It's time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you want to join us, sign up on the tab above. We post on the first Wednesday of every month. The organizers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post every month. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let's rock the neurotic writing world!
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.
August 2 question: Have you ever written something that afterward you felt conflicted about? If so, did you let it stay how it was, take it out, or rewrite it?
I remember a conflict of this type that came up during the writing/editing of my first book, The Or'in of Tane. The protagonist, Aden Weaver's grandparents got killed in a battle with the Sasori assassins at the bottom of the garden. Papa Joe and Nana Jeen were among my favourite characters in the story - with a soft spot reserved for the hard-headed, irascible, cigar-chomping Papa Joe. An incredibly distressing scene, their tragic demise made me weep every time I read it. I was upset and disturbed by this turn of events. I didn't want them to die. But what can I say? I'm a pantser and write the stories as they come to me. Utterly "wedded" to the story as it was, I felt compelled to leave the scene in situ.
After the battle, there is a scene in the hospital tree (the Big House) when Papa Joe and Nana Jeen are sitting vigil by Aden's bed, but they are there as ghosts, and only Aden can see them (when he is astral traveling).
Lucky for me and the story, I was in a writing group of two with the fantastic author, Maria Cisneros-Toth, at the time. She said, "Oh no, the grandparents can't die! No way. Don't do it!" And she begged me to bring them back to life. The funny thing was, that's what the little inner writer's voice had been nagging me to do the whole time. But, hearing it from Maria, I could suddenly hear the advice. I knew instantly it was the right thing to do.
I went back and rewrote the scene. Oh, the joy it gave me to save them! Papa Joe and Nana Jeen sat by Aden's bedside after the fight, purplish with bruises and surface wounds but alive and kicking!
Then I was freed to utilize the grandparents at different times throughout the series, and their presence always brings comfort and family history. Thank goodness for Maria - and critique! - that she said what she said, and I could course-correct in time. A word of critique put in early enough can save a story. Because, as was said by someone interviewed recently, it wasn't that the Titanic didn't see the iceberg. They saw the iceberg but were too late to change course enough to avoid the collision. If I had gotten to the end of editing and developing the trilogy and realized, oh no, I made a mistake killing the grandparents - I needed them for this, that, and the other - going back to undo all those threads and add them back in again would have brought on a world of pain. As it was, I made the change in the early stages - with "plenty of runway" - and let the story unfold at the right time in the right way. I'll always be grateful to Maria for insisting in no uncertain terms that I rewrite it!
What have you done with scenes you've felt conflicted about?
Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
*
'We buy into some version of the intentional fallacy: the notion that art is about having a clear-cut intention and then confidently executing the same. The actual process, in my experience, is much more mysterious and beautiful and more of a pain in the ass to discuss truthfully. ~ George Saunders
*
Subscribe to my newsletter by emailing me with "Newsletter Subscription" in the subject line to yvettecarol@hotmail.com
*
No comments:
Post a Comment