his is part of an ongoing series where I’m documenting the development of my serial novel, Razor Mountain.
You can find my spoiler-free journals for each chapter, my spoiler-heavy pre-production journals, and the book itself over at the Razor Mountain landing page.
A Little Rewrite
I knew what I wanted to do in this chapter and I didn’t deviate too much from my outline. I initially wrote the first couple pages of this chapter as a summary of what Christopher had been doing for the past week or so, but that was too dull. I rewrote that section from the perspective of a single day, while layering in little details of what he has been doing along the way.
This is something I catch myself doing occasionally. It almost always turns out better to have a scene where a character is actively doing something, instead of paragraphs of exposition describing what they already did. While I think “show, don’t tell” is one of those rules that people worry about far too much, this is a fairly classic example of “show, don’t tell.”
I caught myself (much more quickly) doing the same thing in the second part of the chapter, as I summarized Christopher’s thought process leading up to his test excursion. Once again, I adjusted it to start with him taking action, and interspersed his thoughts and details of his preparations.
Winter Camping and
For this chapter I had to research a topic that I knew was coming: cold weather camping. Some things are fairly obvious: you need to wear multiple layers and warm outerwear. You need a fancier sleeping bag and tent. Other things were less obvious to me, like watching out for sunburn or dehydration from sweating.
Here’s a selection of links, if you want a taste:
Tents for cold-weather camping come in a few different types, ranging from under 3 lbs. to over 20 lbs. Single-person tents designed for mountain climbers can be impressively light and sturdy. The larger ones are more for basecamp or for recreational camping, because they’re a hassle to carry.
Some are double-walled, but not all. They’re typically a waterproof fabric with additional coatings, and require stronger poles (e.g. carbon fiber). Even with waterproofing, water in the tent can be a concern – a person’s breath can create condensation on the inside.
I made a rough list of the things Christopher might want to bring with him. Estimating the weight of all of this, it could come to 50 lbs. or more, so the sled really becomes necessary to carry a good chunk of that weight.
- Food
- Fresh water (need 1 liter / 2 hours of hiking. 3.78L = 1 gallon. Snow can also be melted.)
- Sleeping bag + pad
- Hatchet
- Flint and steel, dry kindling
- Snow shoes
- Small snow shovel
- Spare clothes
- First aid kit
- Rifle
- Camp stove & fuel
- Utensils, Knife, misc.
- Lantern
Everything is Harder Than It Looks
Things are still not easy for Christopher. He has supplies, but he has no expertise. He’s not in particularly good shape and was recently injured.
I think pop culture has trained a lot of us to accept that protagonists can just step up and do whatever needs doing and end up being just fine. The supposedly average character effectively gains super-powers when the plot calls for them to do hard things. I really don’t want Christopher to be one of these action heroes. Even something that might sound fairly straightforward, like hiking and camping in cold weather, can actually be fraught, especially when completely cut off from civilization.
Christopher’s just taking baby steps, but soon he’s going to have to get riskier. Things are going to get harder for him. We’ll see how it goes in Chapter 7.
Words Deferred 