More writing woes
Nov. 25th, 2005 09:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseDone two more scenes. Doesn't sound like much, but that they're a chapter each unto themselves. (Or will be when I clean up enough to slip in the chapter breaks. Even when I know exactly where they are, I tend not to include more than scene break marks until I'm through.)
So, I know why it was so hard pulling through the aftermath stuff for the 3/4 climax. There's no scene break in it, yet half of it has to be from one point of view, and while the other half is manageable from the current character's eyes, it would almost be better from another. (The climax has the same problem to a lesser degree, but the muse got me through that.)
Still, I made it through, and while I have doubts of its worth, I left it behind to do the next scene, which was a breather I could deal with at work, as it's one of those I can steal from the original book, and "merely" re-edit. It's far too long, and it's far too strange. And hell, it goes to an entire time and place we haven't been to yet, though we've left some teasers about this from scene one.
Basically, I take a whole chapter for a character to sit and tell a story. It fills in some backstory, but if that was all it did, i'd cut it and no hesitation. It's also a serious theme moment, and it gives some significant current-time character development. There are lines dropped throughout that remind one what the main story is, and that these connect, and how. There's also knowledge the reader has that the character doesn't that gives another connection to the main story.
It sounds like the sort of thing that anyone who is less than a genius at writing will completely muck up, and it sounds like it will cause an editor or an agent to throw the MS across the room well before it gets in front of readers.
I think the concept works, moreso as a few other places in the book, folk tell (much briefer) stories, so we're almost forewarned I'm going to do this. The execution, on the other hand...
Well, I'm no genius.
I considered just cutting it.
But I keep running into the fact that the rest of the book won't make as much sense.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
papersky makes an analogy about writing as building a spearshaft to support and drive the point. This feels like a big chunk of the shaft, right here. And it's ugly as hell.
(She also warns in the same thing of overbuilding the spear. Dammit.)
At this rate, I'm going to overthink so much I don't write another word. Onward. I have to get the text out, and save the repairs for later. And save myself from the theory, however fine.
So, I know why it was so hard pulling through the aftermath stuff for the 3/4 climax. There's no scene break in it, yet half of it has to be from one point of view, and while the other half is manageable from the current character's eyes, it would almost be better from another. (The climax has the same problem to a lesser degree, but the muse got me through that.)
Still, I made it through, and while I have doubts of its worth, I left it behind to do the next scene, which was a breather I could deal with at work, as it's one of those I can steal from the original book, and "merely" re-edit. It's far too long, and it's far too strange. And hell, it goes to an entire time and place we haven't been to yet, though we've left some teasers about this from scene one.
Basically, I take a whole chapter for a character to sit and tell a story. It fills in some backstory, but if that was all it did, i'd cut it and no hesitation. It's also a serious theme moment, and it gives some significant current-time character development. There are lines dropped throughout that remind one what the main story is, and that these connect, and how. There's also knowledge the reader has that the character doesn't that gives another connection to the main story.
It sounds like the sort of thing that anyone who is less than a genius at writing will completely muck up, and it sounds like it will cause an editor or an agent to throw the MS across the room well before it gets in front of readers.
I think the concept works, moreso as a few other places in the book, folk tell (much briefer) stories, so we're almost forewarned I'm going to do this. The execution, on the other hand...
Well, I'm no genius.
I considered just cutting it.
But I keep running into the fact that the rest of the book won't make as much sense.
papersky makes an analogy about writing as building a spearshaft to support and drive the point. This feels like a big chunk of the shaft, right here. And it's ugly as hell.(She also warns in the same thing of overbuilding the spear. Dammit.)
At this rate, I'm going to overthink so much I don't write another word. Onward. I have to get the text out, and save the repairs for later. And save myself from the theory, however fine.
