I am in a particularly difficult place in my story. This is the area where my editor said the story fell completely apart, because the plot made no sense. The specific issues I cannot get into, but I can summarize it by saying that the characters could’ve saved themselves a lot of hassle by having a conversation. There was no reason not to. There was no reason for the rest of the story to take place as a result. So, now I am trying to fix this error and make things make sense without forcing things to make sense, all while trying to craft a handful of realistic character arcs that align with the story and the people in that story.
So, I’m stuck. I am locked down on a particular scene that could reframe the way the story is told, because of a handful of character choices. There needs to be a confrontation here, and there needs to be some action. I don’t entirely have a smart plan to leverage both of those things together, but as I write this blog I am realizing that it needs to happen in the singular moment, which means I am slowly coming up with a plan to do that in my mind.
Part of this will mean starting the arc of one of the primary characters (100 pages in) who has been at the most a secondary character or foil to the group throughout. He needs his moment and meaning, and this is the two-chapter area where it can go down. If I am good enough I will try to portray this as two primary characters moving in separate directions as a result of what is initiated in this chapter. We will see how it goes.
Storytelling is a lot like knitting. You are brings disparate threads together in order to create something beautiful and tangible. As I work back across this novel I am realizing how much I still need to learn about doing that, but also how close I am to seeing the full picture of what the story threads look like on their own and how they could fit together in any story. When I finally get around to writing my version of “the book on writing” I feel like I ought to call it Story Weaving (or Story Threading) and carry that metaphor forward.
It just makes sense as to how I see it.