Started trimming and fixing the second-person interlude-that-may-not-end-up-in-the-book. While doing so, I realized that part of it actually fits the end, because it says what needs to be said--what my MC needs to hear--as things are building/winding up.

So I moved a wee crucial piece of that second-person stuff to right before the MC makes his climatic decision. I will figure out exactly what to do with it later; probably it will turn into dialog.

Now that it's in place, though, the ending scenes are starting to feel less blobby in my head. Now the plot-story ending-sequence of scenes and the internal-story ending-sequence are starting to be the same thing. It's a very nebulous and sketchy same thing, but the point is that scenes are lining up less blobbily and I can now see that both types of story will be happening in each one.

I have no idea how this came about, but there it is. I believe I now have the nebulous and sketchy building blocks to make the book work.

As a writer friend likes to say: Trust the process.

Got stuck in road-construction-traffic-jam h*ll today, but was eventually rewarded with a new bit of WIP-related thought. I came home and broke up the peak-violence part in the ending sequence, then redistributed it. Now one act of violence takes place before the ending sequence, one takes place at the climax,* and another has stayed where it was.

I feel like I might be starting to get these acts of violence in proper order character-arc-wise. I don't know for sure because I'm tired and can't think my way into it too much, but I suddenly don't feel as uneasy about the last third of the ms as I have for the last few days.

Today's changes would bring two bullets, not one, into the climactic scene. That opens up some intriguing possibilities. I'll need to consider what kinds of things that extra bullet is capable of.



*Maybe that act of violence is the climax. Now that I think about it...hmm, it might be. Will have to keep an eye on it and see.

Last night, ending up fleshing out some of the scenes in the ending sequence. Basically I'm writing myself right smack into a brick wall near the very end climactic part where I don't know what happens or has to happen. All I know is what the very, very ending is. Like, the last few lines.

I noticed I didn't have a good feeling about where I ended up last night, and I think that's for multiple reasons.

1) I think I lost track of what my MC was really feeling. I think I got so into what was going on in scene that I forgot what he was like going into it, and what was driving him from right before. So I need to look at that.

2) This part of the story is getting farther and farther away from anything I really know about, into crazy violence and a total mental crackup for my MC. I mean--snap!--he's gone.

3) I've got go bring him back from that and into the story again, which is like, wow. How do you come back from that? I have no idea.

4) Now that some of that ending-sequence violence is being integrated into the story instead of just being free-written snippets, it has the same unreal feel to me that any action scene does, so I can't tell what's working and what's not.



Problems to consider:

a) The climactic part is going to back off the bloody stuff, so it's in grave danger of becoming boring and disappointing.

b) In the climactic chapters, I cannot afford to go with my comfort zone, which is underplayed emotional stuff--this requires action, and that action needs to be milked for its own sake.

c) I'm pretty sure I'll need to go back and take a little of the edge off some of the previous violence, because its explicitness is going to unbalance the ms by putting too much energy and emphasis on the buildup to the climax rather than the climax itself.

d) In general, the key word of the day is balance, balance, balance. The final quarter or so of the ms is going to be tough because it's got to carry as much weight as the previous three-fourths, and make everything that's gone before worth it.

e) I need to go back and look at some of my notes about plot and structure to see if there's anything I should be keeping in mind. I might go back and look at some of the Plot Whisperer stuff I jotted down, all of which I have already forgotten.



I'm pretty scared of this whole ending thing, because I could find that it won't work, and that everything I've built before it is misguided somehow, or wrong somewhere in its core. I'm also scared of not being able to figure it out and having to rely on someone who can't quite nail it either, but whose opinion I have to trust, and then ending up knowing in my heart that the ms failed, that it wasn't all it could have been and should have been, at this time in my writing life. No matter what, I know I'll look back at some point and see where I fell short, but I really don't want to feel from day 1 that something unknowable is wrong about it and have to give up at that.

While driving today, I was thinking about the part of the dystopian I'm currently trying to work through, and feeling a little dissatisfied about it for the usual reasons.* So I went over it (again) in my head, just thinking about the scenes in that area (again) and I started digging into the fact that I haven't quite been able to end this one scene correctly. Right now the problem scene splits into several emotional points where it should end on one strong idea. Although I've tried to pull the points together to make one strong idea, they keep dissolving and fuzzing out into a weak scene ending.

There's a point at which you need to stop trying to force a ms, and instead see if there's something it's trying to tell you.

So I thought about the three or so points the scene makes, and realized that I could pull one out for later. Then as I went down the next part of the book in my head to see how it'd play out if that one point was removed, I could see that making this change actually has the potential to add something to later scenes and pump them up a little, as well as tightening and focusing the problem scene itself.

The change stems from thinking about the characters who are in the problem scene. Right now, two of them (A and B) have the same reaction to something my MC does. But my MC's reaction to each of their reactions is different--and I've been trying to get both of his reactions into the same scene.

