Chapter Eight

By P.A.Thompson

When is a flashback not a flashback?

When is a chapter not a chapter?

When is nothing okay for a chapter?

Why won’t I just rename Chapter Nine to Chapter Eight?

Why do dominos fall better if they are all facing the same way?

Thick crust or thin crust Pizza?

Are boneless wings better than chicken Mc’nuggets?

Chapter Eight: Is it magical?

When will we find out the true story of Willie’s death?

Chapter Nine: Is it just being stubborn or are there reasons beyond our knowing?

Do you love your characters?

Is the dog the big attraction?

Nine is divine – or is it?

Eight is greight. Not a question.

Click on “read more” 😉

Okay, if you’ve gotten this far, I am impressed. Are you looking for answers to the questions?

So am I.

Maybe.

Chapter Eight: Originally it was going to be entirely a flashback to an ambush where Marty got wounded and his buddies got killed. Maybe 2K words. Then I decided to grab a teeny bit and use it as a dream/nightmare intro to a chapter – and delete Chapter Eight. But, I kept a ghost version in place… just in case. So the next chapter was Chapter Nine, then Chapter Ten, then Chapter Eleven…

So, now I’ve put up my first seven chapters on CC for review. Logically, the next chapter should be Chapter Eight, right? As you can see, I have no Chapter Eight anymore.

A wise person suggested: “Just rename Chapter Nine to Chapter Eight.”

No.

“Why not?”

I don’t want to.

“Why don’t you want to?”

I dunno.

Yet.

Somewhere deep inside me is a reason I don’t want to do this. I’m following this gut feeling right now. There is something, somewhere, lurking around, that wants to become Chapter Eight. I know in ‘editing’, chapters get moved around, re-ordered and/or deleted. Things change. Things die. Things are created. Things are fused. Things live.

Chapter Eight will live, sometime, somehow. It might even be an acrostic in Chapter Nine…

We shall see… soon.

Do you have a million questions going through your head when you write?

Do you have any answers?