Thinking about what I wrote this morning

[pegkerr]

I wrote about 325 words and sent them off to kijjohnson. She wrote back that she liked what I'd sent.

But all day long, I've been feeling uneasily dissatisfied with this morning's work. Why? I read it over, and think, well, yeah, technically it's okay. Sure, I see several edits I can make, to avoid a repetitious phrase or two. Nothing major. Maybe there isn't anything particularly interesting going on here stylistically. Is that the problem? Hmm. That could be developed further, if I think it's necessary.

As I try to give this scene the most realistic assessment possible, I can feel my gut still saying I'm not happy with it. Why?

It feels too . . . pat. Too glib. Emotions are too easily slotted in. He reveals the big thing. She gets mad--in her restrained Solveig sort of way, I mean. Revelation, reaction, and none of it's a surprise emotionally. I mean, what he is revealing is supposed to be a surprise, and I think that the book will set it up so that it will be a shock. I put Solveig in the position of realizing that a person she was beginning to trust was about to betray her. He's pulled back from the brink saying, I was going to do that, but I'm not going to do that now. How can I make her reaction feel real, unstudied, fresh, authentic? Fully human? Interesting? What does Solveig say or do, so that it doesn't look like The Big Confrontation scene from every cliche soap opera written? (Not that I watch soap operas much, you understand, but you know what I mean).

I'm trying to capture absolute authenticity here. How do I make her feel more real to me (and hopefully the reader)?

Is my unease useful at this point or not? I guess the best thing to do is to listen to my gut, make a note that I might run this scene past several different beta readers, just to capture other people's perceptions of how it's coming across. But I'm experienced enough to be aware that my unease may not be an accurate assessment of any real problem. I haven't written reliably for a long time, and now that I'm getting back to work, it's going to feel strange at first. My internal critic, just emerging from a long and confusing period of writer's block, may still be too hypersensitive in its calibration, and possibly needs to be dampened down further.

But I mustn't let anything stop my forward momentum.

So yeah, mark the scene to remind myself to run it past a few other readers. Remember, as I write, to do all I can to be as honest and authentic as I'm dealing with these people's emotions as I can be.

But most importantly, keep going.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

How can I make her reaction feel real, unstudied, fresh, authentic? Fully human? Interesting? What does Solveig say or do, so that it doesn't look like The Big Confrontation scene from every cliche soap opera written?

What makes her reaction different from anyone else's? In a confrontation there are reactions and feelings anyone and everyone has, but also the ones that stem from our own personal experience, and more importantly, our own secret self-doubts. Has he triggered anything deeper that he can't even realize or suspect? Betrayal is something that is intensely internalized, no matter where the blame lies.

It may also be cliche, but you know those scenes when something like this happens, and the audience/reader just cringes, because they know something the other character doesn't, they realize how much deeper this all goes, because they know this character's innermost demons from previous scenes/chapters. It's a moment that you reconnect and really empathize with the character, because as typical or atypical as the reaction may be, the reader REALLY knows what is going on in the character's head, and why, and will understand the reaction better than the character it is directed at.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

If it were me (and I'm going through the rewrite phase, so I know where you're coming from on the "does this suck?" angle), I'd let the scene rest for a while, continue working on some other things that maybe address Solveig's and Jack's separate perceptions of the situation -- then reread it with a more educated eye.

But definitely, definitely keep going. I love your writing updates, because it's so marvelous to see the process in action.

*cheers for you*

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely keep going.

Besides the other reasons, if there does turn out to be something about Solveig's reaction you want/need to change, the way you'll find it is maybe down the road a ways, yah?

(I have incoherent questions about how much anger there is and whether she turns cold-angry at him [oh, that scandahoovian cold-anger! dangerous sharp ice... in some of 'em, anyhow, though there are certainly the hot-angry ones, and even the cold-angry ones save that for the worst of it and are hot-angry the rest of the time] and what, if any, fear component is there and how that comes out and whether it feels like going under the water.... but I suspect those are the kind of things that I'll learn by reading it when it's all put together, yah? so I shall save 'em until then.)

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I'll echo advice from above. I suspect that your writerly instincts are correct and the scene needs some revision (that's what usually happens with me, anyway...), but right now you may be too close to the scene. Every once in a while I think a scene absolutely sucks frogs, but I'll come back later and find that I was just in one of those "I'm-A-Lousy-Writer-and-a-Fraud" moods and that I'm actually happy with it

Keep going for the moment. Go back tomorrow or the day after and re-read the scene. If it still bothers you at that point, then re-write it.

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

Question for the author:

You seem to be writing in quite small chunks at a time. Do you not find this makes it harder to get it written? I would think that, say you left off in the middle of a scene that was being problematic, it would be harder to get back into the right mindset to carry on writing it? Does this happen to you at all?

The other thing I was vaguely wondering was if you ever get the urge to skip ahead and write a really really good bit that you've already plotted out, simply because you're getting bored with the part you were currently writing? You seem to be unhappy with this scene, and I usually combat that by going off and writing a bit that I really want to write.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I think the problem might be from writing the scene and wanting the emotional punch without having written the stuff that leads up to it. In context, the scene might work, but the reader will by that point know J and S better than you do now.

I'd leave it and see how it feels when you have more things around it.

Good questions, Alex

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I write in really small chunks because I can only steal really small chunks of time to work. I find this annoying, rather than essential to my creative process. When I wrote my last two books, my kids were younger and went to bed earlier. And my husband didn't have to work every single &*@#$@! weekend day, like he does now.

What is extremely different about this book is that I am writing it all out of order, skipping to any scene that interests me. My previous two books were written beginning to end, strictly in scene order. I'm doing it out of order this time to circumvent my writer's block, just to get the words rolling. I find the experience of writing out of order both exciting and freeing--and a little bewildering. But I'm thinking that I'd like to assemble the scraps that I have in rough order and start trying to write a little more in a beginning-to-end direction. That's why I wrote today's entry about trying to figure out where the beginning is. Once I figure out that out, I hope to start working to give the book more of a shape I can recognize it--but with the understanding that I can still step back and skip around to a later part in the book if I find myself getting stuck.

Cheers,
Peg