Monthly Archives: October 2014

These chapters were extremely easy to write. They flowed so nicely, which is why I wrote 4 chapters before writing another blog post about them. The first two chapters were from Jørgen’s POV, and they headed off in a direction that was not planned at all, but that actually worked great with the story and him as a character. It shows how deep down in that black hole he is, and what the consequences is for doing something that he hadn’t really meant to do.

Jørgen’s closest family is introduced, and Jørgen grows close with someone else. They have a lot of things in common, and Jørgen finally manages to open up a bit more than he has so far in the story.

The last two chapters are from Geir’s POV. He got some bad news again, and it once again drives a wedge between him and his dad. His chapters went basically as planned, and they came just as easily as Jørgen’s chapters did.

I think I wrote these four chapters in the time-span of about a week or so. With chapter sixteen finished, there’s only four more chapters left, before the novel wraps up.

These two chapters came easily. Some surprises happened, with scenes not planned, such as a very nice father-son moment in the beginning. It might just be one of my favourite scenes in the story so far, silly because it happened so unexpectedly, but fit so perfectly. One plan fell through, but it works out for the better, lest too many characters be introduced at once, which is not a good thing.

There is very little of Jørgen in these two chapters, so they’re not as riddled with his deep-rooted and heavy issues. These two chapters are Geir’s through and through and more hopeful in tone as to his life. He’s still only seventeen though, and though he doesn’t hate his new life as much as he could’ve, he’s still young and he can fly off the handle in a second, which was demonstrated once with his Dad here. Another father-son scene I’m quite fond off.

One of my favourite characters is introduced here. He’s also one of my most feminine and out there characters ever. He speaks his mind, is not afraid to show who he is, which I guess is what I like about him.

These chapters were easy to write. I think I only wrote the 10K in 4-5 days. The next part is Jørgen’s, which will be filled with a lot more angst than these two, considering Jørgen is now starting to finally deal with his issues.

This is where it starts go downhill. Geir got some news he did not consider good in the last chapter, and in chapter 9 he gets quite a knockdown. I can’t say anything else without spoiling, but these two chapters have been very sad to write. They’ve also been hard to write, because not only was there one really sad thing happening, but there were two.

These two chapters were supposed to wrap up the first arc of the novel, but the more I wrote, the more the word count rose, the more worried I got. This is going to be too long, I kept thinking, I’m not going to be able to wrap it up. This chapter is longer than any of the others, but at least it’s all wrapped up and ready to be taken into the second arc.

It was essential to end the arc in chapter ten, because the locations change drastically in the next chapter. There weren’t enough story to do two additional chapters, and I also needed for the last chapter in this arc to be from Jørgen’s POV. Geir’s the one who’s location changes from next chapter on, so he needed to start off the next arc.

The first arc of the story is about realising your feelings, about falling slowly in love with someone, yet also knowing that your issues are keeping you back. The second arc will dig deeper into Jørgen’s psyche and how his family fit into it all, while Geir will have to come to terms with his new life. He has to grow up, become more confident in himself and make new friends.

The second arc was planned on not being as long as the first, considering the first one took up about half the planned word count. Some things changed in the last chapter though, something I had not counted on. There might not be a third arc, because the second arc might just cover it all anyway.

The new changes doesn’t change the story particularly, there’s just more happening than what was originally planned. The ending result will be the same though—and it’ll be a good one.

I started writing More Than Anything back in March of 2013. I wrote part of the first chapter before the Big Writer’s Block happened and I started working and being sociable. In shorter words; before I went AWOL all summer. I wrote half the first chapter at that time, and this was when the story was supposed to be told from only Jørgen’s POV.

After the four+ months I was AWOL, the characters started coming back to me. They revealed the fact that this couldn’t be told from only Jørgen’s POV, because Geir had a lot of story to tell as well. This is when I decided to switch POV every 10K. I divided the 10Ks into two chapter of 5K, to break it up. This is still the same, but now every 10K section is also a part. Jørgen’s first two chapters are part one, Geir’s next two chapters are part two, etc.

The story unfolded before me. I’ve known these character for so many years, and I know their stories. Still, some things have changed in this new version and I am happy about it. It makes the story better and more realistic, in my opinion. For instance, in the original almost all secondary characters were either gay or bisexual. I think I only had one straight couple, and the girlfriend went lesbian after a while, while the boyfriend hooked up with another girl. Where’s the realism in that?

The characters changed and evolved in my head. They’re living in a small town, so now most secondary character are actually straight.  It wasn’t hard to change this, it happened naturally. They haven’t come into play much yet at this point in the story, because Jørgen is a recluse and Geir doesn’t have any friends, but they’ll play a bigger part once the second arc starts.

Chapters 1-8 make up most of the first arc. This arc moves extremely slow, as Jørgen and Geir get to know each other. The writing went smoothly, because the scenes were laid out there and all I had to do was write them down. And all they have to do is contribute to the dialogue. They don’t jump right into bed, and they won’t, because their issues are so much greater than that and they need to work them out before their relationship can even think about progress.

The first arc is, for me, about them discovering that they can have happiness and they can have love and a relationship. They don’t quite know how to go about it, especially not with all the issues in the way. But they’re young and they’re trying their best. They’re taking it slow. As they should.