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| Scenes/Beats for Final Battle of Sabriya's Hope |
I'm finally there, at the granular level, not the structural or plot level, for the final chapter of Sabriya's Hope.
Although the online serialization of Sabriya's Hope is current at Chapter 22, it's only halfway through the novel. There are about 23 more chapters...depending on how I parse what is written. All of the chapters are written (or I should say drafted) except the Final Battle, which may stretch into 2 chapters.
In the final battle (charted above), I need to resolve about 12 subplots; a few require only 1 beat to resolve. Of course, Sabriya's character's final resolution requires eight beats. The challenge is how to do that efficiently so the reader can follow the action, much of which is simultaneous.
My solution was to create one e-card for each beat of each of the 12 subplots on a Keynote slide. I DID NOT know what order the e-cards (and beats) should be in when I started, but as I created them, I placed them approximately in sequence from left (beginning) to right (end).
Then I had to sit back and try to envision the characters' entrances and exits, what happens to each, and move the cards around until I felt good about the action sequence as it would be explained in words. When I was done, I had 9 scenes (each bounded by a green box above).
Starting tomorrow (April 10, 2026), I will begin writing words and full sentences (not outlines). As I write, I'll decide which beats in each scene to describe first, second, etc., and then figure out the transition to the next scene.
This will take several days, a lot of word-smithing, and many on-the-fly revisions. It may be 4,000+ words and need 2 chapters. Then I 'll let it sit for a day and come back and try to make the sentences more fluid, eliminating repetitive words, and working on ending sequences with emphatic (hooking) action. I will use One-Look Thesaurus extensively.
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