Stupid horse words.

I've rewritten chapter 8 three times now, and it's still utter crap.

Comments

[Boneywings]

Any idea what's not working? Too much in one chapter/ wrote into a corner/ etc, or is this just overall unsatisfaction happening?

[Emerulf]

horse words
of horse sex and horse drama

[LastAmongEquals]

2482476
A little of A, a little of B. My first few drafts had this whole Good Will Hunting thing going on, and it just felt so trite and out of place. I couldn't get the timeline to mesh the way I wanted it to, and I was writing in more plot holes than I was solving. It would have required rewrites to several chapters and wouldn't have been very good anyway.
I'm trying again, this time just starting the chapter from scratch, discarding all of my ideas and going in a completely different direction, and letting the characters lead. We'll see where it goes and what happens when they get there.

As a bonus (or negative, depending on how you look at it), this chapter will probably now be about 6,000 words shorter than it otherwise would have been.

[Wing Dancer]

Take a break. Let it rest for a week. Forget about it.

Come back with a fresh mind and continue. The longer the story is, the more hard it gets to keep churning out fresh ideas in quick succession.

[LastAmongEquals]

Well, the good news is that my plan seems to have worked. It's shorter than just the first scene of my old drafts, but brevity is the soul of wit, after all. Indeed, I think it will set up fairly well for chapter 9, which should be the finale, barring any interstitial scenes I may choose to write.

With any luck, I should have something publishable tomorrow.