In real life, many things impinge on our lives but are only slightly connected (by us) with one another.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have horses, so I have a “line” to the horse vet, the farrier, and the feed store…I write, so I have lines to my agent, my editors (present and past), the various publishing houses, and readers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s true that because I have readers, I still have publishers, and also the money to put in the bank to pay the vet, the farrier, and the feed store…but nobody at the feed store has ever met any of my editors, or knows their names.\u00a0\u00a0 The farrier is aware of the equine vet (most farriers know every equine vet in the area they service) but neither the farrier nor the equine vet knows any of my readers outside their home town.<\/p>\n
Cross-connections exist in real life–we ourselves are cross-connections for some (if one of my editors moved to central Texas and asked me for a recommendation for an equine vet or farrier, I’d become an active connection.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But if you look at any of us as fictional characters, and our lives as potential books,\u00a0 we’d have a lot of extraneous connections that led nowhere near the main “plotline”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Of my teachers in school, for instance, some were much more influential than others in shaping who I am today.\u00a0 Same with people I worked with, or went to school with, or did volunteer work alongside.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In real life, every connection is just as real<\/em> as any other, but even in real life they aren’t all equally “strong.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And in real life, we all have 24 hours in every day,\u00a0 7 days in every week,\u00a0 365 1\/4 (approx) days in every year, and many years, to accumulate all these connections in their variety.\u00a0\u00a0 All the people we’ve met–or just noticed on the street, in a bus, in a classroom….all the buildings we’ve seen and those we’ve entered….every flower, every tree, every plant of any kind we’ve seen, touched, noticed…every kind of weather, every emotional state, everything.<\/p>\n In fiction we have only the length of the book (even a series of books) to create the story-world in which the story occurs, and the story itself.\u00a0\u00a0 We do not have world enough and time to detail all the connections…and thus the writer must prune reality to the shape of a story.\u00a0 Loose or static or single (not cross-connected) connections are usually deemed not plot-worthy.\u00a0 They may be interesting, but they don’t go anywhere (or not with enough oomph to be plot-drivers.)<\/p>\n This morning’s 1000+ words presented exactly this problem.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Character A (POV in this section) knew Character B when they were boys together.\u00a0\u00a0 Both are now middle-aged and have not seen one another for years.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 B has brought important news to A, news that requires A to make a difficult decision (either way, it’s difficult.)\u00a0 B’s past connection to A adds information about A, information relevant to what A decides. \u00a0\u00a0 So far, so good:\u00a0 at least in first draft, writing out lines of connectivity between them, including other people they both knew back when, is useful in clarifying their motivations.<\/p>\n Character C has entered the conversation.\u00a0\u00a0 A has known C only a short time, but C has cross-connections to D, E, F, G, and H (A has met all but E; E is already a plot-important character.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A considers C an important person–a powerful person, someone whose opinion is very important.\u00a0\u00a0 Suddenly, the connectivity is growing like a pumpkin vine, in all directions (across the plot, backwards up the plot, etc.)\u00a0\u00a0 and without limit (and some lines clearly end in “maybe…” curly tendrils that might or might not hook up to something else sometime and somewhere.)<\/p>\n If you’re a writer who generates character fairly easily, then this will happen: you will conceive characters with a reality-level number of connections to everything in that story-world–people, places, objects, memories, emotions–so that any interaction can set off a\u00a0 “connectivity explosion” sufficient to clog forward motion.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is not good.<\/p>\n In a well-constructed story,\u00a0 everything serves the story itself–whether it’s written sparely, with little detail, or lushly, with a lot of detail, all those details should suit the story being told and not impede its progress.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First draft writing can ignore this, but even then the writer should be aware that the story must keep moving.\u00a0\u00a0 Just as my choir director tells us to “pull through” a musical phrase, not merely sing note by note (and not break a phrase with a badly timed breath), so the writer needs to “pull through” the story itself…and sometimes that means pruning away the connections that are dragging it to a halt.<\/p>\n There’s a countering pull, though, in good story construction–and that’s avoiding the easy connections.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In real life, we have both easy and difficult connectivity–it might seem that being X’s son-in-law means that we have an in with Company Z, because X is on the Board…but maybe it means we have automatic enemies at Company Z (X’s enemies: he didn’t approve the current CEO or CFO.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Just as it behooves us, in real life, to be aware that we have negative as well as positive connections,\u00a0 so in fiction the writer must avoid using connections as another form of\u00a0 deus ex machina<\/em> for characters in a bind.\u00a0\u00a0 Since coincidence is always suspect in fiction, connection-motivators must be treated with great care.<\/p>\n When I find myself in a story-situation like this morning’s, I sometimes pause and analyze the relation of that scene or passage to the existing story (both on paper and in my head.\u00a0\u00a0 I do this more in\u00a0 later books in a group, when the story’s main line has become more obvious.\u00a0\u00a0 This is book four of five:\u00a0 the story should now be revealing itself more to readers, allowing them to see how the first three books are structured, where the hinge is, and where (roughly) it’s going.\u00a0 \u00a0 There will still be surprises, but there should be growing confidence that we’re headed “there” and not “back that way” whatever the outcome of the journey might be.<\/p>\n Looked at that way, only some of the connections between A and B will hold up to the standard.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A’s decision is plot-worthy (it will drive some other decisions), but how much of A’s connection to B is necessary remains to be seen.\u00a0\u00a0 With C having entered the conversation…not as much as I thought when I started.\u00a0\u00a0 A’s decision may be more abrupt in the final version–C may enter the conversation even sooner, and truncate much of the previous passage.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What’s important is the overarching storyline…which must connect with the subplots, the individual volume story arcs, every character, but in fiction-believable ways.<\/p>\n This is part of the fun of writing these books…having them complicated enough that I need to really think<\/em> about it, as well as feel it.\u00a0 It’s a giant multi-dimensional puzzle–for both writer and reader, but the writer has to solve it first, to be able to reassemble it in a form that readers will enjoy unlocking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In real life, many things impinge on our lives but are only slightly connected (by us) with one another.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have horses, so I have a “line” to the horse vet, the farrier, and the feed store…I write, so I have lines to my agent, my editors (present and past), the various publishing houses, and 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