I know there's still snow on the ground and more forecast in the near future, but I swear that I smelled spring in the air yesterday. And with spring, a male writer's mind turns to thoughts of ... love scenes. Ok, not all the time. At my age, I need a little bit of time in between writing such scenes. But in my work in progress, I'm getting very close to determining what kind of story I'm really writing. Is it a love story or is it a tale of love gone cold?
It has all the makings of a love story. There's thousands of miles of distance, rancor between family members, young kids who tell it like they see it... It opens with death. Love story all the way!
Here I am, 35,000-words-plus into the story (with lots of holes since I've kinda leapfrogged over some of the important 'What the hell is happening?' stuff), and I'm about to print things out so I can literally cut and rearrange chapters and scenes. It's not the way I handled my first novel, but this one feels different and feels like it needs some back-to-basics "storyboarding" tactics.
I'm not sure this will work, but when it comes to love, I've found that you never know exactly what will work until it doesn't. I've got to be myself and let the shreds of story fall as they may.
How do you approach a crossroad in your story?
9 comments:
I love the idea of printing out the story so you can rearrange it - awesome.
My vote? Love story. I like my happy endings :)
Storyboarding love scenes could be interesting.
Go ahead and let the shreds fall!
Thank you both.
I find in interesting what pieces fall aways and which ones stay. Sometimes in the end the parts you thought so integral are sometimes the ones lying on the floor and the subtle scenes become the turning points.
Makes me think I should get back to my romance at some point. I at least need to get my attention to my YA novel. ;)
Good point, Lisa. Knowing my packrat tendencies, I suspect I'll have little bits of paper that I hold onto for further consideration.
Matt, writing about love and experiencing it in real life are one in the same. There is no guarantee of how it will turn out and you are constantly beseiged by unexpected turns of events.
Cut away, rearrange in old fashioned fashion and tell the story begging to get out.
Best of luck!
Thanks Cat! :-)
I'd have to agree, with both love and writing, you sometimes have to deconstruct and then make it new. I think that's pretty much my approach to life. It also keeps the possibility for reinvention open all the time, which I think is really important creatively and romantically.
Well said, Caroline. I've mostly been a constructor, but there is a certain part of me that needs a little deconstruction to get the juices flowing again.
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