Today, nearly put myself to sleep writing out plot stuff I already know happens, trying to make it readable and, er, get it down on paper instead of allowing it to continue its vague existence solely in my head. Then as I worked through it, I found a nice little place where the characters are stripping a corpse and I realized I ought to show them doing it, so I got to go off on a wee tangent that was more interesting to me--meaning nothing actually happened except one guy almost puked and they dug a hole. To me it was fun, though.

After I was done writing (in fact, I quit a little early) I was cranky because I made myself do plot stuff for most of my writing time. But it has to be done; it needs to be put down on paper so I can see what has to be there and what doesn't. Also because wee tiny tangents can creep in that add up to tell me more about the deeper story--like, today's half-a-page tangent tied to maybe three or four other threads.

But, still. Sigh.

Have decided to not think about the main secondary character or his plotlines, even though the book is named for him and he's basically the reason for writing it. Instead, I'm going to try working solely with the "real," plotty plotlines, and focusing on getting those to rise and build. This is an attempt at avoiding getting sidetracked, as I am wont to do, by scenes and character threads that do need to be there, but that aren't ramping up the plot-driven tension or conflict (a la Ron and the spiders--see yesterday's entry). I keep digging into those character/thematic threads and then looking up to find that I've confused myself and don't know where I am in the book.

I have nearly 100,000 words of this ms. There is no excuse for spending months and months and months spinning my wheels when most of it is already there on the page. So I'm going to try to be very strict with myself about this.

I do use outlines, but along the way, as a writing tool. They're not something I follow, but something that helps me step back and see the big picture all laid out at once. This is the outline I have from chapter 13 on:

1. splinter
2. salter
3. P. visit
4. sex
5. boar
6. P. has it
7. find out K.
8. blank (may be backstory; I know I'll need something here so the reader can absorb 7)
9. Jen
10. Night attack
11. take K. in
12. T. attack
13. death
14. on to P.
15. climax/end sequence


So I've got this all laid out (cryptically, but I'm the only one who needs to understand it, and I do), and all I bloody well have to do right now is fill out these scenes where stuff happens. That is all. And it's what I'm going to do.

Random thinking...

I passed by the TV as Harry Potter 2 was on, and it was the scene where Harry and Ron are in the forest with the giant spider. I paused for a second to watch it, because I suddenly noticed that it was one big dumping of plot information, given by the spider to Harry. That was the main way the scene moved the story forward: Harry had to get ___ info from the spider character.

So I was thinking, if you're writing from scratch and you've got a spider with ____ information that your MC must have, then you don't have to make your MC go into the forest. The spider could show up anywhere, or somebody else could know what the spider said and pass it on, or the info could come across in some magic way, etc. etc.

Now, the thing I've always noticed before about this scene is poor Rupert Grint having to make scaredy faces the entire time. I always think, Wow, his face must have gotten tired. But this time I was thinking, that's what gives the scene its tension. Ron is scared of the massing spiders, and his fear and the growing danger we see are what's ramping up the scene while while the plot info is being dumped on the reader (and Harry).

Honestly, if I were writing this, Harry probably would have just gone and talked to the giant spider and it never would have occurred to me to have more spiders closing in on Harry and Ron. At most I might have noticed that the giant spider could decide to eat the boys, and he might have chased them out of the scene. Maybe, if I was having a particularly good and open-minded writing day. But by g*d, I need to start being able to think like this thoroughly and at will. I can't afford to keep not having this type of option on the table, writingwise.

Somehow I need to figure out a way to practice it so my brain gets used to it. I need to wear a pathway along these particular synapses. Even with un-worn synapses and without even really having a clue what I'm doing, I can spot two places in my ms right off the bat where my Harry goes into a forest and just gets his info then leaves.

Maybe I need to tape a picture of a spider to my computer. Or get a spider tattoo on the back of my hand so I see it while I'm typing.

Yesterday, pulled up chapter 11 and piddled around with it. Today, started fleshing out a scene in chapter 12. Now that I'm doing this, I can see I'll need to rethink this part of the book because there's going to be too much of it--too many lower-key non-action scenes--to hold the pace I'm trying to keep up.

Some general thoughts re. getting this part to move, and keeping it moving: I can integrate plotty stuff I'd planned to bring up later; I can try to think of new exciting plotty stuff to insert; I can winnow out the pieces that aren't able to do double or triple duty (by touching on several threads at once) and get rid of them.

