Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Curses, Tarantula Lady!
My lovely wife, Tarantula Lady, has made it 2/3 of the way through my manuscript. I’m still shy of the 1/3 mark. Last night, she announced I had major problems.
Sul, the main female protagonist, has motivation issues. As written, the story has her traipsing off into the wilderness to find someone who may or may not exist (and, even if he does exist, there’s no guarantee he can help Sul) when three of her children are missing. Her ostensible reason for doing this: it’s her only way to get leverage on the bad guys and thereby help her family — MAYBE.
Karen took issue with this.
We brainstormed for over an hour and succeeded in fixing the problem. I’m going to (1) take care of one of those missing kids right off the bat; (2) give a much better explanation why she can’t go after the other two; and (3) give her a far stronger reason for seeking out that fellow in the wilderness. Better yet, these changes will take care of what I’ve felt all along to be one of the weakest aspects of the climax: I pulled all my major characters back to one location for the big showdown. Thanks to the changes above, Sul and Tui (my male lead) now have a far better reason for converging on the same location.
Bottom line, though: I have scenes to axe, others to modify, and others to create from scratch. I’m looking forward to it, though, because I know the end result will be a much stronger climax.
Have I mentioned my vow to write a better outline, next time around?
D.
PS: Surgery today and surgery committee meeting this evening, so this be all my bloggin’ for today, my droogs.
Don’t be discouraged. It’s far better to get 2/3 of the way through the ms and fix the problem than to get all the way through and discover you have to delete half of it because some of it don’t make sense. 🙂 Trust me on this one.
Kudos for getting so far!
Thanks Lili. I’m not too discouraged. The prospect of working on this ms appeals to me far more than the daunting idea of starting the next.
Hey – didn’t I say that about Sul? Or is it on the 1/3 I haven’t sent to you yet?
God I’m sorry to be taking so long to get this last bit to you,Doug.
Hi Maureen. Of the material you’ve sent me, I think the main gripe (re Sul) was that her transition from quasi-villain to quasi-hero was too abrupt. You felt that Cree’s maturation took too sudden a jump, too. I’m not surprised you’ve picked up on the other Sul problem, but I don’t think you’d mentioned it yet.
You and Karen have the advantage of reading this through in one shot. Debi and Edwin, on the other hand, had to read it a chapter at a time, sometimes 2 to 3 weeks apart.
Anyway, I suspect you’ll like the changes bubbling in my head.
You were right, there is so much I didn’t know about you! You’re pretty funny Dr. Hoffman….but I got an inkling of that when you examined my nose in your office one time and told me you were the best paid nose picker in town….so true. Thanks for coming to the meeting last night, you were very supportive and offered a lot of good ideas. Oh yes, I never knew about your furry little insteps either….thanks for sharing 🙂