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The Knife's Edge
Dec. 30th, 2007 08:30 amAggh! Both my legs are asleep!
Moving on...
I spent last night sticking The Knife's Edge into Scrivener and synopsising each scene. It's depressing, because there's lots of great stuff in there, but hardly any structure. I'm sure it's not as bad as I fear, but I can sum up my problem like this:
There are two spheres to the story, one inside the other (Matrioshka plots, LOL). Inside is the actual character plot, and outside is the Maguffin plot, that which gives the story shape and makes it more than just Oxana whining. Ideally, the story bounces between these two spheres, one reacting against the other. The inside characters just want to do their own thing, while the Bad Guys refuse to allow it. They react against each other, bouncing back and forth, until the inside characters finally succeed in blowing away the outside, and have a party.
In my story, they're just barely connected, and the characters happily go on with their personal problems, oblivious to the fact that something's going on. Corollary: my villianess sucks.
I like what Sarah Monette says here at Storytellers Unplugged about cliches providing built-in plots. On the plus side, I'm not being cliched. On the downside, my plot's not there.
So, starting now, I'm going to close my eyes and pretend the old story doesn't exist, and outline myself a new one with teeth. I'm going to be good and pretend that some of my Author's Darlings don't exist. (Like the big historical painting one of the characters makes that is supposed to be controversial but ends up sending a dozen vague messages and which no one actually reacts to, and instead exists mainly for me to giggle at Vittore modeling as the historical personage he's going to date.)
On the plus side, I've grown so much as a writer that I can very clearly see the faults, and I'm confident I can make it work.
Moving on...
I spent last night sticking The Knife's Edge into Scrivener and synopsising each scene. It's depressing, because there's lots of great stuff in there, but hardly any structure. I'm sure it's not as bad as I fear, but I can sum up my problem like this:
There are two spheres to the story, one inside the other (Matrioshka plots, LOL). Inside is the actual character plot, and outside is the Maguffin plot, that which gives the story shape and makes it more than just Oxana whining. Ideally, the story bounces between these two spheres, one reacting against the other. The inside characters just want to do their own thing, while the Bad Guys refuse to allow it. They react against each other, bouncing back and forth, until the inside characters finally succeed in blowing away the outside, and have a party.
In my story, they're just barely connected, and the characters happily go on with their personal problems, oblivious to the fact that something's going on. Corollary: my villianess sucks.
I like what Sarah Monette says here at Storytellers Unplugged about cliches providing built-in plots. On the plus side, I'm not being cliched. On the downside, my plot's not there.
So, starting now, I'm going to close my eyes and pretend the old story doesn't exist, and outline myself a new one with teeth. I'm going to be good and pretend that some of my Author's Darlings don't exist. (Like the big historical painting one of the characters makes that is supposed to be controversial but ends up sending a dozen vague messages and which no one actually reacts to, and instead exists mainly for me to giggle at Vittore modeling as the historical personage he's going to date.)
On the plus side, I've grown so much as a writer that I can very clearly see the faults, and I'm confident I can make it work.
