Monthly WIP Update - Great Divide

I decided to add a new series of posts to the blog this year.  These posts will detail my works in progress, or WIPs.  I’m not going into details on plot or characters, but I will offer insight into how the story came about, where it may be going, and how close I feel it is to completion. 

Tentative title: The Great Divide

Original concept: A Pangaea exists with all land in one mass and a large settlement occupies the center of the continent. Eruptions and fissures break the world into multiple pieces. How does the populace handle the destruction of the world they know and the new world once it forms?

Draft version: First

Present word count: 17,897 (Unknown completion number)

Writing process:

This is another of my books that started as a National Novel Writing month project. I did win the year I wrote this one, reaching 52,000 words by month’s end.  That particular year, I felt a lot of stress in the writing, so I pushed this book to the back burner for three years after completion. Couldn’t even open the file. Somehow, just the thought of the story brought all the stress back.

Once I got the nerve to open the file again, I started pulling the concept apart. I found I had too many minor, useless characters that could be combined and reworked.  With that realization, I broke the file down to three different sections, with my three primary points of view, then created a fourth with the others I needed to rework. After looking at all the files, I decided to shrink the scope of the project down to the one point of view for now. I’ve not thrown anything out, just placed all but the section I kept to the side.

Future expectations:

This project is feeling like a hit or miss proposition. I’m wanting to examine it to see if I can reach a publishable work, but it may end up in the scrap heap where I’ll find good parts to rip from it and create new.  After it’s start and the years since I have dared open it, I’m not as confident in the story as I was when I wrote it. However, I’ve learned things since its initial writing, so I can put my new knowledge to work. That will make it that much better.