Paksworld

There’s a chapter in Book Two that is Not Right.   Now usually at this point in a project, I know if something isn’t right, and why it’s not right, and thus how to fix it and make it right.

Not this time.  I have tinkered with this chapter, adding and removing things, changing things, and it is still Not Right.   I can feel that it’s Not Right.  There’s a feel, or smell, or other internal sensory indicator that tells me so and it’s almost never wrong when it says Not Right.   (It produces false negatives, missing some Not Right bits, but not false positives, mistaking Right for Not Right.)

At this point I hate even looking at this chapter…the tinkering hasn’t improved it, so it’s now a set of obvious patches that don’t work.    And yet, it’s early in the book and it must be fixed.   Somehow.   Due in part to the earlier altercation today with my plot daemon (notice the “a” ….this is a Greek spirit of creativity, not a modern bad guy…my plot daemon is what Plato talked about and the great poets claimed), he appears to be sulking and muttering down in the boiler room.   Book Two would like to be helpful, but is as confused and bewildered as I am.

It’s time to print this out, take it down to one or more of my alpha readers, and read it aloud.   I find that seeing the physical reactions of the alpha readers is almost as good a signal of the specific Not Rightness as their words.   Impatience with something not moving at its right speed, boredom, confusion–all the reactions I don’t want–show on the face faster than can come out of the mouth.

But it’s very annoying not to be able to get it more Right up here.   I will spend the rest of the work day on something else, something where I can make some progress.