Chapter 8 of The Engineer's Craft has given me so much trouble.
I've been editing it for over a month now--adding scenes, deleting scenes, combining scenes, changing dialogue, etc. Some changes feel like they've shifted the needle in the right direction, but ultimately I have yet to feel that "ah, yes!" I get when a chapter has tight pacing, important progression, and enjoyable imagery or action. It's an intuition I've refined over the course of editing The Engineer's Craft, but chapter 8 refuses to be fixed.
You see, this chapter follows directly after one of the most exciting chapters in the book, according to the 30 or so people who read the first draft. Chapter 7 has intrigue, action, excitement, and danger all wrapped up by the main character having a specific goal to be accomplished. Then, in Chapter 8, the main character is forced to wait. This is the worst thing about a travel narrative; if you want to be accurate, you can only fudge the numbers so much on how quickly the characters can travel or how far apart places are.
Yesterday, I came to the conclusion that it isn't necessarily the waiting that is the problem, but how much waiting feels like it has robbed the main character of his agency. Bartus doesn't have a purpose, and so while I send him around the ship having different conversations that are necessary for later plot elements to make sense, to the reader this chapter in the story feels aimless, without direction. If you want a reader to be engaged with the plot, the main character should be engaged with the plot, even if it stubbornly refuses to move.
For that reason, today I'm going to be chopping up Chapter 8 quite a bit. Moving up Bartus' fears that the captain might already be dead, encouraging Bartus to go earlier to Anwen and see what she knows, getting him closer to Mauv faster than before. I still need this part to take up 3 days (the three dreams Bartus has are important for later plot devices), but I can compress that time by giving him purpose.
I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.
Side note: I thought it would be fun to include what music I'm listening to as I work on sections.
Today, it's a Star Wars Medley from the Ambient Worlds channel on YouTube: click here to listen!