With some deeper thought, I realized that I've been treating this like a crowd scene with Character A and Character B acting, thinking, and feeling in concert,** and not thinking deeply enough about who each is and how each is, from before that very first moment when the scene starts. If I do, I can see that Character B is probably not going to catch onto my MC's half-truths and misdirection quite as quickly as Character A. Character B is a lot more trusting, and a lot more inclined to take good news simply and at face value.

If B's natural instinct is to trust, then B's reaction to my MC's doings is delayed, and the problem scene will automatically focus on Character A's reaction--and I can therefore milk that emotional point and make it strongly.

So when does Character B finally realize what my MC intends? Turns out there's already a scene tailor-made for this, and it falls in very naturally with story events. I think I can even pry some of the dialog nearly straight up out of the problem scene and move it to later in the book. And now that I think about it, I may also be able to reinsert some dialog I liked but had to cut because it didn't fit in the problem scene.

And then the later scene should naturally lead to a big emotional point I'm thinking I need to make, a point that helps set up the MC's final choice*** at the end.

I took some time tonight to scrape the Character B reaction out of the problem scene. I made some notes about the other changes that will take place down the line. I just hope I don't lose them before I can apply them all--several outside projects are on my desk right now, and more are on the way.





*It bothers me that I'm around page 120 or so and yet I'm still only on Day 2 in the story, plus I just don't feel that my grip on these scenes is meeting the standard I've set for myself with this ms.

**Which I don't blame myself for, because there are four people in this scene, and it's bloody hard to keep writing scene after scene with three, four, five, six, seven, etc. etc. characters who are actively participating. It's HARD. Next time I try to write a book, maybe I'll know better than to let this happen.

***Whatever that may be. I still have no clue. I've got a whole file about what that final confrontation will need to do, but I haven't looked at it in a while.

Yesterday, worked on the first scene of chapter 11, trying to reorganize and reslant it to fit its new place in the book. Today I was stuck in a doctor's waiting room for an hour, and used the time to make (more) notes about the rest of chapter 11 and all of chapter 12.

My notes for chapter 12 indicate that it's going to be boring plotwise. Since it's also coming right after another chapter that's boring plotwise, I am actively, mindfully fighting my urge to complacently tell myself it's not really going to be boring plotwise, it's just going to be internal conflict rather than external. I've worked too hard on this ms to start falling into self-indulgence by telling myself fairy tales about how the reader might be on the edge of his/her seat, eagerly turning pages to find out if character X got the hearth cleaned up, or if character Y got that sticker out of his foot.

So I was trying to think of ways to pump up chapter 12 a little, keep the tension from sagging too much. I came up with a few little things that might help, but I won't know if they're really going to work until I try them. They're small in-scene references to some of the plot threads that I've left hanging; I hope they'll indicate that the MC is still worrying about them and remind the reader to worry about them, too. Also I think I'm going to try inserting a scenelet where the MC sees two of the guys he wants to kill, and he has a clear shot at them, but he hesitates for various reasons and loses the opportunity. I like the idea of this because later those two guys are going to poke character Y's eye out, and I think the reader will be even more upset knowing that it could have been prevented if the MC had acted in this earlier scene.

Like I said, there's no way to tell if any of this will work until I try it. It's mostly an experiment, and I'm interested to see what happens.

One big problem that has been nagging and nagging and nagging at me is that the book needs a scene where my MC and the main secondary character clearly bond--where the reader totally gets the fact that the secondary character is important to the well-being of my MC, even though he (the secondary character) appears to be expendable.* I have not yet figured out what that scene needs to be. I do have a scene very late in the book where the secondary character assures the MC of something my MC desperately needs to hear. I don't know if that will work as the point I need to make, and I also wonder if it's too late in the story to do that job properly. So I guess I'm writing this down right now to make sure the back of my mind knows about the problem, and is working on it.




*Quick mini-advisorish-explanation: the reason this scene is needed is that a book's character/thematic story--the thing that gives it depth--is like an arc where the character starts off one way, and then scene by scene over the course of the book is driven to change, and then, by the end of the book, is able to do/understand/acknowledge something he wouldn't have been able to do/understand/acknowledge at the beginning. Most of the scenes in the book will establish a clear point about, or make a clear step along, that arc. In my ms, the main secondary character is the catalyst for change in my MC's life. He's the reason my MC starts seeing things a little differently and is able to choose differently at the end of the book. In order for the end of the book to be satisfying, I need a scene where the reader strongly "gets" that this secondary character is providing a new way of thinking or of seeing things for my MC. If I don't have that, the book will be flat.

Blah blah blah. Sometimes I get sick of the sound of my own voice.

