Mathas
Dreamer
Hi all,
I've tried to search for this in previous posts and haven't come up with much. I am well into the first draft of my novel, and I find myself 8 chapters in and the characters are still not moving on from the first location. The chapters are around 10 to 16 pages long, and I am dealing with 3 main POV's at the moment. I have heavily edited this much already, and merged scenes, and removed sections of world building for later, and I still wonder if they are spending too long where they are.
The location is a subterranean city inside a mountain, and it is being attacked and sacked. One character (D) lives there, one (Y) is arriving there on a diplomatic mission, and one (M) is on the bad guys side in the process of assaulting the city. Heres how it goes -
- The story opens with Y arriving with her protectors
- then D is on the way to the meeting and I use this to show a part of the underground city,
- then Y meets D who tells her to hide as the attack begins,
- then it switches to an outside perspective where the bad guys are attacking the city
- D is in the library when M arrives and is introduced
- D escapes and I then have a scene where Y is hiding and must fight her way out of her hiding place
- M is in the library and D is introduced to his quest in the depths of the book shelves
- Then I switch to another location, where other characters learn of this attack
- M is in the library and falls asleep, Y is captured and her protectors are killed after traversing through the caves and D escapes on a goat... yes
- Y is brought to M who orders her taken as his prisoner and thats when they all move on from the mountain city.
Each of these either represent whole chapters or multiple scenes within chapters. I feel like it takes quite a long time for this all to happen, and with 8 chapters drafted and another two or three to come until they move from the city, to all be travelling across a harsh landscape, I feel like things are moving very slowly. When I break to the other location briefly it is for a political perspective. And this all adds up to about 130 - 140 or so pages.
Is this too long in the same place? There are various settings and places within the city that serve as settings, but the reader is reading about the same place for that long. Should I break from there and look at other locations like I did that one time? Or would that break the pace of whats happening in the city? At the same time I feel like everything that's happening is necessary having already done a fair bit of whittling.
Oh, the calamity
I've tried to search for this in previous posts and haven't come up with much. I am well into the first draft of my novel, and I find myself 8 chapters in and the characters are still not moving on from the first location. The chapters are around 10 to 16 pages long, and I am dealing with 3 main POV's at the moment. I have heavily edited this much already, and merged scenes, and removed sections of world building for later, and I still wonder if they are spending too long where they are.
The location is a subterranean city inside a mountain, and it is being attacked and sacked. One character (D) lives there, one (Y) is arriving there on a diplomatic mission, and one (M) is on the bad guys side in the process of assaulting the city. Heres how it goes -
- The story opens with Y arriving with her protectors
- then D is on the way to the meeting and I use this to show a part of the underground city,
- then Y meets D who tells her to hide as the attack begins,
- then it switches to an outside perspective where the bad guys are attacking the city
- D is in the library when M arrives and is introduced
- D escapes and I then have a scene where Y is hiding and must fight her way out of her hiding place
- M is in the library and D is introduced to his quest in the depths of the book shelves
- Then I switch to another location, where other characters learn of this attack
- M is in the library and falls asleep, Y is captured and her protectors are killed after traversing through the caves and D escapes on a goat... yes
- Y is brought to M who orders her taken as his prisoner and thats when they all move on from the mountain city.
Each of these either represent whole chapters or multiple scenes within chapters. I feel like it takes quite a long time for this all to happen, and with 8 chapters drafted and another two or three to come until they move from the city, to all be travelling across a harsh landscape, I feel like things are moving very slowly. When I break to the other location briefly it is for a political perspective. And this all adds up to about 130 - 140 or so pages.
Is this too long in the same place? There are various settings and places within the city that serve as settings, but the reader is reading about the same place for that long. Should I break from there and look at other locations like I did that one time? Or would that break the pace of whats happening in the city? At the same time I feel like everything that's happening is necessary having already done a fair bit of whittling.
Oh, the calamity