For now I'll just keep writing and revising without a plan, but will keep these options in the back of my mind.

Back to dystopian. Days ago I decided to clarify the problem about chapters 11 & 12 to myself. I haven't been able to work on them because they're transitional chapters between big plot stuff happening, and I have no idea what needs to be in them. There's a ton of information the reader needs that could go in there.

So I pulled those two chapters out separately, into a new document. Then I copied and pasted every bit of information or character exchange that might be able to go in them. I ended up with over 60 double-spaced pages, which I figured I need to cut down to 20 at most.

It's much less overwhelming to work through the story transition (from beginning to middle) now that I have this new document in front of me. I've started working with chapter 11, and it seems I do have to pick up in-scene from the end of chapter 10. I've been strongly feeling a need to switch to some kind of transitional out-of-scene narration for the sake of pacing. It just feels like too much, one chapter after another continuously in scene. I'm over a hundred pages in and am still on Day 2 (!). But I left everybody at the end of chapter 10 in mid-confrontation with a gun, so from what I can see there's just no way around staying in scene as 11 opens. Maybe later I'll figure out a way to switch it up.

As it (loosely) stands now, I start chapter 11 with a verbal fight, and after that I hit the same problem: stay in scene, or try to switch to out-of-scene narration. Right now I'm thinking I may just try staying in scene.

I definitely have a problem with this aspect of writing. I think it's part of my usual huge weakness: transitions. My natural tendency is to just follow everyone through their days, step by step. I feel that I especially need to get a grip on the pacing of book beginnings, but I'm not sure how to do it. Maybe I need to look at some really good character-driven books and see exactly how much time passes in the beginning, and how it's handled.

I'm also not used to writing books with a lot of plot-type stuff happening, though, so maybe they just feel different; maybe I'm too used to dealing with severely character-driven story.

The reason I say that is that winter residency in VT is coming up, and I know I've got to do a reading. I'm going to read something from this ms, but it all looks the same to me and I can't tell what's interesting or boring about it anymore, and I don't have a lot of time to think about it. So I asked some fellow writers who will also be at the residency to look at my 100 pages and tell me what people might like to hear. They all zeroed in on the real-time action/confrontation scene with a beating and a killing. It hadn't stood out to me; it just seemed like another piece of the literary puzzle.

I realized then than I've got to consistently give more weight in my head to this type of scene in the ms. Writing these plotty scenes is more about technical craft-type thought than anything else, but they carry the reader along and propel the story. They affect pacing in ways I can't afford to forget about. Also, since I obviously don't have a feel for the tremendous job they do pacing-wise for the book, I need to stay open to the possibility that my feelings re. now-it's-time-for-a-narrative-break could be wrong.

Forgot to say, the character who had the broken leg is now getting stabbed in the thigh with a sharpened stake (via an accidentally-tripped pig-sticker trap) instead. This allows the pigsticker trap thread to form its own little arc and provoke real trouble, too.

Note to self: think about book X

Forgot to say, I finally made myself start reading a book I've been assuring people I was going to read for 2-3 years now. Recently I even had to fork over a self-imposed fine of five bucks to a fellow writer for yet again failing to read it as promised.

So I finally started it, this book everybody's read and praised, and boy, does it suck. However, the more I think about it, the more I'm absolutely fascinated by it. Because the writer makes it work. Through sheer force of plot and structure, the story moves along pretty grippingly, even though if you look very closely, you can see that nothing's actually there. There isn't anything going on but people moving around from here to there, and some mysteries that aren't very interesting because who cares if they're solved or not?

But, wow. The structure completely hides all that; it misdirects the reader's attention and gives the impression of being a gripping, excitingly wild ride. I can see that it partly does so through the way it uses hooks, and also by the way it uses alternating narrators.

This is exactly what I need to figure out how to do for my former GN.

What's really got me super-zeroed in on it now, though, is realizing that one of the two POV characters has a negative goal. I think part of what covers that up is the structure and the constant updating and adding of hooks, but there's also an announced strategy. And here's where it gets even more interesting: the announced strategy makes no sense. But it doesn't matter, because it works anyway. You don't even notice it has no reason to be either a strategy or announced.*

The only reason I noticed any of this is because I have a plotting disability and was bored, reading. I can see how gripping the story is, but I'm not at all gripped. It's sort of like the little kid who can't enjoy a great magician's trick because he isn't sophisticated enough to understand that he's supposed to be following the hand gestures. Sometimes there are advantages to having humongous blind spots.