Very busy. An interesting thing happened, though. I've been spending hours and hours thinking about other people's work, and I'm at a point in the semester where most of that thinking is teasing out different story threads by looking at scenes and pieces to see what they say about character/thematic arcs. I have found that when you're writing organically and have a decent grip on your characters, this stuff naturally rises to the surface and starts to fall into place--if you keep your eyes peeled and stay focused on the work and not on finishing/publishing. You can begin to figure out that your character starts out ___ way, and since you like him and know what you want for him, you understand that by the end he's going to be ____ way. And you can use that to put your book together.

So I've been thinking about this stuff, literally, for hours and hours, over days and days, for many different characters not my own (but that I like and sometimes also love). I've been picking out the main idea a scene or snippet gives the reader, and thinking, among other things: what does this tell us about the character, and where does it go along his/her arc?

Last night I finished up late, no time to work on my own stuff, but I wanted to clear my head and just pull up my ms and write something--not for the purpose of making progress, but just to touch base quickly with my story world and my people. I opened the file, and decided to see if I could pin down anything about a transitional piece I haven't written yet, one that takes place near the end.

I can't remember if I blogged this, but during another mind-clearing session last week, I took some more structural ideas a writer friend had been talking about from The Plot Whisperer, and made a list of all my scenes, written and unwritten. I wanted to see if I could get anything useful out of laying TPW ideas over what I had, and trying to see my ms in those terms. When I did this, nothing changed much in a concrete way, but considering my ms in terms of the story points that Alderson emphasizes made me think about the ms in a slightly different way that I think will provide energy to the story.*

While I was doing all that, I also got more specific about the part that leads from the middle to the end, and added a small transitional scene to the list: Two of my guys prepare to leave, and this other character comes out trying to follow them.**

So last night I decided to see if anything came to mind about that scene--maybe what the two guys would say to each other, or what would happen when the other character came out. I ended up sketching out a "moment."*** I'm pretty big on "moments," and I felt one was needed here to set the main secondary character in our minds before he heads off into the ending. And a moment is a perfect thing to write when you don't have much time and can't get into the flow of story.

I knew this guy was just sitting there, on a rock or stump or wall or something, waiting for my MC so they could leave. That's the "moment"--we see him as the MC is approaching him. I knew what the secondary character's intentions were, going into the ending sequence, so I thought about his hands, his face, the way he sat, his general attitude, and I was playing around with the best words to evoke all that. And as I played with it, I started realizing how different he was from the way he started out at the beginning. All the words to describe him were different, everything evoked in the beginning was the opposite from what was being evoked here, near the end.

I suddenly saw very clearly that this was the end point of his arc. He started out ____ way, but now he is ____.

I suddenly saw very clearly: all my middle-of-the-book scenes that need to accomplish a plethora of story jobs also need to do this: step by step, they need to show how story events make the guy change from what he is in the beginning when the MC first considers him, to this guy who is sitting here now, at the end.

When the middle scenes do that, they'll have nearly the last bit of power and grit that the story's been needing to give it traction and momentum all the way through.

My mind only made those connections because it's been thinking about and looking for the same types of patterns over and over for days if not weeks, in other people's work. That's why, when I was just putzing around with a paragraph of description before quitting for the day, my mind automatically dove in to tease out the same patterns in my own ms.

Another funny thing: this morning I was thinking about the way the character sat on that rock/stump/whatever, the way he held himself, etc., and I thought: this guy knows who he is. Then I remembered sometime back in a fuzzy distant past asking myself what this character wanted--what made him leave his old home and take off into the unknown. Back then I thought about it, and had a dim feeling that he left because he didn't know who he was. I didn't like that; I was very doubtful and suspicious of the feeling, because "He wants to know who he is" is a vague, unhelpful, generic goal. It doesn't tell you anything. It's like an answer that fills in the blank on a junior high English test. I felt that it was really true about him, but I also felt that it was probably just a side thing you understand about your character, and I proceeded under the assumption that as I wrote more, his problem and his longings would take on some texture and depth.

But no, there is it: he starts off shapeless, soft, unformed, naive, passive. And by the end he's firm, solid, knowing, capable, competent. In the beginning, he doesn't know who he is. By the end, he does.

And now that I think about it, he also....acts. He's sitting there waiting because he's made the decision to leave and he is about to act on it. And he will. That's why he'll be there in the climactic scene and in the very final scene, too, with my MC. And...ahem...it's also why he'll be able to influence the story outcome and present the MC with his climactic choice.****

So, there you go.

And now, back to work. On other people's stuff.





*This is what happened when I looked at my beginning-to-middle transition in TPW terms, too.

**And then he gets his eye gouged out!

***I don't know the technical word, but that's what I call it. It's where you stop, like a freeze frame, and give the reader something, hit them with it strongly so they absorb it. A moment can be as tiny as emphasizing an idea by using white space via a new paragraph, or it could be a whole page of description.

