When I’m 64…
So, tonight, the plan was to give the first five chapters a final read, a hint of polish, and then seal them off.
I was in only nine pages when I knew something was wrong. Again, I’d rather fix this stuff now rather than later, or realize it once the book is printed and unable to change, but still… continuing would be nice.
In the first chapter, the character undergoes a change (as characters in first chapters are wont to do), but this time I realized that the change isn’t pronounced, because he is also telling the story in a first-person narrative and we hear his thoughts up until that point.
So, I think we need to flesh it out a bit, and show the contrast between his innermost thoughts and his actual actions/dialogue, so that when the incident happens, it has impact. Now, it reads the same as the thoughts, it just has quotes around it. Seems too subtle.
I think I’ve always seen this scene visually in my head, so I’ve always pictured the character with almost a voiceover going on while the action happened, so that the incident is atcually one of the few times we actually hear him speak. But, even that isn’t enough in text, the contrast need to be pronounced. The character is having a breakdown, after all, they are not known to be subtle.
I remember once, walking to work, and some Asian guy just stopped his car in the middle of the road, jumped out of it, threw his briefcase across the road, and just sat on the curb and started crying, and his freaked out passenger/wife looked on, after pulling the car off to the side of the road and going to comfort him. He was just wailing, and you know, my job was to just keep walking. For a solid block, I could hear him cry.
That is the kind of change I need in the book, it has to be a pure change of direction, unquestionably pronounced, even if that means we need to work in more (evil) backstory up front, which I hate to do. (Of course, I have 40+ pages of backstory somewhere, if I dig it up, but something tells me none of that stuff need ever see the light of day or be resurrected).
Again, with any change like this, I usually have to think it through, so I’ve mainly just read chapter one a few times, and plotted out where the problems are. It’s like telling the story of a little weakling boy finally standing up for himself and punching the bully, but starting the scene with him throwing the punch. You lack all the context of who the kid is, whether he’s the one we’re even rotting for, and how monumental it was for him to finally thrown that punch. So, how to convey all that in as few words as possible… that’s the goal.
Tomorrow’s goal, I’m afraid…
I’m seriously considering dumping the post-work workout, since it is cutting into the writing time too severely. I really only have time to be in the zone, sitting down and writing, or else any little blip leaves me in the “not enough time to really work on something this big” zone, like tonight. If this had happened an hour ago, I wouldn’t be 30 minutes from my bed time.
Ack…
Jeff
