After something of a brainwave last night, I spent a good deal of time thinking about how I want The Broken to flow, and I think I’ve come up with a final structure!

I had a structure for my first draft, but I trashed it when I realized it didn’t contain half of the things I ended up knowing I would want in the book. I had no structure for the second draft, which I then realized was a problem because the flow of chapters would be off, especially with time period switches.

But now I have a third draft structure, and I’m happy with it. Very happy. It has all the parts I think I’m going to need (and I was able to cut a few potential chapters I think I won’t need), and the flow – even across time periods – is solid. In fact, I think (if I write the chapters well enough) that there will be some poignant moments when switching from one chapter to another.

Of course, now I have to fill in the blanks and actually write each chapter, but hey – that’s the easy part, right?

I’ve also struck on what I think is a neat little gimmick; since the book is essentially about music and bands, each chapter will be referred to as ‘tracks’, and will be set in time by a note stating when it was ‘recorded’. For example: Track 1 – The Incident (Recorded November 1997). What do you think?

The final segments of the book were originally going to be set in 2019, but I think now they’ll be in May 2020, which means I really need to hunker down and get some writing done, if I want it to be released around then; after all, I still need to make sure I have time to get it edited, work on layout and design, find a good cover image, etc. We’ll see how my winter depression treats me, but I really would like to be able to have a final draft done by the new year – February at the latest.

We shall see, of course – but wish me luck, and perhaps by this time next year we’ll have another book to talk about!