****Which I haven't quite nailed down yet. But I will, if the creek don't rise, a meteor doesn't strike, and I don't get hit by a bus.

Thinking about the ending--realized I need to figure out what happened in an offscreen conversation between the two main secondary characters on the way to the ending.

Also suddenly remembered this guy from the Iliad, a young prince of Troy who'd recently been caught by Achilles, kept for ransom, and freed for a huge payment. He only made his way back home days ago, and now has the misfortune to be caught by Achilles in battle again. Only this time when they meet up, Achilles is out of his mind with rage re. the death of his friend Patroclus, and is cutting a bloody, merciless swath through the Trojan forces.

Had to look it up--the guy is Lycaon, and in the scene he's stumbling exhausted out of river rapids, disarmed, no shield, no spear, no helmet, no nothing. He sees the very well-armed (by the gods!) Achilles coming for him, and knows his only hope is to beg for his life.

Achilles hurls his spear at Lycaon, who dodges it and falls to his knees before Achilles. The spear has stuck in the ground behind him, so he's clutching at Achilles' legs with one hand and the spear with the other, trying to keep hold of both so Achilles can't pull the spear out of the ground and run him through. And all the time he's pleading for mercy, listing reason after reason Achilles should spare him.

Achilles, of course, says no.

This is the part that stuck in my head: When Lycaon hears this--it's a very firm, merciless, fatalistic "no"--he lets go of the spear, lets go of Achilles, spreads both his arms out wide, and waits for the death blow, accepting it.

There's more after that; Achilles kills Lycaon--drives his sword into L's neck/shoulder up to the hilt, then grabs a foot and slings Lycaon's body into the river where it's immediately carried away. But the image that stayed with me is this young guy realizing that he's about to die, and meeting his fate with dignity and courage, arms outspread.

I don't know that this has anything to do with my WIP, but it's a cool moment and I've been thinking about it suddenly.

Major, major sketching-out, here.

Shifted the stripping-of-corpse to chapter 13, which meant moving the infected foot up to chapter 12, all of which allowed the shoe-incited discussion to fall into place in 14. This allowed me to go over the whole ms again from chapter 9 on, getting everything more firmly settled in the right places--and yeah, I think this is going to work.

I've got chapters in mind all the way through 26, and then there'll be a few chapters where the climactic conflict takes place. I've now got a general idea of how the previous chapters carry that "beast" idea forward into this final sequence so that the MC makes his choice (whatever that is). I've also now got a thread of "Luck" that popped up a couple times, which with a little attention will fall into place to make the ending tighter and more satisfying.

I'd already sketched out the last few lines in a draft that brought tears to my eyes even though it was crappy and rough. I blew off the tear-bringing effect at the time because it could easily have been a fluke. But today I rewrote those lines more deliberately, putting a little more thought behind them--and they made me tear up again, only stronger. That's a great, great sign.

Whoa. Big surprise. I sat down to dash off a few paragraphs of some internal thoughts I'd realized my MC was having, about midway through the story. I just wanted to make sure I had them recorded before I started in on other obligations; I didn't want to forget them because they have to do with plot and they're also a hook that I can use at the end of a chapter.

But then...I just kept going. And hours later, I now have the entire story set up, chapter by chapter, including coverage of the worrisome and previously insurmountable Great Saharan Expanse. I'm not sure what happened--it all just seemed to come together suddenly, like dominoes falling. All the way to the effin' end, which is a sad one, with more than a few dead bodies, yet it's also happy and hopeful, and right now it seems true and satisfying (to me, anyway; I like my endings to hang a little, because that way I know the characters are going ahead with their lives even after I move on to something else and am no longer watching).

Right now it looks like the book will be 28 chapters, 350-400 pages. Of course, none of this is carved in stone, and at least some of it will certainly change. But...wow. What a day's work.

So. Now I gotta do other stuff. I may need to stay away from this for a few days, to make sure I don't get behind with my work.

Getting busy again here, which is probably good because I think my writing brain needs more of its space given over to percolating for a while (as opposed to 6-12 hours daily spent actually writing). I'm still going to try to pull up my WIP every day, though, no matter what.

One thing I do need to do (today) is write down a series of connections I was thinking about while running errands earlier. I've lost a little steam the past few days, and have been feeling uneasy about what I'm doing. Once I admitted this to myself, I was able to recognize that it has to do with the character arc, the emotional story.

Because: I've been losing my hold on this--the backbone of the story--as I fret and worry about structure and pacing. Also, while I'm in the middle of these Saharan scenes it's like being at the bottom of the spaghetti bowl; whatever vague, ill-formed strands surround me in this part of the ms seem to be the backbone because they're all I can see. So I was getting confused and actually starting to think I needed to recast something at the front of the ms in order to establish something else in the spaghetti/Saharan part.