Sometime when I have a chance, I want to really dig into this, maybe even go through and make a list of every scene. I bet I will find that it's extremely screenplay-worthy, with every scene carefully designed and set like a stage, and with actors hitting their marks right as the curtains go up. I also bet that nearly every chapter will have a deliberately imposed ramp-up of a ticking clock, and there's something intriguing about the hooks, too--like, maybe there's at least one new one introduced in the body of the chapter, and then another, different hook hits hard at the end?

Also need to look at:

• Which hooks are external stuff happening and which are internally-driven emotional cliffhangers.

• How the chapters cut in and out to hide the relative passivity of one of the storylines.

• How a passive character is given the appearance of being an active one.

• Beginnings and ends of chapters, making note of transitions.

• Beginnings and ends of chapter, for cliffhangers (I think some are actually dropped and never followed up on. But I'm not even sure! This is great!).

• Beginnings and ends of chapters, as read sequentially rather than alternately. I'm interested to know what the author has chosen to skip as not-ramp-up-able enough. Because, you know, I think s/he was probably right, since the book works so well.

Forcing myself to finish this thing is going to be a chore. But I think I can learn a ton of stuff when I go back to it once it's read.



*Something that's come up in discussion with writer friends is this theory: An announced strategy doesn't have to really do anything in the story; as soon as the actual story gets started, the announced strategy can just disappear, and be naturally swallowed up in the bigger, stronger, "real" story without you having to deal with it. But here, it seems to me, the possibility presents itself that the announced strategy doesn't even necessarily have to arise from story. Which poses the question: exactly how far can you go with the artificial pasting on of stuff to keep your story moving?

Hmm, so I'm thinking that every writer may have a different base "layer" that they tend to start with when writing a scene. Some people tend to need a plot to build from, some need a setting; I generally just need characters or even just a strong feeling from a character I don't know yet. If I think about it, I see that I most often start with a base layer of either internal thought or of dialog. Then I flesh out and layer on physical grounding, setting, and last of all, plot. (not all the time, but more than other ways of working.)*

So it occurs to me that this may be something to consider, when I get to a "stuck" place. Maybe mixing it up a little and starting with different layers than I'm used to can help when I get in a writing rut. Like, say, if something's not coming easily, maybe I could back off and approach it from establishing setting first, or getting a physical bead on where everybody is and what they're doing. Or maybe I could start with an action.

I mean, I do do all these things, but maybe I could do it more deliberately sometimes to see what happens--to see if it gets the story moving and helps me reconnect. Something to think about, anyway.



*When I work, the thematic stuff may already be close to the surface in that initial layer of internal thought and non-plot-driven dialog, just because internal thought and non-plot-driven dialog are already halfway tapped into the character's growth and change. Something to think about is whether plot-driven writers tend to have to work harder to get to that layer of thematic depth and resonance than someone who starts closer to character. Is the thematic engine of a story as visibly close to the surface, if your mind works first in terms of "what's happening"? Is it harder not to lose track of? Maybe not; maybe I just have trouble recognizing theme in plot because of my own writing weaknesses.

I worked on the falling scene, and quickly saw that it's too strong to go where I thought it might go in the ms. It's so strong it'll undercut the events leading up to the end; they'll seem watered-down compared with what went before.

So I've changed the events leading up to the end. Now the falling takes place there, to somebody else. It seems to fit nicely in this later part of the story.

And now instead of the earlier falling, the guy just gets damaged with broken bones (not sure how yet) and I still get in pretty much everything I needed anyway.*

Then as I worked on the just-getting-damaged part, I saw that it leads straight into the MC's realization about the main secondary character, no hinting or clues or buildup. The damaged guy gets his bones broken, and that makes the sh*t hit the fan before the end of the day.




*It's too bad real life can't be rearranged this easily.

Ha! I was doing more organizational thinking, streamlining my notes and listing all the points I need to make in this vast desert area of the ms. Suddenly I remembered this old, old throwaway piece I wrote in one of my very early beginnings. It's just a tossed-off 100-word bit in the middle of other stuff, telling how my MC saw a guy fall to his death once. I always liked that bit, so even though it didn't do anything and distracted the reader, I left it in for far too long before I cut it. It's been gone for a long time now.

