I Know the Problems

This story has a rich young lady who goes to a patent office where there are six other young ladies and somehow they all try to solve a murder.

I didn't have to do much ploting to understand the problem. Two separate stories that converge occasionally and when they do you have to coordinate seven characters even if it's only directly from one characters' point of view? That doesn't work.

The second thing I realized is that most of the young women would have to do other things with their time besides sit around. One could go along with the rich young lady, not all of them.

The third thing is that the rich young lady has two young men who might be interested in her. One gets two appearances and the other gets three. They either need to be cut or actually be part of the story.

There. I know the problems.

Here's the stuff that might be important to readers. Don't confuse the narrative unless you know that you're doing so and you have a point. I have no reason to do so. Some say never to do so but I believe a lot of different approaches can make a good story.

A linear plot with one or two mains interacting with things means it's easier to flesh out the details. When I say linear, I don't mean one thing leads to another or chronologically. I mean that scenes connect even if they take place at different times or the correlation isn't immediately evident. A random scene here or there that doesn't immediately connect is cool. Ten might be a problem unless you have a point. There should be connections if things are going to be easy. A book can be this complex thing with many characters and changing to that characters' point of view and that's great but that might not be the way you want to go to write a straight forward story. An epic tale yes, but not something that should have a simple series of events.

Character Profiles

Sorry, nothing today.
All I determined is that using my current main character would be cool but not with my six other main characters. One or the other.

She could have a support character but not six.

I almost feel like the book could be two separate ones.

The only characters that don't mesh are these seven.

Ideas

I want to write a book that has steampunk elements and a mystery.
The main character should be female and the story should be Victorian.

 Main Character
A secretary in an organization.
A rich young lady.
A resourceful young woman.
An undercover agent for another organization who is stealing company secrets.
A group of young women who are tired of being taken advantage of.

Mystery
Someone dies
A series of murders (serial killer)
Theft?

Motivation
The main character is suspected of the murder.
The main character(s) wants justice.

My Plan

This is a tentative battle plan for fixing The Wind-Up Terrier in the first seven days of 2017. Things might change as I find out what I can do.

Sunday
I will be brainstorming. I'll try and figure out what I wanted to do with TWUT and I will be throwing out ideas for the story as if it's not already written. I might dig out some notes about what I wanted it to be.

Monday
I'll be writing character profiles and figuring out which ones sing. I might decide that some work but not for this story. I might decide others are fillers.

Tuesday.
It's time to write an outline. I might try to write out what I've already done and I'll write out other potential outlines. When I first started the book I had only one basic outline of what should happen chapter by chapter and then later I added descriptions. After that I added more plot. I think it became a bit cluttered that way. This time I have details from the original and it's just a matter of picking and choosing.

Wednesday-Thursday-Friday
It's time to begin writing.

Saturday
Time to tidy up and look at what I have, whether I succeeded or I've at least improved the book and my understanding of what I did.

Plan for Rewrite.

I'm going to set a challenge for myself.
Books can be written over a decade or in as little as a few days.
I wrote the rough draft for The Wind-Up Terrier over a couple of months. I did a few more drafts over a few years, trying to add more stuff to it, mostly.
Now the time has come to face facts.
The book might be publishable. It might be alright.

It doesn't work for me.

I'm not going to dump everything but I do need perspective and I do need to figure out exactly what I do and don't have before I can add anything else.  Starting this Sunday and ending on Saturday I will be "fixing" The Wind-Up Terrier. I will be posting my plan of action later this week and detailing what actually happens and my results as I go through the process.

If I am successful, I will have a book published in the first week of the new year which is a great start. If I am unsuccessful, I'm a few steps closer to figuring out what I'm doing.

Wish me luck?

I'm a big fan of Welsh. I don't speak much but I'm trying to fix that.
One of the problems is lack of welsh tv that I can access.
S4C, the public Welsh channel, is getting its funding cut.
There's a petition to try and prevent it and to suggest that maybe allowing subscriptions for people overseas would be a good idea.

https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/non-residents-of-wales-ask-for-s4c-funding-to-be-maintained.html

Books. Progress. Negligible.

So, The Wind-Up Terrier has been written for a while but I'm just not happy with it. I may have to do the unthinkable, for me, and just start from the beginning and redo it, taking things from the old version.

Snow Sands; Through the wormhole, is stalled.

I have a children's book I finished but I don't have a cover.

I have a bunch of things partially written and several short stories fully written.

The lesson here, buckle down and do it. I had been gradually doing things a little bit at a time but I think that locking myself in a closet and working for several hours until I reach a frothing frenzy may be the only way to complete things. Maybe if my work was fine after a couple drafts I could just work slowly but at this pace I'm not sure which way is up anymore when it comes to my plots.

I need to clean out my closet.