It's like a torte, only without chocolate



Been struggling lately to get all the layers of my current book to jive. I know what I want to say, even know how to say it... Getting it to make sense and have the characters believe it, that's another story. Been a slog, to say the least. I've done plenty of writing, but it's not going anywhere. The characters are balking, big time, and it's giving me a headache.

So I spent a good hunk of this weekend going over my notes and thinking and talking about the scope and thematic elements of my narrative, as well as my characters.

Strangely enough, I may be being too nice to them. How pulling rotting body parts out of a ravine is nice, well, in a Tambo Book, it's all relative.

My main problem is that everything interconnects. If I pull out one element - say Dubric's mirror - other dominoes have no impetus to fall. While missing one little domino might not be much, if that domino is vital to another chain it rapidly becomes a big deal and whole hunks of the story structure just hang out and go nowhere.

There's also the living-breathing character issue of Character Independence.

Since I don't pre-plot specifics, I only have a hazy idea of what's going to happen on the road ahead. I trust the characters to find their own path to a solution to the problem I've thrust before them. Not sure where they're going, or how we're gonna get there, I only know a few details of the journey. That works great for me, until the character(s) decide Something Else Is More Important To Them.

Then, off they go, blissfully on their way to seek their fortunes. Having little or nothing to do with the mystery at hand, they'd rather go deal with their own personal dramas, thanks anyway. Damn them. So, after a month of sit-and-spin writing, I have to drag their mangy butts back to the story. Or else. I like having independent characters, it makes my job very enjoyable and it makes the characters highly individualistic. They do what they do, not what I've programmed them to do and I - usually - find that a lot of fun. I never know what Dubric's going to say or do until he does it. His reactions are a surprise, and they're his, not mine. But, when my characters aren't willing to work, it's like herding a bunch of cranky, hungry toddlers with droopy diapers. Exhausting and aggravating.

It's a big, wieldy pile of layers sometimes, getting all the bits and pieces to jive. I have to make sure the mystery is somehow connected back to the characters, especially Dubric, and not just the next thing on their list of honey-do's. The aspects I'm showing of the characters, the mystery, the setting, timing, murders, everything, have to play back into the themes. There needs to be progression in both character development/understanding as well as the plot. Things must make sense within the parameters and scope I've set. Any magical elements must be logical and fit within the pre-established constructs. All while moving the narrative forward.

Remove one little aspect... so many others fall. Something as simple as changing a color of a cloak can have a ripple effect throughout the entire story. Things are that tightly woven. If I could change one little thing and move on, plunk out a plot point and move on, do it again and move on... this would be a lot easier. That's not how I'm wired though. I put in a cog, it spins... everything binds up. Try something else... binds up. Turn it sideways, shift gears, replace parts... Once the mechanism starts functioning, I can rip out 5,000 clean words a day, easy. It's the tweaking the mechanism into fully operational mode that's hard.

I dropped a gear somewhere, missed a sprocket... something. Hopefully I'll find it soon. I think I'm getting close tho. Zeroing in on the issues. I hope.

Posted: Sun - June 19, 2005 at 10:04 PM         |

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