Now I'm going to develop it here in the Sahara and see what happens if one of my characters plummets mid-scene. That might keep things interesting. The idea seems to have some heft to it, too, because I like how they'd have to get his battered body home (it resonates thematically), and then afterwards there'd be one less person to keep track of in these horrendous six-person scenes that are killin' me, I tell ya, killin' me. It would also allow me to naturally throw characters together where they'd say stuff I need said, and it would also set up deepening relationships, plus it can be used to ratchet up the MC's suspicions about the main secondary character.

Some writers work best--and believe it is best--to delete old stuff in order to free and clear your mind. To which I say: Are you in-f#cking-sane???? I never throw anything away if I can help it.

So anyway, that's what I'm going to try, and we'll see how it works out.

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.

While researching, I remembered this one plotty-idea I'd been toying with for a while, but had set aside because it didn't seem to have a place in the story. Now I think I might be able to use it as a, um, seed kind of thing. To plant a seed of plot-suspense, I mean.

The story starts off, then it slowly loses steam, and I don't know if the second-kind-of-suspense questions (who's this character? what kind of trouble has he brought with him?) are enough to carry the reader through to the middle of the book. I'm now thinking that mentioning the plotty-thing (MC finds an unmarked potentially crippling pig-sticker trap* in the woods) at the right place in the story, combined with the second-kind-of-suspense questions, may be able to carry the reader through till stuff starts happening again.

However, no time to think more about it right now. If I don't set this ms aside other obligations are going to start piling up in an unacceptable and unprofessional manner.



*When I first thought of this, it was a pit-trap, and that didn't resonate with the story, but then while double checking other snare-related info, I read about a pig-sticker trap, which is pretty horrific; a bent sapling has a sharpened blade attached to the end and it's pulled back so that when the line is tripped, the blade whips around and sinks into the prey. Then I was like, Oh yeah, that makes sense and ties to some of the other stuff I've got going on. The pit-trap didn't. So...we'll see.

Now that I think about it, this "suspenses" problem is also one thing that's messing me up with the swordfighting ms right now: not understanding what needs to be revealed to whom (including the reader), about whom, and when. That can all be used as an engine to keep pages turning. It's also very much tied to how each character feels in every scene. It requires knowing the story from everyone's POV, in order to find potential "reveals" and to know what pushes everyone's buttons so that I don't miss more "reveals" that would be triggered by their reactions. It requires a very light hand on the reins, writing-wise, but full and mindful attention in all areas of the ms.

It probably is one place where plot and character meet for me. Could be that, in the swordfighting ms, I need to use it to structure the entire story.

Iced in, and using the time to juggle several different projects and obligations.* One of which is the dystopian ms; I'm looking at it and thinking the order of scenes in the first 60-70 pages might be workable now. I may decide later that it's not, but I'm going ahead and splicing it together as is.

It's tough to write a book that moves properly, because I already know everything the reader doesn't. I can't tell what hooks the reader to read on and what's just boring. The only thing hooking me as a reader of my own ms anymore is that I like the characters and the situations they're in. Sometimes I look at this ms and think, boy, something needs to be happening pretty quickly here, or the story's going to be in trouble. Other times I think, wait a minute, it's already happening because the reader's wondering about ______.

I think maybe there are at least two kinds of "suspense"? One is...I guess it's conflict? Anticipating plot events? Like OMG, what's going to happen when they open that door? But there's a second kind of suspense, that's more along the lines of Who the h*ll is this guy? What's his story? What kind of trouble has he brought with him? It's not conflict/plot stuff, exactly, because it's all up to me how I parcel it out. It's not dependent on any particular thing happening; it's writer-selected, and most of it relies on stuff like conversation or realization. And it can go almost anywhere in the book.

So...that means it's a tool, and if I apply it mindfully, I can use it carry the story for a while, till something starts happening again.

Hmm. Maybe these two "suspenses" are the same for most people, but for me maybe the second one is a crux where plot and character meet? Because to me the two "suspenses" don't look like the same thing at all. They may look the same from the outside, after you've read a book, but while the book's being worked on, they're derived and selected in completely different ways. For me, anyway.**

So perhaps it would behoove me to figure out this other thread, whatever it is. There's the plot thread, where stuff happens (like doors being opened and guns going off). There's the character thread, where the emotional story lies. And then there's this other thing, that I don't know what to call. I don't think it's suspense, exactly, because that word covers plot as well. It's got to do with noticing the way I spool out information to the reader, and getting the most bang for my writing buck out of it.

