Working the Ends

I spent most of Friday working on my Robert story and focusing on a major item on my to-do list: the final chapter. This chapter is kind of a wrapping up of the loose ends and it’s something I’m finding somewhat difficult. Specifically, I’m trying for it to not sound rushed nor try to cram too much information into it. The first thing I did was split it into two chapters. I saw that the bulk of the chapter dealt with items relating to most of the climax but then there were items wrapping up a sub-plot. The sub-plot was moved to a new final chapter and I am going to need to expand it.

The now second-to-last chapter was something that I feel flows better and I’ve bulked it up pretty well. I need to give it another once-over but I think it’s damn good in its current form. I’m going to focus on the now-final chapter when I edit next time (hopefully tonight) and work on expanding it. All I did was cut & paste the text into this new area and I haven’t touched it. This new end consists of two paragraphs. Hopefully by the time I’m done with it, it’ll be about two pages. I’m also thinking of turning it into an epilogue but I don’t know if that is even worth it. Aren’t those cliche?

For now, the editing is going well. Still no title, but I’m adding bulk to the story. Every time I turn around, my word count has grown. I remember reading that a book really adds words during the editing process and I didn’t believe it at all. Only until I began this process did I see it’s totally true. I always associated editing with cutting out things but with each word or sentence I delete, I’m adding twice that. I hope this all comes through to my beta readers and on the final draft when it’s published.

We shall see.