I’ve been, since the romance writer’s workshop, working on a storyboard of my novel so that I can rewrite with some sort of a clue. At first I thought my slow movement was stalling, was self-sabotage, was a sign of alien possession — I didn’t know why it was going so slowly, nor why I was becoming more despair-ridden with each work session.
Tonight I was too tired to work on it, too bleah to care — so I did anyway. Good for me.
And I discovered something. Let’s say that there are two main storylines. A is the action line, B is the romance line. The book, originally, went:
AAAAAAAABBABABABABA
BBBBBBBBABABBAAAAAB
Okay, so a little bit of shuffling would fix that, but it was too simple, too short. It needed something more than a walk-through of the plot, so I added conflict; I is the investigative storyline, P is the deep soul seeking storyline. The complete first draft of this novel went:
AAAAAAAABBABABABABA
IIIAPPPIIIPPPPIIIIA
BBBBBBBBABABBAAAAAB
The I’s and P’s couldn’t be shuffled into other parts of the book because the first line led to the I and P line, and the I/P line leads to the third line — and is violently ended before the third line starts. The upshot is, I have two stories; one I start and then dump, then tell another. I complete the second one, then go back to the first long after any sense of continuity is gone.
Well. No wonder there’s been some problems with the rewrite. And it would explain what I noted a few weeks ago, that my major plot points seemed to belong to different books. They do. They are. Two novellas, one nested in the other.
Good grief. When I complete this book, I will be able to write ANYTHING.
Like everything you do, this book is either going to end up brilliant, or an ungodly mess.
And like everything you do, I can’t wait to see it either way.
You say the nicest things. 🙂
I am an explorer of the human poles of existance; anything less thant he superlatives fails to interest me….
I used to sit and watch ants coming and going, carrying and hunting and doing whatever ants do, relentlessly. I also used to poke a stick into the hill once in a while, just to see them shift their patterns in response.
Watching you is more fun. You’re nearly as relentless and I don’t need sticks to watch you shift.
Wise Woman
And I’m bigger, so I’m easier to watch.
I’m ergonomic, that way.
It worked fine for Roadmarks and Pulp Fiction.
And Doorways In The Sand. But not for this, sadly.
*thinks*
Hrm. I do tend to begin a story and have to suddenly back up for its basis, so maybe that would be a more natural way for me to write.
Hrm.