Thursday, August 20, 2009

Brainstorming vs. Head Banging

My revisions are stuck have been stuck in the sludge. A scene in Chapter 12 needs a major alteration, and this change will affect scenes in several later chapters. Every time I think of a way to fix A, I see what will happen to B and realize that what must happen to C won’t work.

I’ve been banging my head against the monitor instead of brainstorming.

Yesterday, I compiled a list of who, what, why, where and how questions pertaining to the sequence of plot events. I started typing answers. When I ran into problems, I added additional questions. If the problems persisted, I started a new set of answers at one of the previous questions, and color coded the solution threads to keep them straight.

The result? I have a plan. I still have to write it, and sure, it might not work, but at least I’ve escaped the sludge in Chapter 12.

4 comments:

Lori Van Hoesen said...

It's processes like you describe that make me question my choice to be a writer of novels! Yeah, I'm pretty sure you can't escape the plot domino. Kudos to you for doing the tedious work. :-)

Ann Finkelstein said...

Lori:
You're a great writer. Don't forget that. And the process I described wasn't that tedious - especially in mulit-colored text.

Casey Something said...

Congrats on crawling out of Ch. 12 sludge. I hope it works as well as planned when you get it down!

Ann Finkelstein said...

Casey:
Me too!