breakthrough

I had been feeling really anti my book for the last couple days. You know the whole, "this sucks, why did I think I could write?" drama, and I couldn't figure out why. I was really happy with the last chapter and was thinking I was on the way to some really good stuff then all of a sudden I can't bear to write it.

It took some serious thinking (or okay, total distraction by playing the Sims) before I finally realized what the problem was. The next scene I needed to write was boring. It was going to involve sitting around having a long conversation full of necessary exposition and since so far the story has been unfolding at a fast pace - so fast in fact that I've wondered if maybe it's too fast - it was really going to slow things down. Once I figured that out, it actually made me more depressed. Oh no! I thought. How did I take such an action packed story and turn it into this?

It was another day of moping at my overall suckiness before I remembered one of the most important rules of screenwriting (which I think applies here) make the scene interesting. If characters have to talk about something, put them in the middle of something exciting. And that's when I knew. A car chase! My characters need to shout their exposition at each other in the middle of a car chase. It actually works out much better in the overall plot development too.

I can't believe I almost had them sitting around and talking. In a basement. Whew! Maybe I'll break 30,000 words and the halfway point this week after all!