No. I do not. Away from the ms, running errands in the car, I was able to remember what my MC's real problem is, what the reader wants for him, and to see that events from the late-middle of the ms through the end actually take him through the exact steps he needs, in order to get what the reader wants for him. I do not need to recast anything. I do need to keep this wasteland part from throwing the whole ms off course.

So today I need to sit down and write out what I was thinking in the car and get it more ingrained in my head to lessen the risk of losing it. It's important. Important enough that I was thinking maybe I should go ahead and try writing from the late-middle scene that kicks off the last part of the emotional/character arc, and just forge ahead as far into the end as I can get, scene by scene and chapter by chapter. Just to have it on paper, just to make sure I don't lose what's truly driving the story from beginning to end.*

If I do, it won't be today, though. Today I'll just scribble my thoughts and get them organized and maybe bold and/or capitalize some of the headings for good measure. Anything, to get it to stick. I need something marking the end of the course, or I'll wander off into the bushes.


*Also, now that I've changed who plummeted, and moved the plummeting bit farther back in the ms, a key scene is probably in place--the scene that sets off the entire ending.

While I was in VT, a fellow writer posted some in-depth thoughts re. The Putting On of Pants:

http://melissawyatt.livejournal.com/197995.html

I completely agree. One can Put On Pants in glorious and lyrical detail, but if the story itself doesn't require readers to absorb the full import of a pants-donning, then to me that space on the page is self-indulgent, even if it is pretty and well-written.

I always have wrongly-emphasized Putting-On-Pants moments in my writing*, but I try very hard to get rid of them before the book hits print. It's sometimes difficult, though, because, well, they are pretty. Very pretty. Right now I've got one I know I need to cut, but I keep leaving it in there because I haven't yet managed to force myself to get rid of it.

In other news (or not-news; what's the opposite of news?) I woke up understanding that there is indeed something wrong with the scene I wrote yesterday. I have no idea what. All I know is that it's not sitting right with me--I don't feel good and energized when I think about it; I feel very slightly uneasy. That doesn't mean the whole thing has to go (although it could mean that), but it almost certainly means that 1) I need to have a stronger grip on the characters as they head into this scene, 2) something about the scene is preventing the many threads of emotional and character arcs from falling nicely into place, or 3) both.**

There are a lot of threads that need to come together in that scene, and I already knew that, so I'm not alarmed. I'm glad I was able to get something out on paper so I can seriously start (slowly) figuring out the book's climax. I've wanted to write that scene for a long time, but the closest I could ever get was one time when I managed to half-describe the road they're standing on before I stalled out and sat there staring blankly at the screen. This part of the book wouldn't come at all before yesterday.

So anyway, back to work.



*The former GN is one big wrongly-emphasized Putting On of Pants.

** #3 is most likely. Usually somebody in the scene isn't doing what they really would do (like, if I wasn't around stage-managing the whole business), and that throws the whole book off.

This morning I had ones of those long mental flashes where a scene came to me in sequential order--where the characters were in place in my head, and one character's action or thought led to something happening, and then that led somebody else to react, which led to somebody else responding, etc. etc. all the way down the scene. That happens sometimes if you've been working and trusting the process enough to tuck problems away for the back of your mind to work on. The big question now is whether the scene I wrote will actually work when all is said and done.

Anyway, it was a good enough flash that I skipped ahead today and wrote out the scene, which is the climax of the book. It may be a bit maudlin right now, especially compared to the blood and gore surrounding the sad bits, but maybe it's a decent placeholder till I get the rest of the story working enough to earn this climax. If not, I'll have to rethink. In the meantime, I can pretty much guarantee I will not be showing anybody this part till I have a better sense of whether it's just plain silly or not. I don't mind showing people most of my rougher stuff, but if something I wrote makes me sad yet makes everyone else laugh, it's not good for my creativity to hear them laughing.

I didn't want to kill this guy, and have been dancing around it, coming up with scenarios where he walked happily away at the end, but this morning I was called upon by my flash to accept the death and just go with it. So I did.

Woke up at five thinking about the ending sequence, which is maybe the last 1/3 to 1/4 of the book. I worked through it in my head and wrote it all down in a spiral, including the moment of choice and the moment of action that results from that choice.

On the surface this probably looks a lot like some of my other versions of the ending sequence. However, it's driven by a slightly deeper knowledge of the secondary characters as well as the thinking I've been doing re. what the MC wants vs. what he really needs (i.e. what the reader wants for him). Each event is driven not just by what's going on in its particular scene, or by what's going on in the general rush to the end, but by everything the characters have felt and done since page one. And now, for the first time, all three of the guys have appeared in the climactic scene without me forgetting one or trying to stick him in as a prop.

