chapter order help?

[BeccaPrice]

currently my chapters are:

Part 1: A human kingdom is beset by their enemies, by drought, and other Bad Stuff going on, and they lose heart and feel hopeless. The human prince hears about a magic talisman called the Heart of Rock that will restore his people, and he goes on a quest to find it. After much travail, he finds a cave wherein are carved hideous monsters - in one of them is the talisman. He takes it back to his people, who are restored, they march against their ememies one last time and push them back. All ends happily.

Part 2: The Heart of Rock was created by a wizard a long time ago, who also carved the gargoyle monsters, and the talisman brought the gargoyles alive. They helped the wizard's kingdom defeat their enemies, and in return were given the Heart of Rock to guard, and a wonderful cave system in which to live.

Part 3: in the Gargoyle kingdom, the Gargoyles awake to discover that their talisman, the Heart of Rock has been stolen. One day, the gargoyles awake to find that their talisman has been stolen, and slowly they were returning to the unliving rock from which they had been carved. The Gargoyle Prince is sent to go recover it. After much travails, he finds that the talisman had been stolen by what is to him a hideous monster, and he goes to the human kingdom to get it back.

My question is: in chronological order, it would be part 2, part 1, and then part 3 - but putting part 2 first gives away the idea that the gargoyles are living creatures, which I don't necessarily want to give away in part 1.

does it make sense to have the order as given? or should I go with chronological order? the intent is to have each chapter be a bedtime story read on 3 successive nights.

[Lemurion]

I would do it in your original order - not chronological. The goal is to put things in the order that makes the most sense from a story point of view, and that may or may not be chronological order.

[gmw]

I'm guessing this may be one of those cases where the choice has already been made. You've already told the story one particular way, to alter that might require reworking what you've already written. The only other solution might have been (might be) to split the story into more parts so you can interweave the revelations a bit more.

Having said that, I see nothing particularly wrong with having history part told out of chronological order. In fact, the more I read the synopsis you have given the better the idea seems to fit.

Curiously enough I have a similar problem with my series, where I am wondering about inserting a book that might be more commonly seen as a prelude into the middle of the series (and so save too much back-story explanation in the concluding book).

[teh603]

Is there some way to have the info from section 2 be given without actually breaking chronological order? For example, having a gargoyle tell the story of its people, or something like that.

[BeccaPrice]

Originally parts 2 and 3 were part of the same story line. I thought if I made it into a story of its own that would improve things a bit.

I feel I should aim at about 10,000 words or so - for CreateSpace, I need at least 24 pages (12 sheets of paper). My biggest problem is that I tend to write very short stories - in the original version of this, the two main sections (1 and 3) were about 2500 words each.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

Originally parts 2 and 3 were part of the same story line. I thought if I made it into a story of its own that would improve things a bit.

I feel I should aim at about 10,000 words or so - for CreateSpace, I need at least 24 pages (12 sheets of paper). My biggest problem is that I tend to write very short stories - in the original version of this, the two main sections (1 and 3) were about 2500 words each.

Maybe add in some sub-plot stories. That way if the book seems too thin you have something to help fill it out with. For example your adult characters see each other as monsters, but maybe some of the children from both groups see only an odd looking playmate and are afraid of losing their playmate if the adults find out what is going on.