We all have those moments, the second where suddenly, everything about our WIP just makes sense, even though you've realised that it has THE EXACT SAME PLOT AS THE BOOK THAT JUST WON THE BAD SEX IN LITERATURE AWARD. Ahem. Not that that happened to me last night AT ALL. Nope.
But how do these moments come about? And more importantly, why do they come at the most inconvenient times? Or are you lucky and have a muse that respects the notion that nighttime is sleeptime and that he/she/it should fly away and report for duty at 0900 hours? (If so, please enlighten us all to how you trained your muse. In fact, you could probably write a book on that. And I totally just wrote 'right' instead of 'write'. I REALLY SHOULDN'T BE A WRITER.)
Most of my OMG THAT'S IT moments arise when I do a mind-map. For example, yesterday I was struggling with the structure for novel 1. So, y'know, I decided to punish it by going to novel 2 and starting its plan. Novel 1 and novel 2 don't get along. Novel 1 thinks that, because it's the first-born, it should get all the attention and love, and it's insecure because novel 2 has the most original plot and a clearer direction. Novel 2 really does enjoy torturing novel 1. (Novel 2, STOP THAT. MUMMY LOVES YOU BOTH EQUALLY, NOVEL 1!)
...I'm not a very good parent, I don't think. But regardless, Novel 1 decided to recapture my attention and I sat down and did a minp-map of possible structures. I could go linearly, reach a climax in the middle, and then retrace my steps. I could go completely chronologically and switch back and forth between POVs, but then where would the suspense be? These are the only two ideas that I've ever considered.
OR MAYBE I COULD START WITH THE CLIMAX? And there it was. The Eureka Moment. The moment where Novel 1 decided that it wanted to be written. I'd liken it to marriage, but that would be a terrible continuation of the novels-are-my-children metaphor. So instead, I'll just say that my baby's growing up so fast! *tear*
Tell me about the day where it all just clicked for you. Or make me jealous of your writerly brilliance and teach me how to have permanent eureka moments. (For which I'll reward you with the Eureka Skydeck, the tallest building in Melbs.)
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
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1 comments:
HMMM! My WiP right now took a couple weeks to theorize plot-wise and it's definitely not perfect. It's gone through 3 big changes because the beginning just wasn't working. I knew that it wasn't the place I started it--it was WHAT I started with. So I scrapped over half of what I'd written and refocused on a different kind of beginning and that really worked.
Now I just have small eureka moments, when I'm laying in bed trying to fall asleep and I realize that I could do THIS or maybe THAT. Little pieces start to fall together. It really rounds out my idea and fleshes the plot out a bit more and I'm super excited for it :)
Just wondering how barren the rest of the plot'll seem in comparison if these eureka moments don't keep happening...
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