Chapter four was being so difficult, I skipped ahead to what would happen immediately after I got through the hospital bit. Oddly enough, considering I only vaguely knew where I was going after the hospital bit, it worked. Now I’m back to chapter four and filling in the transition. It reminds me of that scene in Dead Poets’ Society (won’t quote since I only ever saw the movie in the theater)–in essence, stand on the desk to get a different view of the same old scene. Change your perspective, and suddenly, it’s all much clearer. I don’t know why, but it works.
In very early drafts, SanClare Black was third-person omniscient. This was entirely an accident because I didn’t have a firm grasp on my POV options at the time and hadn’t thought about what would work best for the story. That all got sorted in subsequent drafts and it ended up very firmly third-person limited with only two POV characters.
And that was the initial plan for SanClare Scarlet, too, but after abortive first draft, I’ve realized I need more voices in this book. So it’ll still be 3rd/limited but there will be more characters doing the looking. So far, I’ve written three. I have at least two more in mind. The main character will still carry the bulk of the POV as he did in SanClare Black.
Anyway, it’s fun to sort these things out in advance this time around.