The Preppy Suicides: Borrowed Time

Rarely is it that postponing a character death actually improves a story. It's rare... but it happens.

I've been going over my outline for The Preppy Suicides, looking at all the clues and plot points and becoming very upset that they all have just a little too much momentum. Now, momentum is a good thing, but I have reasons, and not arbitrary ones, that each volume of The Crossroads Chronicles has to span a school year. It's not a conceit I yoinked from Harry Potter or a vestige of when I'd planned to do this series as a TV show. There are legit reasons for it. And yet, there are only so many clues, only so many roads I can go down without getting redundant and adding filler.

And then I realized that a lot of that momentum had to do with a character death that occurs rather early on in the story, one in which the characters have a very personal stake. It's their entire purpose, and for them to dally around after this character has died would seriously leach credibility from the idea that this was their friend, that his death had a profound effect on them. Then, however, I realized...

His isn't the only death, and it isn't the first. If the first death piques their curiosity and gets them to start asking questions, they could begin their investigation without the immediate personal stake of the second death, and certain events put in motion by the second death could also be held off on. The rising action starts, but the story has room to breathe, to grow.

And then, when no one is looking... BAM! Death number two makes it personal. Death number two changes the game. It's the cue ball that sends every other ball on the table bouncing off the sides. This, of course, also has the added bonus of spending more time with the character who was supposed to die sooner. There is seriously no bad to this decision. Fo' shizzle!

Well, time to roll up my sleeves and get restructuring!

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The Preppy Suicides: Midpoint Review

I have just passed January in story time, which means I've completed the first semester, which in turn means I'm halfway through the story.

As I began with the first February chapter, I realized that there were only so many plot points left before I had to just cut to the climax or let my characters just look lazy or stupid. The thing is, there are certain characters whose arcs have not yet brought them to where they would need to be for that to happen, and I find myself with a problem: the plot is getting ahead of both the calendar and the characters.

I've also run into the problem of not being sure who knows what at this point, which clues have been discovered and which connections have been made. Being the omniscient creator, it can be easy for me to lose track of which characters know what and when.

That being the case, I have decided that this is as good a time as any to go over the story so far, chapter by chapter, and document all the crucial exposition delivered up until this point so that I can get a better gauge of how to pace everything. This will not doubt be a rather tedious process, but better now than never.

For the record, some of the character sub-plots (which very directly influence the central mystery plot) have recently hit certain scenes that I am incredibly proud of. The last chapter I wrote seriously changes the game of not only this book, but the entire series, and it featured a scene so shocking and tragic (in the classic sense of tragedy, not the contemporary) that it just makes your stomach lurch. Both the story and the character in question just take a sharp turn and start everything spinning on a whole new axis, and I can't wait to pick up the story from where I left it.

More news to come soon!