I’m not a very good writer…
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but I’m an excellent rewriter. ~James Michener
Well I hope I’m going to be too.
Because I have finally solved my plot conundrum. Having agonized over it for days, I began to hear Internal Editor stirring. Now I know once she is awake, that will be it, Six Impossible Things will never advance because Ms Muse will go into hiding. The Editing sisters – Internal and Helpful – can only show up when the draft is finished. So I did something so out in left field that it made flipping a coin look scientific.
I used a pendulum. Yes folks I held a crystal pendulum up, decided if it swung one way that was Plot One and obviously, if it swung the other way, that was Plot Two. The pendulum opted for Plot Two.
Yes, yes I know – you’re tapping your head with your finger and wondering if you will ever stop back in here again, in case my particular brand of insanity is catching. The thing is boys and girls, is that I felt immensely relieved when the pendulum swung for Plot Two – so clearly that was what I wanted to write, but was being to chicken to admit. So does it matter how I came to the realization about which plot I wanted to write? I don’t think so.
But back to the quote of the day and the act of rewriting. I’m currently in that breathless phase where the story just has to get on the page. Never mind the details, get the story down before it escapes (or gets stomped to death by her ladyship Internal Editor). In that moment, I suspect that few of us are good writers.
It is when we go back and begin to work on the details that we (hopefully) shine. At the moment adverbs are breeding faster than rabbits in Six Impossible Things and I am taking great care to ignore them. I’ll worry about them when the draft is finished, go through and turn them all into (metaphorical) bunny stew. It’s the same idea behind the multitude of ‘she exploded, she sniffed, she spat’ style speech tags. They are there simply to remind me that I need to pad that out with some description – but for now I just want to GET.IT.OUT
So if you’ll excuse me, I think I might just tiptoe back to the subject of tomorrow’s post – yWriter – and get to work….
A crisis of plot
It is 11.01pm here in New Zealand and I’m sitting up in bed sipping peppermint tea. The Man of The House (TMoTH) is away for the night, visiting his parents, so the dogs are restless and I can’t sleep. I figured I would put the time to good use and work on Six Impossible Things. Ha! The best laid plans of mice and (wo)men (it was either do it that way or find an animal starting with W – the only one I could think of was Walrus and I’m sorry folks, that just wasn’t happening). The plot is throwing a tantrum again.
This is starting to get on my nerves because the characters, the setting and the subplots are behaving nicely. It’s just the plot that keeps shifting back and forth. And the characters are not helping one iota. I know if you are a writer you get what I am talking about; I also get that if you are not a writer, you are making little circular motions with your finger next to your ear right now. That’s okay, I don’t mind – you won’t be the first person to write me off as a head case. You’ll just have to trust me when I say I’m not.
A fellow writer on Facebook suggested I put it out to readers and let them decide so….
Here’s the basic premise of Six Impossible Things:
Madison (12) and Allie (18) are sisters. They are quite close and very artistic. They live in Manhatten with their parents. Allie has just begun studying Fashion Design and Madison wants to be a graphic designer. The story opens with Madison in her bedroom trying to ignore yet another fight between Allie and their mother. This time Mom is seriously upset – Allie has got a tattoo of The Mad Hatter (think Johnny Depp in Burton’s film). For reasons unclear to the girls – but that will come out in the story – Mom goes off the deep end, even accusing Madison of knowing what Allie had planned and not telling. Mom’s reaction is way, way out of proportion to the crime.
And this is where the plot can’t make up its mind. Either it goes into a fantasy – other – world or it goes into a very feet on the ground in the real world story. Both ideas work (well they do for me and at the moment that’s all that matters), and the characters are fine in both settings. The issue is that when I start writing one, the other wants to take over.
I realise this is a little cryptic but I’m a bit hesitant to put the plots out in to public domain - just in case someone thinks “oooooo, I think I can type faster than she can” . Just call me paranoid.
But I could be persuaded to part with more details in an email if you think you have a solution for me.
So, if anyone out there has any suggestions, I would love to hear them…