A Morning's Work
January 25, 2002
6:56 a.m.
The bad news is that I managed very few new words today. This means I'm seriously behind in my quest to finish all the new material by the end of the weekend. The good news, however, is that I did manage to figure out the details of what I think was the last real issue I had with this story. I had been struggling getting into a series of events I had planned, and came to realize it was because I didn't know exactly why the characters would do these things. Yes, I needed them done (or so I thought). But when studied closely they really didn't make sense for the characters. So I stopped this morning and drew a little context diagram--a map that basically lists all the actors in a system, and connects them through the relationships you're interested in studying. In this case, I wrote the main character in the center, and all the other actors outside, then drew arrows representing the problems that the main character had. Turns out that at this point of the story, he actually has seven separate issues he's dealing with, and so his actions have to be influenced by each. It was a very helpful diagram. By the end of the morning, I had a new approach worked out that I believe is both interesting, and driven by the characters motives and desires. Pretty good for a morning's work, eh?  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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