A Little Help
November 5, 2001
7:19 a.m.
"What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know it's mine."   Sometimes the best thing you can do to understand what's going on with your own work is to talk to someone else about her work. I'm using the feminine pronoun in the last sentence because for the past week or two I've been having one of those long & winding e-mail conversations with Lisa Silverthorne--you know, one of those low impact once every other day or two things where you think about your comments for a little, then dash off a tomb that feels like War and Peace. The topic has basically been "theme." Now, to me, theme is basically a high-falutin' word for "What the heck this thing is about." Maybe this is because I really haven't thought about it much, or at least not enough to come to a different conclusion. But I've been thinking about it a lot this past few days because of the discussion I'm having with Lisa, and I've found a lot of her comments quite applicable to the book I'm working on. As of the weekend, here was my problem: The book as finished in second draft is fine, except for the fact that I think it's really two stories. So I've spent the past month or so considering how to break it into two pieces that work. On the face of it, this isn't really hard. Material is readily available. Characters abound. Yet, for some reason, I have had a hard time getting the enthusiasm I needed up for it. Part of it, I'm sure, is all the real world stuff going on, both the 9/11 and the tree on the house thing. If I wanted, I'm sure I could point to those and say those were the cause of all my problems. But that wouldn't help anything because that would be avoiding the issue. The fact is that I've felt pretty lackadaisical toward this work for a while. I didn't really know what the problem was--but I knew I needed to fill some plot holes in some places, and I knew I needed to create some activity in a few places for the story to support itself. Still, it was a little difficult to get myself actively engaged in this. Despite knowing what I wanted to do, I was having ... uh ... motivational issues. But I've bee talking to Lisa about theme, and I've been thinking. And then she wrote a single line that made everything fall into place. "Sometimes I don't know what a story is about until I'm done with the first draft." No offence to Lisa, but this is not the most earth-shattering sentence ever uttered. It is, in fact, a sentence I have probably said a few times myself. But sometimes the sagest advice is the most basic, and in truth I had kind of forgotten about this concept. But good friends (as I recently wrote in a story) are like a thousand flashlights. Lisa came to the rescue. Reading that phrase gave me one of those little tingly things at the back of my neck that said I should think more about this. So I did. And about Friday I sheepishly came to realize what I was missing. I was missing the point. This came as a total surprise to me, because--you see--I figured I already knew what the heck I was doing. I've written two drafts, so I must know what the heck I'm writing about. right? I wasn't really prepared to have to get back to this basic level in order to move forward. But, of course, I wasn't really thinking too well, either. The astute out there will realize that since I'm going to break this thing into two separate pieces, I might need to look at each piece as its own separate story. So here was the problem stated in a nutshell: While I know beyond a doubt what I'm doing in the whole, I hadn't really considered the purpose or meaning or theme or whatever you want to call it of each section. When I thought about it from this perspective I found that I had some real decisions to make. And when I had decisions to make, my blood started to boil again. And when I started moving characters around in my head to implement some of those decisions, other problems started to rise up and new solutions presented themselves. And those solutions created new ideas, and new situations. And then ... Well. You get the point. It took a little more than a weekend, but I'm finding myself excited about digging into the book again. I'm done with the bad guy "White Paper" (which was very valuable, even if I really didn't know why it would become so) and I'm moving though the high-level outline today and probably tomorrow. I'm finding myself wondering what's going to happen on the page as I move into the creation stage. I think I've learned something again. So, thanks, Lisa. I owe you one. I usually don't even read such things, but here was my horoscope yesterday: After a long, troubling period, an atmosphere of normalcy is finally returning in your private life, allowing you to concentrate more on your career now. It won't be particularly easy, but with a jump-start from some of your friends, you can get things moving again in this area of your life. This will be exciting, as well as a tremendous relief from your recent travails. The best thing you can do for yourself is to fill yourself up with anything remotely novel around you. The more of the unknown you introduce into your thoughts and plans, the more productive you ultimately will be. Have a great day.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"In making up a story, the tale's purpose is not necessarily the starting point. You may not even know the purpose until after you have finished inventing the tale. But there must be a purpose. Without a purpose--or without a purpose of significance--the story becomes trivial." Barry B. Longyear |
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