Sometimes when writing one backs oneself into a corner and it’s incredibly difficult to find the way out. I’ve just done that with Path of the Warrior… It’s just entered a vague area between an important character development and the rip-roaring finale, and is in danger of meandering around for its own sake without going anywhere meaningful.
The reason? Well, clearly I’ve gone ‘off mission’. That is, events glibly tossed away in one or two sentences in the synopsis have taken on far more significance, but I’m not sure what that significance is yet. Arse.
The solution? Well, clearly it’s not what I’ve been doing for the last day and a half – distracting myself pimping Space Hulk: The Novel and generally faffing about writing on forums and, well, this post… I need a plan, and I need it pretty quick!
So, I shall explain a bit of my mental process at this stage (in order that writing about it may help me resolve the issues at hand and also mean that this blatant displacement activity ends up with some useful outcome).
The sequence in question is about character relationships, and how they have changed following a fundamental shift in the protagonist’s life. All well and good so far. The problem is, I don’t want this part of the novel to become a simple whistle-stop tour of the other characters, a series of unrelated encounters and conversations that update the reader on the changes wrought but without anything actually happening.
Hmm, what I need is a framework. An excuse, to put it another way, for the protagonist to have the encounters necessary to move his story along and get to the point.
There are a few ways this can be done. Firstly, the protagonist can seek out certain individuals. Secondly, certain individuals can seek him out. Thirdly, there’s always chance encounter (but you can’t really use that more than once in any particular sequence without risking Deus Ex Machina).
Right, so that’s a bit more to be going on with.
I need to outline all of the involved parties: their relevance to a) the protagonist, and b) the plot or sub-plots of the novel.
That’s where the problem might lie, thinking about it. As is my wont, I’ve thought quite a lot about the psychology and character dynamics of the story. What I haven’t quite concluded, and is now becoming apparent, is what relevance those dynamics have beyond themselves. They exist beside the plot, not a part of it.
You can get away with some parts of a story being little side-trips and meanderings, but you don’t want to spend a whole chapter detailing events that don’t actually mean anything to the overall story. And that’s the danger here.
I’ve been going about this the wrong way, trying to tackle the problem head-on. What I need to do is get away from the keyboard, back to the pen-and-paper to come up with something that makes these changing dynamics not only character development points, but also plot factors (or more likely sub-plots).
I’ve avoided doing this because I really want to crack on, time is ticking. As is usually the case, it’s probably cost me more time and distraction trying to come up with a solution through writing than it would have done if I’d stepped back earlier on. I don’t think any of the writing time has been an actual waste – it’s good stuff on the page – but by trying to think and write at the same time, my pace has slowed to a crawl, which really doesn’t suit me and gets very frustrating.
I’ve just realised, this is probably the same sort of problem I discussed in my Converting the Catalyst post, only viewed from the opposite end of the rainbow. That is, my issue at that time was transferring from the opening sequences into the bulk of the story, now I am coming down the other side, getting from the bulk of the story to the ending… Maybe I’ll learn for next time!
Okay, that’s the plan – come up with a plan!
Thanks for listening, you’ve been a great help
Space Hulk: The Novel

