So I continued to write chapter 8 last night. And kept
feeling…’this isn’t very good…’
What choice do I have at this point, as a kind of
pantser? I can scrap the words and start afresh, and hope things take off
differently the second time. Or I can analyse why I’m feeling disgruntled with
this piece of writing.
If I choose the latter course, I can ask: why does what’s
happening in the this particular chapter seem all too familiar? Haven’t I pursued
a similar path in one of my others books? Characters heading off somewhere
in some sort of special machine. Without knowing where they’re going.
Yes, this does seem too familiar. If I was a reader of
this series (in the proper order) I’d be thinking, He’s doing the same old
thing again, and possibly I might toss the book back on the shelf, or drop
it in the returns section at the library.
There's also a sense of the twee about chapter 8. That
is, the magic is all a bit too cute, especially for a book that started out on
a drastic and life-threatening note.
It feels too cosy. The characters are
settling into doing what they would normally do. And not only doing it, but
being given the chance to do it by the author in the guise of one of the other
characters.
The end result is, if I’m bored, the reader’s going to
be bored. And they won’t be asking why.
What about the other approach I mentioned: scrapping the main idea
behind the chapter? This means writing something new, of course. I’ve done it
before – in The Disenchanted Wizard I often went off in the wrong
direction, and had to drop sections that were twee or cute or cosy or whatever.
The Archives folder for The Counterfeit Queen is full of rejected
chapters, chapters that were just filling up the gaps. You have a sense for it
after a while as a writer. You usually feel something’s off, but you’ve forged
ahead in spite of that and now you realise you took a wrong turn.
So, back to Jail and don’t pass Go. Counterfeit Queen not
only went back to Jail without passing Go, she found a whole new way to start
the book, a way that tied everything together in a much more satisfactory
fashion. That occurred somewhere about year three, I think.
In Andy Martin’s book Reacher Said Nothing, he
details how Lee Child goes about (or used to go about) writing a new book. He would
start on the same day each year (a bit of the superstitious) and write an
opening. It might consist of only a few paragraphs. These would include an idea
he had in mind, but hadn’t developed in any way. When I say ‘idea’ it might be
barely an idea.
Then he’d go off and do other things. He probably wouldn’t
write anything else for a few days. He’d let his subconscious go to work finding
points in what he’d written that had potential to create mystery and thrills.
Which says to me, Don’t be afraid to leave the book
alone for a few days. Even this morning as I lay in bed thinking that I wasn’t
much impressed with chapter 8’s progress, I already had a thought about a different
approach. As this point, mid-afternoon, I’m not much impressed with that
either. Time to let things simmer for a day or three.
In my next post, I’ll look at a couple of other options for
when you reach this point, options which may help to lead you forward.
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