The past few days have been something of a series of epiphanies for me as a writer.
The final one came just last night, while working on the final section/act of my novel. It should be an exciting climax, where our young heroes get to fight great beasties and dark wizards in epic duels for their lives. Should being the operative word.
Unfortunately, it is, I've realised, terribly dull. When I read my editor's notes on the sequence last week, my heart sank. What did she mean, 'boring'? When I re-read it, I was befuddled. Boring? How? I asked myself. When I wrote it (and subsequently edited it) it felt so exciting, what happened?
I thought long and hard. For days. And I still didn't get it. Cognitive dissonance raged. Confusion reigned. Scapegoating. Name-calling. Gnashing and wailing of teeth. I knew I had the answers, I just couldn't process them coherently.
So I asked Claude and shared a couple of paragraphs.
Simple, replied the bloody knowitall. You're a screenwriter, correct?
Yes. Some 30 years of that parish.
There you go. It's boring because you've stepped out of your character's mind and started simply describing the action. Now things have got exciting, you've defaulted to what you know best, and written a screenplay in prose form. It didn't add 'You complete numpty,' but it might as well have.
I shook my head. I blinked. What dark magic was this? Then I remembered one of my editor's comments on reading the first draft. 'You write like a screenwriter.'
Then I read the three words that nailed it:
You need to keep it immediate, not remote.
I looked back at my 'prose'. I had completely stepped out of the main character's head at the critical moment and written a fast-paced action sequence worthy of Oscar consideration. But it wasn't a novel any more. And it was BORING!
That's me busy rewriting for the foreseeable...