fufaraw

When I started Hostage, I was well into the first rough draft, and everything was from Jared's point of view. Jensen was only perceived through Jared's (understandably resentful) eyes, and as Jared was the hero of his own story, he was a faultless paragon, unfairly treated.

The story *was* Jared's, and it was completely understandable that I saw it, at least to begin with, through his POV. But unless Jensen was to be merely a nyah-ha-haaaa! cardboard villain, there had to be a way to look at him through eyes other than Jared's. There had to be some motivation for him beyond arrogance and ruthless acquisition, and there had to be a reason why the people of his household held him in not only respect, but in some affection.

And then I got out of my own way and I simply told Jensen's story: his love of his land and his culture, his care for it, his acceptance of responsibility, for land, culture, and the people under his care alike. His perception and understanding, his will to do what was right--even though he felt he knew what was right, that his traditions were the right way to do things--helped to make him a human character. At least I hoped they did and would.

Giving the reader a view of Jared through Jensen's eyes brought their differences into even sharper a division, and in the end, I don't think I could have finished the story had I not found a way to give voice to Jensen's POV.

For Not All Cats, I had all these distinct scenes written or half-written. I had a chronology, a timeline the story was to develop along. But there didn't seem to be any cohesion between those distinct scenes. Even viewing it cinematically, where the camera cuts from scene to scene, left me feeling the story was fragmented, with some...element missing. And I was also having trouble inserting Jared's flashback nightmares. Until I wrote the flashbacks out, then shuffled them around like puzzle pieces until I realized that in the right order, healing and Jared coming to acceptance was apparent. Once I saw that, I had the spine of my story, to arrange the scenes along chronologically.

For 2016, everything starts out from Jensen's and his family's POV, straight into the body of the story, bringing Jared and the rest of the world in on a chronological timeline. But rereading the draft last night, I realized--again--that opening on a single scene of a dramatic reunion, then starting again, going directly forward into the meat of the story, is the way to proceed. That rather than line up events purely by chronology, bringing them in at strategic points as illumination of motive and behavior will help to heighten suspense, anticipation, and guesswork (I hope) from the reader. The way forward seems suddenly clear. (Beware, there may be dragons!)

At least, this time I didn't wait until mere weeks before my posting date to figure out how to arrange my ducks.

It occurs to me this journal has been both silent and inactive, so here's an update.

My BB is at nearly 36,000 words, with several key scenes and many minor ones still to write, though almost all have at least a few lines of description, narrative, or dialog in place, to be expanded later. Several of the scenes written have too much detail and need to be streamlined. As is usual for me, I'll be removing nearly as much--well, it feels that way--as I add before the deadline.

I have one scene that needs rewritten to reflect a plot change, but I need and want to keep the scene--it's a character-defining scene.

I've decided, after attempting several times to write a linear narrative, to stay with the movie-style jumps from scene to scene. For one thing, it eliminates a lot of boring "and then he said" and "they were out of milk so he went to the store.On the way he saw..." type of irrelevant and unnecessary wordage.Nobody cares. If they can't keep up with the jumps--which will be on a timeline, so it shouldn't be confusing--then they probably wouldn't grasp the story I'm trying to tell anyway.

The story is front-loaded, since that's where most of the conflict emerges, and where most of the characters dealing with the conflict, and working out how to deal is. The back nine is more frequent jump cuts, glimpses of how their lives progress, with not so much explanation and reaction. There are changes, though, that need to be noted as they happen. And my final scene is written. In fact, it was written first of all: the end point. All the rest is how we got there.

Onward.