Yesterday I finally got chapter 4 to where I felt it might be on the verge of meaning something. Enough that, today, I want to move on--but to where?

It feels like things may be starting to simmer underneath that could possibly rise to the top and drive the story to move on its own. If they are indeed there, I've got to handle the scenes almost tentatively to be able to tease them out. I can't just dig around and tug them out and plop them down like a slab of meat I'm going to cut into manageable pieces. That would kill them, at this point.

Again, I find myself confused by the difference between plot-driven and character-driven. Maybe part of the problem is that sometimes when you look at a story and decide which is which, the story's already been written and is a finished book, while I'm looking at a work-barely-in-progress*. And I see that here in this chapter, one character's personality sets up X to happen, and things will ensue from that. That ought to count as character-driven--but it sure doesn't feel like it. It feels like sheer plot. Events hang on it. That makes it plot, right?

But almost as a side note, other personality traits from other characters are surfacing. These character traits feel like they could provide the meat that dictates the arc of the whole book and what specifically needs to happen at the end, to tie the book up the way I know it wants to be tied. That feels character-driven, to me. I'm not sure what the difference is. One's from the head. The other seems already there, and my job is to discover and develop it. I dunno.

So anyway, that's why I don't know where to start today. Maybe I'll begin by de-grossifying the dead body in chapter 5. It must be done, after all. Then I'll see what's what.


*using the term "progress" very loosely.