There's a lot of action here (compared to my usual endings). I'm thinking that my being forced to construct and revise plot-driven fight scenes for that w-f-h novel may be extremely helpful to me now. I think I may have this correctly sketched out enough that, when I get a chance for some solid writing time, I can power through a draft just going by technical set-up and craft. If so, then I can go back over it multiple times, viewing it through the lens of other story aspects* to gradually shape it in layers. This is what I ended up doing with the w-f-h fight scenes, albeit in a plottier way.

Will be interesting to see how this version of the ending looks when I have time to really dig into it. Hope it still seems workable then.


*"Other story aspects" include going back over the sequence from each character's POV, as well as:

• checking the pacing
• feeling out any moments of reader confusion
• dialing back places where I've overplayed the action
• catching any spots of falseness
• making sure I haven't wandered too far from the ideas that drove the book in the beginning.
  

Note to self: READ THIS BEFORE YOU START WORKING AGAIN

I didn't get to work on my own stuff the next week, after all. I need to stop even saying that.

Late last night, however, I set aside everything on my backed-up agenda* and wrote a couple of paragraphs, just for me. My long-term concentration is kind of shot right now, and there's no time to work myself into the flow of story anyway, so I just zeroed in on one emotion-laden action that takes place near the end of the book. I messed around with the words and structure, thinking the action through from various angles: what the MC is doing, what he sees, what he feels, what the reader needs to know. I ended up with a disturbing little pair of paragraphs that may not actually fit the ms or the character's journey.

It's interesting, though. This action--or rather, the character's realization of his action--is a key turning point that allows him to make his choice at the end. Only right now I don't see how it might do that, which is why I'm wondering if it even fits. It's possible that I need to rethink the entire sequence of events in the last quarter of the book (all of which exist only in my head right now)--or even the events themselves. Maybe the ending I'm heading toward is wrong? It's all part of the puzzle, and I'm looking forward to having a chance to figure it out.

Some of the puzzle's answers may lie in my separating the MC's inner and outer goals in my head. I need to think them all through individually--what they mean, what kinds of things might happen at the end to show whether a goal has been achieved, and if not, why that's okay. But I also need to be careful, because I can tell it's going to be very easy to focus on some aspect of the MC that's slightly beside the point, and if I do that it'll mess up the whole book. It's easy to ask yourself a question and think along the surface to arrive at an answer that makes complete sense, but isn't really the key emotional truth of the situation.

For example, I know that my MC wants to keep his "family" alive. At a glance, I could check that off (and I occasionally have) as a inner goal because it's about his feelings and desires. At a glance, his outer goal would seem to be about getting rid of a dangerous weapon and the people who threaten him. But this is all shallow thinking and not helpful to figuring out the story structure.

Actually, I need to stop thinking in limiting terms like inner goal and outer goal. A novel is more complex than that. When writer friends who read the first 50 pages noted that their goal for the MC was that he be relieved of some of his mental/emotional burdens, I immediately remembered: that's what I want for him, too.

Some of the things I'd like my MC to be able to do by the end:

• not hold himself so utterly responsible for everyone else's welfare

• accept that he's doing the best he can in a bad situation

• give himself credit for having good intentions; most people don't, as he knows

All of these tie into what's compelling me to write this ms: exploring the idea of mercy/empathy. I've been struggling a little with whether this guy admits to himself that he thinks mercy is positive quality. He clearly instinctively feels that it's good to have. I just haven't been sure whether he acknowledges this to himself, and if he does, how much.**

Other things I need to think about:

• When he goes back to his home in the very last scene, how is he different?

• In the final quarter of the book, how do events drive him to make the three changes above?
  

• Something has to happen in the climactic scene to force him to a knife-edge decision. That decision is the final dividing point between not-changed and changed.
  

• How do conversations and interactions in the book's middle increase the harshness with which he views himself?
  

• How do conversations and interactions in the book's middle allow him to relax the harshness for a few moments?

• How do all of these conversations and interactions add up to mean something to him at the crucial moment of choice?

• What are his choices?
  

• What happens at the climax that forces him to choose?***

• How do the events leading up to the climax (see "disturbing paragraphs," above) throw his options into sudden stark relief?
  

• Do the events leading up to the climax even fit? Do they need to be rethought, strung out earlier in the book, or cut completely?
  

Hmm, now I'm looking at that last point from the first list. Give himself credit for having good intentions. Why would he think that good intentions mean anything? He certainly has no reason to think they're of value. He'd have to come around to even considering that good intentions alone merit credit.

So...hmm, hmm. This speaks to the middle of the book (if it speaks to anything at all; it could just be a distracting detour). He'd have to see something that causes him to value good intentions. No, not just good intentions--good intentions devoid of practical payoff.

Triple hmm...and who is tailor-made to have a ton of good intentions with zero practical payoff? The inciting-incident of a character who made his appearance in the first line of the book, that's who. And who is also one of the three guys at the climactic confrontation.

