Sudden Reversal, Seeing with New Eyes
Having run out of enthusiasm for my Giles Avery novel, I left it alone for several months. I didn't read any portions of it and I did not write anything relating to the cast of characters.
Today I finally printed out the first eighty pages and suddenly I realized that I front-loaded the book with scenes featuring a secondary character and it isn't until further into the book that the main character actually gains the upper hand in the narrative.
Aargh. What have I been doing all this time? The facts were staring at me all along. I should have known better, but I guess I was being lazy. I wasn't thinking like a story-teller. I was thinking like a person writing for the heck of it. A week in New York has shown me how real writers approach their books.
I can fix this and I WILL fix it. When I was young I wrote scenes once or twice and moved on. Now I dawdle. I get caught up in trying too many options for a scene and each one changes the outcome. The secondary character suddenly has all the good lines. The main character can't fight his way back into the story.
This isn't my only book. Why am I writing as if I have all the time in the world for each story I want to tell? I didn't want to let go of the characters from previous books, but when I started a new project I happily became invested with a different set of characters. It's not like the previous characters had died off. They merely morphed into something else.
Our books are not our children. They are a reflection of our thoughts at this point in our lives. If we cling too closely to individual characters, then our lives become static, too.
Write the damn book. The next one will be even better.
Amy
Today I finally printed out the first eighty pages and suddenly I realized that I front-loaded the book with scenes featuring a secondary character and it isn't until further into the book that the main character actually gains the upper hand in the narrative.
Aargh. What have I been doing all this time? The facts were staring at me all along. I should have known better, but I guess I was being lazy. I wasn't thinking like a story-teller. I was thinking like a person writing for the heck of it. A week in New York has shown me how real writers approach their books.
I can fix this and I WILL fix it. When I was young I wrote scenes once or twice and moved on. Now I dawdle. I get caught up in trying too many options for a scene and each one changes the outcome. The secondary character suddenly has all the good lines. The main character can't fight his way back into the story.
This isn't my only book. Why am I writing as if I have all the time in the world for each story I want to tell? I didn't want to let go of the characters from previous books, but when I started a new project I happily became invested with a different set of characters. It's not like the previous characters had died off. They merely morphed into something else.
Our books are not our children. They are a reflection of our thoughts at this point in our lives. If we cling too closely to individual characters, then our lives become static, too.
Write the damn book. The next one will be even better.
Amy
posted by Seven Authors in A Private Conversation at 10:39 AM
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