Yesterday I sketched out a brief conversation I'd realized might take place between two characters. I know it goes somewhere in the saggy middle*, which is currently a hodgepodge of unrelated junk, so I stuck it in randomly. Then I took some of the other pieces that have been floating around in the hodgepodge, and loosely strung them together to create a possible scene.**

This is how I strung them together:

1. paragraph describing MC doing a mundane world-building chore
changed: now another character is doing the mundane chore

2. paragraph describing my guy sharpening his knife (I really like this paragraph)
changed: now he's sharpening while watching the other character do the mundane chore

3. conversation where MC tries to find out what new guy might be good at, to no avail
unchanged

4. conversation where MC learns new guy's name
unchanged

5. #4 was already connected to a conversation where the MC realizes what new guy is good at
unchanged

6. conversation where MC calls a fourth character over to tell him what the new guy can do; fourth character is thrilled and excited.
new

This ended on a wrong note and needs to be redone. I wasn't thinking deeply enough. When I go back and put myself into this fourth character's daily life, I realize that he wouldn't be thrilled and excited; he'd be curious and interested. That changes everything that this scene might be able to mean.

What might the scene mean? I have no clue. Right now it's just a loose sketch. Later I'll try to get a sense of whether or not the MC's frame of mind is continuous from one piece to the next, whether the full scene goes on too long, whether it can be sculpted to make one strong point to the reader. It could work or it could be that one or two pieces are messing up the flow, or it could be the whole thing's a bust and I'll have to break it down to its component parts again.




*In my head I've got a partial list of plot points and reader hooks that will probably be the only way to keep this saggy middle moving. Some of the points and hooks have alternate versions. It's very confusing.

**Why those particular pieces? For no reason. I've got all this junk in the middle of the ms, and I need to figure out what to do with it. Sometimes a floaty piece that seems pointless suddenly makes sense if I attach it to another floaty piece. Sometimes I have to mix and match before I find the right fit. Other times a floaty piece never fits anywhere and has to be cut.