Saturday, March 26, 2016

Finding a Story, Part Eight

Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and Seven

There is a certain point in most of my time-constrained stories, and we have just reached it. It's the point where I realize that I took a wrong turn somewhere, and I have to backtrack to a point in the story where it still made sense, and take a new path from there. It’s like a choose your own adventure story, except instead of ending in your horrible demise, the bad endings just drive the plot into the ground and leave it there to writhe in pain. We slowly back away from those versions, and try to find a better path.

The dialogue is the real issue right now. People can't seem to decide what they know and what they don't. I think the problem is that instead of having action with some supporting dialogue, the characters basically sat down and chatted. It's not working. Not at all.

Last week I shared an excerpt, and I think somewhere around the end of that is where things started to go wrong. There is a piece of dialogue that I liked, but I don't think I worked it in very well. Normally I don't edit until after I'm done, but sometimes you have to make a preventative amputation. Otherwise, this terrible plot direction is going to fester and kill the whole story.

So this is a bit of a setback, but it’s all a part of the process.

After reviewing the story, it looks like I'm only backing up about half a page. While this seems like a good thing, it also means I haven't really accomplished much lately. But I'm determined to finish this thing in the next week, so I really need to sit down and get it done.

So here is the plan. I have a few plot points that I need to hit, so I need to work out an outline. Once I have a skeleton, I can put some meat on those bones and fill in the blanks.

I know everyone is probably tired of hearing about this story. I'm right there with you. But, I said I would write it, so I'm going to write it. It will all be over, for better or worse, by next week. Then we can finally move on to something else.

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