The reasons for this blog: 1. To provide basic author information for students, teachers, librarians, etc. (Please see sidebar) 2. I think out loud a lot as I work through writing projects, and I'm trying to dump most of those thoughts here rather than on my friends.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Yesterday I pulled together another set of random pieces, only this time starting where the actual story left off, with the characters heading to bed for the night.

My intention when I sat down was to mess around with the next fun and important (to me) scene, where my MC beats the h#ll out of a guy. To me, everything between the place where the storyline currently leaves off and my MC beating the h#ll out of this guy is just transition. However, I can't just say, "In the morning, the MC woke up and went to beat the h#ll out of a guy," because we need to see the inciting-incident-of-a-character, who's been unconscious for 50 pages and is lying in the middle of the living room. I'm pretty sure the reader's going to want to know if he's waking up yet.

Somehow, instead of messing around with the little piece I wanted to work on, I ended up proceeding chronologically into the story, pulling together more snippets and interactions that I already have sitting around but don't know what to do with. The MC gets up, eats breakfast, talks to the now-conscious inciting-incident-of-a-character, smacks a kid in the face, makes arrangements for the day, threatens the inciting-incident-of-a-character, then leaves. The only new thing I wrote was a couple short paragraphs of character development. But they were productive ones, so that was good.

Somehow I need to figure out where these people go to the bathroom. They don't have running water. I know they go away from their home to do the more serious aspects of their business, but I can't imagine some teenage guy's going to roll out of bed half-asleep, make his way through a maze of rooms and tumbled down walls, and head to a predesignated place in the woods to take an early morning leak. However, their water source is not far away; it's a spring/well, and these people know about contamination and germs. OTOH, I just kind of doubt that he'd do anything but step outside and maybe face a wall. If that much. OTOOH, eww.

Maybe I should quiz household punk #1. He might have some insight.

I also need to think back to the MC's childhood, the place he grew up, the rules and customs they had. That might affect the situation.