Current Project: THE BABY'S BODYGUARD
Status: page 263
A couple of days ago I had a little down time with my WIP. I just couldn't seem to go forward so I went back. I fussed with scenes. I rewrote dialogue. I beefed up action scenes and love scenes. I changed a character's name and gave another character a complete make-over. Too many blue cars, make one a white van. Stuff like that. I busied myself for days fixing the details, cleaning up many of the little snags I knew were back there such as time jumps and characters without a purpose and red herrings that didn't belong.
Then I sat back, confident that I was now ready to go forward again.
Only I couldn't. Wait. Maybe it wasn't the distant past of the book that was halting progress, maybe it was what I had just written. So, I went to work on that. By the end of the day, the last scene was tight, the dialogue snappy, everything was set to go. Launch time: the next morning.
Next morning: well, the scene was still good and I was still dead in the water. About that time, it occurred to me I had killed the wrong man. Back in my novice days of writing, something like that would have tickled me to death. In fact, I can still recall a call from a good friend who informed me (with wonder in her voice) that she'd had the wrong the villain through the whole book, that she'd just changed to another man and it was perfect. We both thought her mistake was wonderful -- it was like an affirmation of her subconscious imagination.
But now it just struck me as careless. I went downstairs and talked about it with my puppy. First I explained victim A -- who killed him and why. Then I started in on victim B and realized there was no one who would actually murder this guy. That cut to the chase, victim A won. Bye-bye.
Which leads me to the title of this blog. I had been racing around the house getting ready for the party. Fluffing pillows. putting out trays of canapes, arranging flowers and choosing music and all the while, there was a dead fish in my punchbowl. The reason I am telling you all this is because I realized that I do this all the time. Somewhere in my subconscious, the internal editor that we all are told is an evil accomplice at best, KNOWS when I have screwed up. I picture her stomping down the hall and busting open the muse's door. With a stranglehold, she demands the muse stop work right that moment. And the muse, who doesn't give up easily, then flutters around trying to fix the unbroken while the fish in the punch bowl goes belly up.
Have you done this? Have you refused to face the big picture, or perhaps not understood you should? Have you spent time working and reworking details in an effort to make things work when a good look at the punch bowl might be in order? Try this -- the next time you get stuck, examine what you just wrote and not for how lyrical the prose is or how much you liked the dialogue. See if you haven't written yourself right out of the tension of the story or taken a one way street to nowhere when the interstate exchange is just another few miles along. I have a feeling a lot of books lose momentum when excited writers take a wrong turn and don't know it.
5 comments:
As always, well said, Alice! And I love the analogy!
I agree- when I'm having problems with a story, in the middle or end, it's usually because there is something in the big picture wrong not the little nitpicky things like right word usage and would the character really say it that way.
And those are harder to pinpoint than the little stuff. It takes looking at the story from a different perspective which can be hard after you've divested so much time in the story. But in then end it always makes the story better.
Great post!
Alice, I always enjoy your posts! To paraphrase Paty: well said and great analogy.
However, I don't think this was careless. I think it's a symptom of deadline mania. I'm fortunate that the deadlines on my series are still quite a ways away, because I've already found that my creativity works best at a certain pace. If I try to rush that pace or start to worry that I'm not getting things done quickly enough, everything shuts down. Yep, that internal editor digging in the heels of her sensible shoes.
When I take a break--talking to doggies is an excellent way to do this :) --and process the big picture, those aha moments come, I can get back on track and the story flows again.
In the meantime, you've fixed a lot of the little snags, so you won't have to do that later on.
Thanks for the entertaining and spot-on post!
Another great post, Alice!
I particularly like this: "Somewhere in my subconscious, the internal editor that we all are told is an evil accomplice at best, KNOWS when I have screwed up."
I've been trying to train myself to recognize when it's okay to listen to my internal editor and when it isn't. I have to be able to shut up my IE (oooh, another evil thing, LOL), when she's picking at me about not being good enough ("what makes you think you can write?"; "this is boring"; and so on). But I need to be able to listen when she's pointing out "big picture" problems. It's finding that balance that's tricky.
I love your blogs Alice. Nothing to add here, but your sage wisdom is always right on. Now I'm wondering what big picture items I might be missing!
Well, thanks everyone, I think. I don't think I shined a light on anything anyone else needs to work on -- I think I maybe wrote this for myself!
Debbie, I agree so much with you, that finding the balance of allowing your IE to to come out without completely gutting your confidence is the trick. I believe we all struggle with this. I'm always amazed by people who don't seem to suffer the ying and yang.
Paty, yep, letting go of something you've written is terrible. Hoe can something that reads so right, actually be so wrong?
Genene, I console myself with that -- when I figure this sucker out, lots of the grunge work will already be done. Happy days!
Wavy -- chances are you've missed nothing! Just because I run around inside my head and book doesn't mean you do!
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