It's also got to do with what the reader knows, vs. what I know, vs. what the main character knows, vs. what the other characters know. Everybody knows different things, and there are about ten million different kinds of "reveals" to choose from, in order to keep the story moving. And at any second the reader could suddenly get sick of it all and just want something concrete to happen.

I find this all very confusing and overwhelming, so for now will just make a stab at keeping it in mind as I work. Maybe as I sort out what it all means, I'll be able to use it to stronger effect than when I just stumble onto something that works.


*rather than just sitting down to one project and finishing it, which is what I definitely ought to be doing. But my head has overloaded on trying to get a satisfying storyline while also teaching kids about onomatopoeias. Once my head has overloaded on one idea, that's all she wrote, until a little break gets it cleared out again.

**the second one, for me--in this book--comes from understanding the secondary characters and knowing their stories.

Worked on the former GN yesterday. I like the way it's going. It's clear, however, that this is just a personal pet project that can't be allowed to take time away from projects that somebody might actually want to read someday. Right now the ms is dividing itself into three chains of thought that are different in ways I can't succinctly describe. And there's no story, really. I can see that the three chains of thought will come together near the end, then, together, lead to the ending I want, the ending that's always been there. I keep trying to find a pattern to all this so that the whole big picture of the piece will suddenly fall into place and make sense, but I haven't been able to find one. If I could find the correct title, that would probably help it come into focus--but I've never been able to locate just the right name for the ms. The story and characters are fun to think about and play around with, but I can't let this take over my time. It must remain a hobby.

Today I took time to work on the dystopian ms, feeling out the backstory and writing down the current story of the main secondary character--in other words, going through the story from his POV. Nothing big about the plot has revealed itself. I was a little surprised to realize some of his motivations and desires, but they line up with what I already know happens, so I'll have to keep thinking my way through the ms.

It may be that, for once, everything is going to hover in midair until a certain plot reveal gets settled, and that once that happens, the ms will start rolling again. I don't know how to decide on something plotty like that, though--usually I let the emotional story dictate what happens plotwise, and when. It'll be interesting if for once the emotional story can't fall into place until part of the plot is set. Lots to think about, here. Definitely a learning process.

Wrote quite a bit yesterday. It felt like I got some good work done. Am wondering why I'm still poking around near the beginning when I gave myself permission to move away from that.

Today Tyson and I walked several miles, and while he sniffed and peed and eyeballed squirrels, I thought about the rest of the the book. There's all kinds of stuff to be written--not just backstory, but actual present-day stuff that happens. I don't know why I'm not writing it, except that there's some kind of gap between what I'm writing now and all the rest of the book. It's like everything hasn't quite fallen into place in the story yet, so that all the later stuff starts happening on its own. I think maybe I'm trying to work my way across that gap. At the moment I'm doing that by slowing waaaay down. I'm stretching out what I've got here at the front of the story, separating the people out, letting them enter onto the scene one at a time, and seeing what they do. I'm not doing this on purpose, it's just happening. It seems to be working okay.

But in that gap between what I'm writing now and the rest of the book lies...plot stuff. I need to pay attention to other people's writing, and talk to other writers, and consider more about how to pull together my characters' worries, the outward dangers and problems that are about to come into play, and hooks for the reader. I need to be very mindful about how I use all three of those things, if I want to crank my writing up a notch.

One big plot thing that lies in the gap is that pretty soon now I need to bring a new character onto the stage (never mind that I haven't actually finished bringing in the other ones yet). This character drives the rest of the story, and is in at the climax. The way I see it now, the climax and resolution of the book aren't possible without him. He's not even on scene yet, in the early pages I have written--but he needs to come in pretty soon, and he needs to bring at least some sense of upcoming conflict and danger with him.

So...how does he come onto the scene? I know what he wants, and know how he drives the plot. I think my current gap exists because I don't want to just bring him into play, I want the tension and page-turning to ratchet up a notch, too, when he appears. I want the book to start picking up pace, and for stakes to rise when he shows up, and I want the urgency not to let up from that moment forward. I don't yet know how to do all that. For all that to happen, I need to pay attention to plot, and stay mindfully aware of the presence and function of the three items above: inward stakes, outward stakes, and hooks for the reader.*

I can set up the big story conflict/problem before he even shows up; then the reader will already be invested and understand how dire the situation is, so that the stakes are tripled when he appears on scene. However, I've already played around with that a little, and I'm not sure it feels right. It's okay, but it doesn't immediately spark whatever comes next.