The MC is the only one who can relieve himself of his mental/emotional burdens. He's surrounded himself with people who would willingly help him carry the weight. He hasn't purposely selected these people; the fact that they're with him now is a byproduct of his occasionally acting against practical benefit, but with good intentions.

The MC understands none of this when the book starts.

The new character is also tailor-made to cause the MC to unwittingly start shifting some of his (the MC's) worries away. The MC would be lessening the weight he carries just by talking about the decisions he has to make and the reasons he makes them.

Would the MC talk about any of this out loud? Yes, because the new guy is from a different culture; the MC would be explaining stuff and the guy would be asking lots of questions as well. I doubt the MC would even notice he was lessening his mental burdens by explaining stuff to the new guy.

Or...not until the big hassle with the messed-up love triangle and its misunderstandings. Then the MC would notice what he'd been doing, and that he'd come to rely on sharing some of his inner workings--because suddenly he couldn't, not anymore. Quadruple hmm. I've been wondering why the MC wouldn't just secretly kill the guy, post-messed-up-love-triangle, then hide his body in the woods and tell everybody he ran away. This may be why. I also knew my MC liked the new guy, but I couldn't quite verbalize the whys and wherefores thereof. Now I think I'm starting to get it.

This all seems promising, like it may very well be productive thinking, and therefore important to remember. However, I know I won't. (see "long-term concentration, lack of," above) By the time I'm able to pick up my ms again, I may not even remember that I need to look at this post. Perhaps a big ugly blog title will help.




*If you're reading this and you're waiting for something from me, sorry. I'm finding that if I try be a machine 24/7, what happens is that I work slower...and slower...and slower...and feel worse and worse and worse about it. Recent events compel me to cut myself some slack and quit trying to be a machine. Life is too short.

**The distinction is important, because if he doesn't acknowledge it to himself, the plot needs to drive him to learn it. Something needs to happen to open his eyes and make him decide, "I'm going to accept that this is how I feel, and quit berating myself for the few times I've gone 'soft.'" After he faces the fact that he values mercy/empathy even though they're pointless/dangerous, he needs to act on this self-knowledge at some point--and that tells me more about what happens in the plot. Whereas if he already knows he values mercy/empathy, most of the plot input probably comes from his figuring out how much weight he's going to give it as the stakes rise and change.

***I've got three guys at cross purposes in a high-stakes confrontation, and a gun with one bullet. I know something happens. I'm just not sure what, exactly.

No writing of my own. Looks like I'll be able to dig in next week, though.

Interesting post by a fellow writer re. the TV series Downton Abbey:

http://melissawyatt.livejournal.com/194552.html

I saw bits and pieces of this series, enough to get interested but not enough to find out what happened to some of the story threads that I caught in passing. I was appalled and aghast when I asked friends later how those story threads had played out--and found that they didn't play out. At all. Every situation I'd been wondering about had been dropped. Without even a conversation amongst the characters about the problems that had been raised.

It was a big wake-up call as a writer to see how awful it is when somebody just tootles around a story thinking up cool stuff then not following through on any of it. A good reminder, too, to keep track of story/character threads and make sure each one is given its due and builds properly. Also to think about how staying on top of individual threads can help me understand and construct the ending of the overall story.

Was thinking about the end of the dystopian, and the main ideas that need to come to a crux there in the choices presented to the MC and the reader. Also thinking about who embodies those choices. This is helping me figure out the middle. I need to go back and plant a few little references in the beginning section, then also insert a new reference as I'm heading out of the beginning and into the middle. Those will be stepping stones that tie the beginning to the middle and to the end, while also shifting from the problem that starts the story to the one that actually provides most of the conflict and forces the MC to make decisions.

It's still very confusing because there are so many things to think about at once, all needing to be woven together--but confused is good. If I wasn't confused about all these threads, something would be terribly wrong with the book.

I'd better pull up the ms and quickly put in some of these references so I don't forget them. It took me too long to work through other lines of thought to get to them; they'll fade quickly from my head. Then it's back to other writing-related work. I must not forget myself and get caught up in the ms.

Yesterday, worked on dystopian. It may be coming together, or it may not--I can't even tell anymore. Today, did other stuff, then started thinking out the end of the story, but something doesn't feel right about my train of thought. Not sure what.

I've been working on several things that need to be done, like many pieces of paperwork for new teaching job, plus a lecture, plus the potential w-f-h thing. On the w-f-h thing, I decided to think out the whole book and sketch a sort of proposal that shows what I'm thinking, so the publisher and I can see if we're on the same page. This involves some hard core braiding of plot with character, so I feel that it's going to be very good for me. I also intend to make an outline, because I have to make sure the story has tension and hooks--those are the specs--and to demonstrate in the "proposal" that they will be there. Whether or not I can manage this, it's an excellent exercise for me, and definitely a stretch.

