Transformation: Part One Complete

Here's the promised update at the end of part one of the first draft of Transformation, which covered the story of Nevin and Amy in the world of Juno. In many ways it's almost a standalone story, to this point, just with a somewhat unsatisfying ending. Focus now swaps to Katinka Farkas back on Earth for part two.

In the end, there were six chapters in part one rather than the expected seven. The characters kept misbehaving and doing what they wanted, especially Amy who surprised me at every turn. These chapters are named:

Commune, Consume, Connect, Concern, Confess, Collude

Despite there being one less chapter, the word count is about what I expected. Adding part one to the existing prelude and interludes, I've reached around 27,000 words on the first draft, which is about one third of the way through, just about on track with my expectations.

Unusually for me, before cracking on with part two, I'm going to do a first pass edit on part one and the prelude/interlude, as there are a few themes I want to bring to the fore a little before acting upon them in part two. I think doing this will help part two flow better in my mind. Part of the reason for this is the chronology of the story.

As I've mentioned before, the story is structured as follows:

Prelude: Ordination

Part 1: Proselytism

Interlude: Conversion

Part 2: Apocrypha

Interlude: Epiphany

Part 3: Bardo

Interlude: Consecration

Part 4: Pralaya

However, that's far from the actual chronology of events in the real world, which is one of the reasons I'm writing this novel in the wrong order. If you were reading the story chronologically, it would be roughly as follows:

Interlude: Conversion

Interlude: Epiphany

Interlude: Consecration

Part 1: Proselytism

Part 3: Bardo

Prelude: Ordination

Part 2: Apocrypha

Part 4: Pralaya

...but that wouldn't be half as much fun from a storytelling perspective! Well technically, that timeline is only 100% accurate from Nevin's viewpoint, but that's the clearest one that makes sense, given what happens to him.

One final thing. I came across an old article on the BBC website this morning which has a couple of things in common with a bit of the background to this story and the role of the Safirans, which won't get revealed until part three, Bardo. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to work out which bit of this long article might be relevant...

[Update] Having written this blog post, it's made me change my mind. I'm not going to do part two next, nor a post-part one edit yet. Straight on with part three, as it's the next chronologically in the list above - and it will also make sure I don't do anything stupid in part two that I then need to backtrack on. After that, I can do an interlude, part one, part two and prelude review to lead me nicely into Katinka Farkas...

[Update 2] I like to record my thoughts ahead of starting a section, so this is what I'm planning for part 3, Bardo. I'm expecting it to be the shortest of the four main parts, acting as a bridge to get everything in place for the finale, and also the minor task of telling you what the story is really about. Currently planning for it to have four chapters:

Rescue, Reality, Revenge, Reincarnate

Let's see how it turns out...