Originally written on 23 January 2016, 26 February 2016, and 7 March 2016

What am I trying to accomplish in the next chapter?

• Susan will unearth Walter’s search pattern, and use her ties and Sight to locate the gun.
• Nat will go shopping for clothes. For Grace. Her eyes will turn green. Officer Juan will chaperone, and will notice.
• As Susan and Adam approach the gun, and are negotiating with the scavenger vampires that have it, Susan is summoned to the one who turned her.
• They ready to leave the treasure behind, and are confronted by Walter’s demon.
• Vampire/Demon fight ensures.
• Adam eventually sends the demon back to its home, breaking the pact, and signaling Walter to his presence.

Questions that will need answering:

• How will Susan unearth Walter’s search pattern?
• Will Nat speak to Susan again before she disappears?
• Will Nat have a greater control over her slide out of the story?
• Should Adam get the gun so soon? Is it as soon as it feels?
• What, exactly, is Walter’s search pattern?
• How will he eventually find the scavenging vampires?
• How does Susan react to the scavengers?

Answers:

• Yeong-cheol doesn’t like debts. When Susan’s info proves reliable, despite its crazy, they meet so he can do something for her.
• Nat should show up again in the next chapter, and Susan should get to see her one last time.
• Walter knows he’s inside a story, and might even know details about the story, like genre. He won’t be surprised or taken aback by vampires, but he may not expect them, either.
• Walter is a researcher. His search pattern isn’t physical, it’s a paper trail of coincidence and unlikelihood that echo the Cavern’s influence upon the fictional world.
• The CPD has the reports filed by Nat’s partners, which had pieced together Walter’s trail, enough to find the demon. Yeong-cheol has someone in the CPD, and after discovering that they have the same info he does, he gets the reports to pay Susan back.
• When this is all laid out for her, Susan will have an additional appreciation for her sister’s brilliance. It’ll make her possible disappearance that much more painful.
• Do I switch POV for Nat’s shopping? I haven’t switched POV yet in three chapters, so there’s no established pattern. Will the work be long enough to begin switching POV in chapter 4, or is it too late? How else would I show that?
  • Officer Juan will call Susan and run down the experience of being asked to accompany Nat clothes shopping, and then helping her while she purchased several changes of clothes for someone who is a size sixteen.
  • This needs to come after the pattern is discovered, when she’s tweaking about Nat leaving.

Originally written on 02 January 2016

Picking a new title for Too Dimensional

Why does the old title bug me?

• Too sci-fi, not enough fantasy
• Relates to story mechanic, rather than the story itself.
• Nikki would say I dislike it because she came up with it.
• Doesn’t feel linked to the story.

Opening conflict – Coll being tortured by “Adam” and demon in his dreams.
Next layer out – Coll telling Julia about it.
Next layer out – Coll isn’t the only one, some of his friends are involved in the Weird Shit, too.

From Julia’s POV, this is supposed to be a paranormal mystery story.
From Adam’s POV, this is a superhero/antihero genesis story.
From Coll’s POV, this is a horror story.
From Zeke and Grace’s POV, this is the beginning of an adventure story.
From Seth’s POV, this is a paranormal romance(?) story.

Central conflict – Adam vs. Self
Secondary conflict – Adam vs. Walter

Many Aspects / Many Facets / Tunnel of Mirrors / Supporting Cast / Story Crafters / Regenesis / Neogenesis / Rebirth / Lost Story Found

Heart of the story – growth through suffering (? Really?)
Heart of the metastory – discovery

The two lines above were from 26 July 2014, and having just re-read the whole thing, I have to disagree. Not with the metastory, that still feels accurate. But the heart of this story, something I remember insisting was true to Emma in that Biggby’s, falls flat to me now.

None of the characters, except for maybe Seth, do any real growth due to suffering. The heart of this story is Adam’s awakening. In later stories, the focus and the heart will be in those around Adam, in this story he is as much catalyst as catalyzed.

Editor’s Note – I ended up going with What No Eye Has Seen, rather than Lost Story Found.