The Story Flow of Infused

When I started writing Infused, I knew what was going to happen in the first couple of chapters and I knew what was going to happen at the very end. Other than that, I have a few ideas what would happen in the middle, but nothing solid.

The majority of the story was developed as it was written by my simply asking myself "What would happen next?" I then would think about what Geoff would logically do next, or what someone's reaction would be to what had happened. For the most part, I didn't know where the story was going to lead me.

I did get hung up at one point while writing. This was when I wanted the story to go in a certain direction so that it would lead to the ending that I had planned. Because I was having difficulty figuring out how to steer the story in the direction that I wanted, I ended up skipping ahead and writing a later chapter. This was different for me because for the most part, I was writing everything in order. When I did end up going back and writing the section that I had skipped (by deciding to have a few events happen at the same time to enrage Geoff, instead of just following the logical flow of events) it caused me to have to revise the later section that I had written because cause and effect had made changes that I had not anticipated (such as Geoff no longer living in his house).

I am even more wary of writing out of order since I was reading a book last year where in one chapter, the main character's car had been severely damaged and was undriveable, then in the next chapter she drove the car to a meeting with no mention of any problems with the car. However, in the next chapter, the car was broken again and she had it taken in for repair. These chapters were clearly written out of order, or perhaps the order of the chapters was re-arranged for story flow. Either way, it was a warning to me to make sure that I don't confuse the reader with a mistake brought about by my writing not occurring in the same order that it will be read.