I don't think he can burst on the scene with weapons drawn, so to speak. It seems like too much, to open the floodgates and have him and the big problem appear on stage at the same time.

Right now I'm thinking he needs to be shown, when he first appears, as already dangerous and unknowable, already a sizable problem for the MC. Then...maybe?...end that introductory chapter/scene on a hint that the motivations and goals of this already problematic character are about to meet up with the bigger, newer problem that reared its head in the opening scene of the book--one whose scope the MC hasn't yet fully comprehended. So we meet the new guy, and as he's exiting the scene there's a hook--like, Ruh-roh, Scooby, now the sh*t's about to hit the fan!

Dunno. A few days ago when I cut that other scene in a weird place--cut it to end on a hook rather than where I thought it would naturally end--it opened up some new lines of thought. Except I don't quite know what those lines of thought are, because they're not character driven. I want to pay attention to them, and explore them, and try to figure out what avenues are open to me that I haven't recognized before.

Side note: I've been reading Naomi Novik's Temeraire books, and noticing that they read--perhaps appropriately--somewhat like Patrick O'Brian's, as far as plot and scene construction. A lot of the time, they seem more like an ongoing tale, with scenes running into each other and characters dropping in and out. My question du jour is, why does the reader stay with the story? Is it because of something that's going on inside each book? I believe the first book in each of the two series (Novik's and O'Brian's) may have followed more of a "closed," tighter, self-sufficient structure--was that necessary to hook the reader and make him/her stay with the rest of the books? Not sure. Also thinking about Hunger Games, and what makes people keep reading those books through to the end.




*It sounds so simple, so Writing 101, written out like that. But it's not simple. I can think of very few, if any, writers who can consistently keep all three balls aloft as they're working through a story. Sometimes after a book is on the shelf it's clear that all the balls are being juggled, but that's a book that's been through years of writing and rewriting, and editorial input.

I think it might help me if, instead of thinking about "plot" and "what happens," I think in terms of "what the reader craves." I wonder if looking at scenes this way may be one of the keys to being able to work with plot (for me; every writer is different).

I'm heavily character driven, and don't really care what the reader wants, until near the end. To me, if you think too much about the reader as you're working through a ms, you can start censoring your characters and judging them, and that messes up the story. The characters need to be free to be who they are and guide the storyline themselves. But this might be a good tool to pull out at times when I'm spinning my wheels: What might the reader crave right here, at this very spot where I'm stuck? The thing to watch for is that I don't go overboard and lose track of the emotional story. It's a tool, I think, that may need to be applied lightly and with care.

Started looking at the dystopian tonight; I know I shouldn't but I did anyway. And ka-wham!--I'm pretty I sure see the exact place I started going off track. Of course, I see other little things, too. One gaffe in particular is galling, because I buried a huge moment in the middle of a sentence in the middle of a paragraph; but that's okay because I'm not yet sure what I need to be getting at with it anyway. Now that I know where it is I can find it later when I start to pull the emotional story together more.

But now I also see the exact line in the ms where I start moving away from the storyline--and immediately after that is when things stall out.

Basically, my MC needs to decide to go in the other room and kill a guy. Everything's set up to where he'd do this, but right now at the exact spot where he gets up and goes in the other room, he's all iffy about it, and hangs in the doorway thinking and mulling over and trying to decide what to do, and eventually he's interrupted in his thoughts by people coming in, and I'm wandering around for pages not sure what goes where. Duh. He goes in there to kill the guy, who suddenly realizes his danger, and there's a moment of hesitation and connection between them--and then everybody comes in. They interrupt the killing, not the interminable thinking I've had him doing.

Through recent conversations with fellow writers, I have come to realize that I have never really cared what happens in a story. I only care what the fallout is and how it drives everybody forward--or better yet, how it drives them into the pits of despair. But two of the mss I'm working on right now--the dystopian and the swordfighting mss--are equal parts plot and character, and part (if not most) of the problems I've been having with them is that they require me to also pay attention to this flip side of things. The Writing 101 stuff like wanting an exterior goal and not getting it, plot stumbling blocks, etc. If I want to up my writing game and write a good, well-balanced mix of plot and character--which I do, that's been a goal for a few years now--then it seems I've got to add a couple of layers of depth to my writing-type thinking. Without letting those layers mess up the stuff I already know how to do. And that's going to be tricky.

