Dangling possibilities.

I was changing the first chapter back to 3rd Person/Past from 1st Person/Present and got to the action scene at the end -- and the story just didn't want to transition.  It seemed to be insisting on staying 1st Person/Present.

What I've got right now is a mishmash of both tenses and viewpoints -- and I've decided to leave it like that for the present until I make a final decision.

Present tense does read will, but it also reads odd.  So I have to decide if I can live with that.

Maybe this re-writing is going so well because I'm creating new material to make it work.  For instance, after a pretty eventful first chapter, I have a second chapter that introduces the hero where not much happens except inner and outer dialogue.  Lots of splaining -- which probably isn't the best way to get my guy out there.

I thought of a way to get him involved in doing something that explicates his character -- it's a bit of business, really, but a bit of business can sometimes be a good thing.

I just let myself riff on Faery last night -- comparing it to the night before Christmas, first love, and ribbons and bows, essentially.  Pretty corny.

Meanwhile, I also riffed on Cthuhlu -- the slimy, putrid world the Old Gods have drained of life.

Both descriptions can be improved, refined -- I'm just sort of glad that I thought to do it.

I'm hoping to have good solid contrasts with the hero and the villain and the two worlds they inhabit in the first two chapters -- and that the reader will pick up on the symbolism of the contrasts.

Today I'm going to try to institute the 2 parts of chapter two which are currently intertwined and see if I can't make them two different things and sequential.

It may all fall apart -- I won't know until I do it.

I'm hoping this is all helping.  What I've done over the last couple of years to try to fix things is come up with new beginnings.  I've added at least 5 chapters out of the first 8 chapters.

So in order to "streamline" the story, I've added 2/3rds to the beginning -- which seems pretty counter-intuitive.

Here's the thing -- I think, I believe, that if I have a good solid introduction -- with enough action and character development -- that the rest of the book will fall into place.

So I'm re-writing and re-writing the first 50 pages or so.  When that is all in place -- then I can proceed from there and try to make the rest of the book better.

Just this draft of Faerylander will take me twice as long as it usually takes me to write an original book.  I might be smarter just to move on -- and indeed, that's what I've done again and again since I first wrote this.

Yet each draft has seemed to be an improvement -- dangling the possibility that I can get this thing to work.