Finding the starting point in a novel is like finding the entry point in a dungeon. The scene is a door, chapters are fortresses, and books are comparable to national borders.
Lately, I've been reading about Dungeons and Dragons through the rulebooks for version 3.5. I'm on my fourth one. I've also been watching Critical Role on Geek and Sundry's channel (an awesome show, by the way). Using what I've read and watched has helped me write my latest novel because of how similar writing a novel is to playing a tapletop RPG. I was struggling for several days recently because of my inability to find the starting point for the next part of the adventure.
Specifically, it happened when I was revising the 13th chapter of Journey to Chaos book 5 (ttentatively called, "The Highest Power"). This is the second draft. My heroes need to get into this highly secure place for a rescue mission, but the place is the HQ for an elf who is very rich, very old, and highly values the security of this place. How do they get in?
1. Do they use stealth, and finds a means to hide themselves from the many security devices?
2. Do they go the sudden and direct approach, and hope that they can punch through the many layers of security fast enough to avoid being pinned down by this guy's personal army?
3. Is it possible to negotiate with him? He is, after all, a guy who likes making deals, and they have a few things he'd be interested in.
As players around a game table might debate this, so do the characters. Except all these characters are me, and the debate is in my head, or on my computer's word processor. It's hard to draw a line between those two sometimes....
I could have used several pages of one character proposing an idea only to get it shot down. I.E.
--> "We could try X"
--> "No, that wouldn't work because of Y"
--> "Well then we could try A"
--> "His B would make that impossible."
I also considered writing a scene of them scoping the place out and testing areas, but then I immediately shot that idea down as well with "the elf has thought of that too".
I needed up going with "none of the above". The way into this highly secure facility was actually already written. I put it into the manuscript half a dozen chapters ago for a different reason entirely. I never thought it would be mentioned again. Yet, once I realized that it could be useful again, it was like "ding!" I love it when that happens. That is Organic Growth in Writing (which is another blog post topic).
Questions like is "the door locked" or "is the corridor booby-trapped" are comparable to choices like "how does this scene advance" or "who should say this particular line of dialogue that is necessary for plot advancement". It is helpful if the questions align, such as "the rogue checks for locked doors because that's their skill set" or "the elf ranger should check for traps because of their keen senses." but it is also useful in other situations.
If your detective doesn't have a certain department of knowledge for a particular case, how does he find it? Does he have a friend, does he do research, or do one of the suspects or witnesses have the necessary knowledge? Maybe this is how the Odd Couple/They Fight Crime plot line starts.
The same line of dialogue spoken by a romance heroine's father has a different connotation than if it was by her best friend. If they are both in the scene and either one could say it, which one? Perhaps the line of dialogue that you think is necessary to move discussion towards a needed subject is too artificial and you need to overhaul the entire thing. This happened to me in the same chapter as the planning stage for the rescue mission that I mentioned three paragraphs ago, and I had to overhaul the entire thing. You could say that I arrived at a false door and so I had to look for the genuine entry point.
As I write this, I am walking down a passage towards the completion of chapter 15.
Brian Wilkerson is a freelance book reviewer, writing advice blogger and independent novelist. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
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