If I can start thinking in plotting terms as well as character and thematic terms--if I can pull the two together in a way that works for me--I will be a happy camper. I hope what I'm seeing today is an epiphany rather than a delusion. It's easy to mistake the two sometimes; they can be nearly interchangeable.

So, whenever I look at this in the cold light of day--which I hope will be tomorrow, because I have a terrible craving to work on my own stuff again--I will have my fingers crossed that this was all epiphany and zero delusion.

Am trying to get a grip on larger picture of ms using sticky notes on the inside of a cardboard box, because a poster board wasn't large enough. I've got the end idea I need to come around to* written in front of me so I don't lose sight of it. I've got a different color of sticky note for each thread I'm trying to deal with. Each sticky note contains one scene I'm pretty sure I want to write.

It looks like there are two main threads to be woven together. One follows a certain secondary character and mostly appears to be plotty stuff. Another follows a different secondary character and mostly appears to be character-theme-ish quiet scenes. Hmm.

It looks to me like there's a turning point, and after that there won't be room for much of anything except plotty stuff. That might be the last third or so of the book. Not sure. But once that turning point happens, the MC is going to be obsessed and unable to think of anything else.

However, if there's mostly only quiet stuff for a huge chunk of the ms before that, I've got a problem: sagging story.

One thing I've wanted to do since I started this ms was to use the idea of six bullets as a ticking-clock device to pull the reader through. However, the way it stands now, four of the six bullets are fired in the last third of the book, which is already going to be moving quickly (if the story really does go this direction). So...I think I can move one of the bullets up somehow, and not lose anything. I think it can go in a third colored thread, which belongs to yet another character/storyline. Except I don't know how this third thread/storyline fits in with the others yet. However, I do know it's part of the middle, and it's not quiet, so that's good.

So, hmm, hmm. Right now I could write out a couple of scenes to feel out some stuff, or I could freewrite a secondary character's backstory, because I'm going to need to have that firmly in the back of my head in order to write the middle.

Oh, yo. Revisions on w-f-h just popped up in my inbox. Well, there's no way I'm going to put all my lovely different-colored sticky notes aside just yet, mere hours after I got them out. I've skimmed the e-mail, and will digest its contents while proceeding on dystopian ms for the rest of today's writing time. Tomorrow I will look at the commented-on w-f-h ms itself, egad. By then my loins should be fully girded.

Okay, so anyway. Not to put too fine a point on it, I need to figure out when my MC has sex with a certain character before I can understand how the third colored thread weaves in with the other two. And the problem I'm having there is that my MC needs to visit the same place twice, when he doesn't actually go there very often, and only one of the visits is exciting, plot-wise. The other's boring...except for the sex. Only he won't know he's going to have sex till he gets there, so there's nothing to compel the reader. Therefore: sagging story.


*Or rather, two ideas: mercy binds the group and strengthens it; mercy to oneself is necessary as well. These are the things that drive the book, underlie all the character arcs, and pull everything together.

No actual writing today, but I've been scribbling notes and trying to work out a plan of attack. I want to work on the middle, which has got preplanned plot stuff to it. But I don't want to get off track and end up with an unusable mess, like I have with some of my other WIPs. I'm trying to come up with an approach to plot that can work for me; obviously the straightforward approach that some other people use isn't my thing.

What I'm going to try now is to look at the overall character arc and keep one eye on where I'm heading--the ending change or realization that takes place in the MC. At the same time I want to look at the plot stuff I have (these are individual scenes where things happen) and try to make sure I can also see each piece in terms of how it affects or shows something along that arc. Then maybe, when all is said and done, the plotting stuff will consist of scenes that do something emotionally as well as story-wise--thus making for a successful read.

I also have a bunch of scenes in mind that are pretty much all emotion--not much going on in terms of action--and I'm not sure how to work those in yet. I don't know if there needs to be a rhyme or reason to it.

I finally had time to take a very close look at some books I'd been hoping would offer some clues about ways to look at plotting vs. that emotional trajectory. I was disappointed to find nothing helpful. It looks like some people have the opposite problem from me, is all I figured out. I guess it was good to get that opposite problem nailed down in detail, though. And maybe I should take another look and see if I can learn something about pacing.