Haven't worked on my own ms in a few days. Today I watched reruns of America's Next Top Model and tried to think a little during commercials, because I feel a bit overwhelmed. I feel I need a stronger connecting thread that runs through the story from start to finish--something that pulls all the very different sections together, something that makes a point that's memorable. Right now I think each section makes a slightly different point, so they don't build to an ending where you want a certain thing to happen. You need to want something for the character, by the end. Not like a Perils of Pauline ending, though; you need to want the character to do a certain something. I need to get a clearer picture of what it is I'm supposed to make the reader want my MC to do. That's the connecting thread that's weak--so weak I keep losing sight of it. I need to find it and draw it out--strongly.

Okay, the bottom line is that the rest of the ms is in good enough shape that I have to start trying to figure out the holes that are left.* Namely, the connecting part in the middle, and the end.

(cue drastic doom-laden organ music)

Except I dunno what to do with them. It's another one of those cases where X, Y, and Z have to happen. Another one of those cases where I'm totally clueless about how to approach it. If I push too hard, I'll screw it up. If I get too wholeheartedly into that screwup before I realize it's wrong, I'll be even more clueless than I am now.

This happens to me over and over again. I've got to move through certain plot points, but they won't work unless they mean something in the overall arc of the story. I've got to learn how to conquer this beast, because lately it rears its head every effing time I write a book.

I think I'll make (another) list of the missing parts, just to put them all in my head again. When I try to go through the ms, I get overwhelmed by them because I look at one and think, "Wait, this can't happen till I establish that other part." Then I move to thinking about how to establish the other part, which I usually don't care about anyway, and by now I'm confused about what I was trying to accomplish, so I quit and go work on something unrelated.

Maybe the best thing would be to force myself to stick to character: what does this particular event mean to the MC? Then later worry about how it moves the story and what the reader needs to get from it. Except...they're all tied together. The parts, I mean. The way I tie the end together needs to answer the way I tie the missing events in the middle. In real life they'd be just random events, like one day you dent a fender in the parking lot and the next you find a dollar bill you'd forgotten about in your pocket. In the story they aren't random at all. They have to echo each other and make sense together. And the middle decides which scenes I'm going to keep in the end part, and which I'm going to chunk.

Okay, no. Stop. Clear head. Go back. I can make the list, then from that list I need to think in two directions at once: 1) what does each event mean to the MC, and 2) how does it relate to what I want the book to say?

It's really hard for me to think of two things at once, so I'm going to have to write this down and treat it as totally removed from the ms, like an outline. I don't know that it'll solve anything, but I've got to start digging in somehow. If I can't figure it out, then at least the back of my brain will have everything clearly set down and graspable, so it can start chewing on the problem if it wants to.

Whoa, momentary reality check. Incoming e-mail reminds me that various writer friends are going off this weekend for fun cool author stuff, while I'm sitting here scrubbling uselessly away at the same piece-of-cr*p ms I've been wasting my time on for so many years I'm not going to count them--a ms that's never going to sell so I'll never go anywhere cool or fun because I'm the only one who can't write and I'll be humiliated because I'll never publish another book because my writing sucks and my books suck and I suck and when anybody finally looks at this ms the jig will be up because they'll all see what a sucky piece of cr*p I wasted all that time on, and isn't it sad, really, that any writer could be that deluded.

Okay, reality check over. Back to work.


*I have to. I'm starting to overwrite some of the parts that are closer to being done. I've got to leave those and figure out the holes.

I ended up taking out a spiral and sitting in front of the computer making a list/outline of what I have in the ms. Chapter/section title, then the keywords about what's in it, and so on through the first part of the book. Of course, doing this means I stopped to fix stuff and never got to Menelaus. But...I unwove that one thread that's been bugging me and separated it, and after today's work I'm now thinking that maybe I've almost got a decent grip on nearly half the book now. If so, that is huge. Of course, I may not almost have a decent grip, but the possibility is certainly pleasant. I haven't had that possibility before with this ms, so I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

Also, I thought of the very last scene. Not the last scene I already have (well, sort of, in my head), but the very last scene of the framework that surrounds the story proper. I know what I want to end on. The only question (well, besides that minor detail of figuring it out and writing it) is whether to match it up to my favorite Iliad scene/revelation. Probably I shouldn't. Probably it's enough for me to know that's where I'm ending, even if the reader doesn't.

Then maybe someday somebody will go look up that chapter in the Iliad to see what happens, and it'll be like, "Oh, no f*cking way--they're dead!!???" Then they'll be all mad at me, even though it's not my fault, it's Homer's. That would be great.

It's one of those days where I'm like, boy, I hope I don't get hit by a bus before I finish this ms. If I have to get hit by a bus, please let it be after I finish. Of course, then I'll be back to the swordfighting ms, so I won't want to get hit by a bus then, either.