Stardate 95717.53
I have many problems. C’mon now, they’re writing problems. It took me weeks to figure out my story’s ending and even then I knew that all the pieces weren’t going to be resolved in one book. (Read my prior blog post about that particular issue here). Now the problem is everything in between.
This is something that has followed me from my fan fiction writing days. I have never been able to finish a story – it just keeps going on and on and on and….well, you get the picture. Think about that graphic – the one from high school English or Creative Writing class. This one:
Now this is the most basic of basic plot graph you can find. It doesn’t even have the same word I use in my title. Then there’s this graphic:
I’d say that kind of thing would accurately represent the J.R.R. Tolkien The Lord of the Ring’s novels. (And now the theme song is stuck in my head. Thanks brain). I highly doubt that Firedamp is ever going to be that complicated, maybe that first little bump on the left hand side, but not the twenty bumps after.
It’s that first section of bumps that encouraged me to have not one outline but multiple outlines. I am positive that by the end of this I’ll also have a “family tree” of sorts on my home office wall showing how each character is connected to each other. I would rather have them all connect somehow than to have one random individual off in La La Land dancing around like Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Unless they have a purpose.
And all that’s the challenge of writing, isn’t it? How to not make your novel feel like a cancelled TV show that has a cliffhanger ending that leaves you wondering what the point of even writing it? I always thought that finding the ending was the hardest part, but now that I have both that and the beginning, now it is everything in between. That’s all part of the adventure that I think I’m slightly scared of because they say that you write a bit of yourself into each character. Baring that little bit of soul can be intimidating and you don’t know who can read between the lines.
But you know what? That’s okay. In order to make your characters be ones folks will want to know more about you gotta bare your soul so they have soul. And when there’s that soul you can easily go from the exposition to the resolution.
I know it’s from The Hobbit film instead of LOTR but it’s in my head!
