setting.’ ‘Point of view,’ ‘Characters,’ and ‘Theme Progress.’ I can work through my entire document:

change all the place holders to actual Chapter numbers;
make certain the setting is described in detail;
ensure point of view in each chapter is clear and does not waver;
list the characters in the chapter and ensure everyone has a role to play; and,
check on progress made towards resolution of the story.

Table of Chapters for Meniscus: of Resistance

Chapter	What happens	Setting	Point of View	Characters	Theme Progress
Prologue	James escapes	Space dock	James	James, D, DW, GH, Drag’on	Introduce antagonists
1.	Trath crawls from mine	base of Flame Mtn	Trath	Trath	Trath escapes
2.	Abra finds six glyphs	obelisk at The Tip	Abra	Abra	Abra finds glyphs
3.	Evening meal at Hath’men	Village of Hath’men	Omniscient	James, Drag’on villagers	Drag-on set apart
etc.

If the story is missing an ending, or has continuity issues, this building of the table helps me to focus on the story progress and, by the time the table is completed, the story is more complete.

Once these tasks have been done, the Table of Chapters can be set aside and used later for any stage of the revision process. For example, I can check each chapter for phases of the moon, so the full moon doesn’t occur two days before the crescent moon! I also use the table to make certain the illustrations are evenly distributed throughout the text.