I’d been struggling with a chapter–and specifically the first scene in that chapter–for weeks, off and on, in and around others.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s pivotal to a very important plotline and also to the chronological tangle previously\u00a0 mentioned.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve rewritten it.\u00a0 I’ve written completely new versions, not looking at the old one.\u00a0 I’ve cut and pasted…cut and not pasted…moved things, ripped things out, added stuff…and nothing was quite right.\u00a0 Today it began to make more sense (well, I understand what it has to do better, maybe) but something was still missing.\u00a0 Finally, the missing detail was outlined for me\u00a0 (X needs to have found\/be holding Y), but what the heck was Y?<\/p>\n
Y had certain characteristics….it had to come from Z, and it had to be something special in some way.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Paksworld equivalent of a squashed beer can wouldn’t work, or a pencil stub.\u00a0\u00a0 Special overall, or special to X?\u00a0\u00a0 I wasn’t sure.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It had to function in a particular way, without specifying what that way was–it should not be obvious\u00a0 how it worked, but that it worked for X.\u00a0\u00a0 No sparkles, in other words.\u00a0\u00a0 It needed to resonate with other plotlines than the one it was presently in.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One possible Y after another occurred to me, but none of them were right.<\/p>\n
Finally, it occurred to me to ask the person at the other end of the house, on the other computer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “What was in Z that might do [mmph] that X would have seen?”<\/p>\n
And lo, immediately, he gave me the perfect answer.\u00a0 All the resonance shimmered around it.\u00a0 Everything needed, right there.\u00a0\u00a0 Brilliant.\u00a0\u00a0 It was like the big organ entrance in the Saint-Saens I’m listening to.\u00a0\u00a0 Startling and perfect.\u00a0\u00a0 Gave me shivers.\u00a0\u00a0 And only one other person–maybe–would have thought of that.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Along with asking the right question,\u00a0 the writer needs to ask the right person.\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes that person is down the hall.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’d been struggling with a chapter–and specifically the first scene in that chapter–for weeks, off and on, in and around others.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s pivotal to a very important plotline and also to the chronological tangle previously\u00a0 mentioned.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve rewritten it.\u00a0 I’ve written completely new versions, not looking at the old one.\u00a0 I’ve cut and pasted…cut and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,61,5],"tags":[62,107],"class_list":["post-1828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contents","category-craft","category-the-writing-life","tag-craft-of-writing","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1830,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828\/revisions\/1830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}