Mary Catelli's Erraticly Updated and Exceedingly Ill-Organized Journal

Revising -- backwards. Not boldly forth.

The new ideas are for things that have to go before the point that I reached.

At some point I have to consider whether I'm stalling to avoid that scene.

sigh

Ah those scenes. Half a dozen things have to be done, by people whose intentions include none of them. Particularly not info-dumping.

But things like the heroine's dropping some knowledge in the middle so that they revise their plans to shove off the problem customer on the newbie.

Or the heroine's brother is talking with the king when she arrives with the prince, thus letting it be known what plans the king is making, when no detail is needed.

And they require careful and subtle orchestrating of what is said when, so as to give everyone motives.

sigh

It's not enough to devise a background for my two main characters to have their conflict against.

I have to weave them together. In particular the timelines. The endings work together nicely, since their final happy ending is when the political situation is settled, and they are rewarded.

But several incidents on the way are just them, and no politics. They still have work together, and not as if I had set them up.

grouse

The heroine leaves her parents to go on a pilgrimage. Somewhat later, she returns with a husband and twin daughters in tow.

Now, historically, this is a commonplace thing to happen. Even rather short in term. The trick is conveying it.

sigh

In one story, all the threads have to be gathered up for the conclusion.

In the other story, the love interest has to reveal the horrible past to the heroine.

What fun.

Events are moving. Forward in the outline, backward in the outline, out of the outline entirely.

I think I didn't think this part through clearly enough.

Ah history. At some point, the love interest gets to explain to the heroine the history of his world, with particular reference to some vicious wizards.

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Went back to rework the opening and make it a firmer foundation. Had to know how the heroine discovered her powers up front to work on her making more subtle discoveries.

Am discovering bits and pieces that do not add up.

The heroine chooses which way to go based on severely limited information. She is going to have to learn what was the other way at some point -- in particular, because she meets some people on the way, and they had to have a reason to be there.


sigh

Plugging along into action. The hero thinks he has rescued the children, not realizing he has fallen into a trap, and he's about to lose them again.

And then I remember I thought the next scenes would be in winter. Which means that they would be winter here, or at least late fall. Furthermore they were outside during the semi-rescue so they would know it.

sigh

I suppose there could be a gap in time between this scene and the next, but not too long because that would reflect badly on the hero. Except, oops, it can't be even that long because of what the villainess will do.

One point of revision is to find the points where you were not clear before, because now you can read what you wrote, not what you thought you wrote.

The downside is that sometimes you have no idea what you wrote. And those, of course, are the cases where they most need to be cleared up.

sigh