Tag Archives: Eddieand the Kingdom

So, less than three months ago, I mentioned that I was setting my goal low so I could keep on track. I recounted the story of the blogger who introduced his grand plan with a fanfare and vanished without trace. January and February were a breeze, with me accumulating enough of a word count to put me a month ahead.

Chapter one and two rolled out just fine – as long as you keep the maxim “Write the first draft for yourself” in mind. This was not great literature, but even refined, reworked and rewritten, it’s never going to be that.

But then March arrived and the shutters came down. It’s been a busy time for many weird and regular reasons (birthdays, pandemic, day job, driving lessons and building a new patio), and every time I grabbed five minutes to try and push up the word count total, I realised I wasn’t sure what came next in the story. As a life-long pantser, I’m used to working without a plan. I used Rachel Aaron’s advice and planned each scene I was going to be writing before kicking off, and I thought I had a general outline in mind, but I actually hadn’t worked through the whole story.

Let me explain: I hate it when characters do something stupid or out of character to move the plot along. I have a main character called Eddie, and he wants to A: rid his city of zombies and B: Keep the folks who have gathered around him alive. To make Eddie’s life harder, a convoy of military types have come into the city to resupply. Eddie wants them to join his band and help with the rebuild, but he’s worried they will just take over. The guy in charge of the convoy is tiring of the hit and run life, and Eddie’s fenced kingdom is just the safe compound he’s been looking for.

And so, chapter three is the time to start all the maneuvering, right? Except, I find I have no idea what happens next. I mean, sure Eddie and his friends have retreated to their secondary safe zone, so the convoy can’t target them, or threaten them. That’s good. The convoy are likely to find the kingdom and move in, and Eddie isn’t going to risk an armed confrontation to try and re-take the place. I set up a nice Chekhov’s gun situation with a zombie trap that allows Eddie to get hundreds of zombies off the streets and contained. If he was the right kind of protagonist, it would be some kind of poetic for him to use that stored army of undead to over-run the convoy.

But he wouldn’t. Eddie hates zombies, and wants to be rid of them. he doesn’t want ANYONE else turned into a zombie, even if they’re bad guys. And the convoy people aren’t exactly bad guys, they’re just living a different post-apocalyptic lifestyle.

So I’m two chapters in and I have written myself into a corner. Nothing’s going to change in the current situation unless Eddie acts out of character, or the convoy does something that doesn’t make sense, like abandon the kingdom, or ignore it completely.

Despite having hit my word count targets for the first three months, I have to throw everything out, and sit down and plot the whole thing. And this time, do it right. Good job I’ve finished building the patio.