Logical ain't always best.

Well, that was interesting.

As a lark, I rearranged scenes in"Takeover" in the order in which they were written. The chapters fell right into place, a logical progression, much cleaner and more understandable than the current version.

(Which, of course, I kept. I don't make major changes without first saving the best current version. The wonderful thing about digital is that I can attempt experiments like this without ruining what I've already done.)

So you' d think this "cleaner and more understandable" version would be an improvement.

But in fact, it fell very flat. For some mysterious reason there was little life to it.

How can that be? It's the exact same content!

I reaching for "art" here, if you will. (I readily admit I'm probably falling well short.)

I've arrived at the best current version by making artistic choices, chapters that follow each other thematically, if you will, action chapters mixed with character sketches mixed with narrative. I tried idiosyncratic almost experimental points of view. In my own mind, I was trying to duplicate the chaos of real life, where no one knows what the others are doing or thinking but are living in their own worlds, reacting to what's happening around them.

It was done by feel, by a sense of what kept the story intriguing. Subjectively. Artfully, if you will. If it was somewhat awkward, well so's life.

I'd have colorful character statements, followed by a narrative chapter that objectively told what happened, then another colorful character statement, than action, then narrative, then foreshadowing, then narrative, and so on.

Putting them in a logical progressive drained all that away. In this version, for instance, half of the first ten chapters are a character who was purposely created to be the most logical and least colorful character in the book, a character who was meant to be level-headed to carry the narrative.

But he was designed to guide the narrative as a relief from the chaos. A couple of wild scenes, then one of the narrator scenes, then another few colorful scenes, then the narrative, and so on. The narrative scenes lumped together just don't move me.  The wild character scenes lumped together seem too much and without context.

This failure of the logical version is reassuring, somehow. Like I'm on the right track creatively.

This isn't a logical process, it's a creative process. I need to trust my instincts.