Word Count Wednesday

This very strange thing happened to me. You remember a couple of weeks ago, I was complaining about not being able to write the finale for this book and how that had never happened to me before? Then, in the comments, someone said well maybe you haven't plotted out the villain well enough so that's why you can't write the finale. And I thought, that could be true, but then I looked at my character bible and thought, no, I've plotted and think I have a pretty good villain.

But I still couldn't write the dang finale. And then the very strange thing happened.

I had a nightmare and was awakened at 3 a.m. because of it. There I was, in the middle of the night, trying to push the thoughts of a very realistic nightmare away, when suddenly I saw a minor character in my book as the villain. I let the thoughts flow and suddenly I had all these ideas come to me on how he could be a very well-rounded villain that no one would suspect and how it added a little more oomph to the story to have him be the villain instead of my current villain. And in my mind, the end practically wrote itself.

The problem is making a minor character into a villain is going to take a bit of revision. Or maybe a lot of revision. But I know if I do it the story will be stronger. *sigh* The price we pay to have a tight manuscript.

So, that's what I've been doing this morning. Fleshing out the villain, and starting in on the changes. I know my word count will be small over the next little bit, but seeing that amazing finale go from an idea in my mind to written words on a page will make all the effort worth it. Right? Right.

How did you do this week?