Chapter 16 and Birth Plans...
I spent the 4th with the family, so didn't get a chance to work on TRD. Fortunately, I'm off from work today, so I can devote at least a few hours to wrapping up chapter 16, now tentatively titled "Preparations Begin."
By the way, I figured out what was making the chapter so difficult. Looking over my outline again, I saw that it was overly ambitious--I had at least two chapters' worth (probably three) of material crammed into just one, and was failing to compress it to my satisfaction. As of now, I've resigned myself to chapter breaks--one chapter devoted to preparing for the magic-outage, and another for the actual birth, possibly with one between them.
The only problem with that is that if I do break it up into three chapters, I'm going to end up back in Phoebe's PoV during the birth, and though I have (surprise!) done research and taken notes, I'd rather not have to write a realistic description of childbirth from the viewpoint of the midwife. Contrary to the impression conveyed by the three minutes devoted to Wyatt's birth in "The Day the Magic Died", we all know delivering a baby is a long and uncomfortable process.
The advantage of writing two chapters instead of three, then, is that the "birth" chapter will be in Cole's PoV--and by that, I mean that the birth will be written from outside the delivery room, and the narrative voice can be a little more detached about the whole process, so it'd be easy for me to skip the messy details of delivery and cut right to the obligatory "beatific mother holding newborn" scene.
You know...the more I contemplate that idea, the better I like it.
By the way, I figured out what was making the chapter so difficult. Looking over my outline again, I saw that it was overly ambitious--I had at least two chapters' worth (probably three) of material crammed into just one, and was failing to compress it to my satisfaction. As of now, I've resigned myself to chapter breaks--one chapter devoted to preparing for the magic-outage, and another for the actual birth, possibly with one between them.
The only problem with that is that if I do break it up into three chapters, I'm going to end up back in Phoebe's PoV during the birth, and though I have (surprise!) done research and taken notes, I'd rather not have to write a realistic description of childbirth from the viewpoint of the midwife. Contrary to the impression conveyed by the three minutes devoted to Wyatt's birth in "The Day the Magic Died", we all know delivering a baby is a long and uncomfortable process.
The advantage of writing two chapters instead of three, then, is that the "birth" chapter will be in Cole's PoV--and by that, I mean that the birth will be written from outside the delivery room, and the narrative voice can be a little more detached about the whole process, so it'd be easy for me to skip the messy details of delivery and cut right to the obligatory "beatific mother holding newborn" scene.
You know...the more I contemplate that idea, the better I like it.