The novel's not dead. I could finish it from the present outline and it wouldn't be that bad.
But it should be better. So I'm trying a new outline. And that's driving me back towards the basic questions. Shoe-horning thematic material into what I already had didn't seem to be working. I need to take it apart to much smaller pieces in order to rebuild.
Take that very Munich chapter. I was having fun with my protagonist buying a ticket to "München" and after figuring that part out, still says, "Well, at least it isn't October yet." Oktoberfest of course is mostly in September. The next bit I wanted was she sees someone she didn't expect to see again, everything clicks as she figures out who actually threw her in a well in a previous chapter, and reacts by leaping across a table to tackle him. Then there's an amusing battle-of-competing stories which is less a fight with an opponent and more a harsh lesson on the basic techniques of social engineering.
So, yeah. As outlined, she gets some answers to the central mystery, and she gains some new skills, and it closes the arc of one of the characters. It has an actual antagonist and there is conflict with him. But...
This was intended to be, and I still feel should be, an adventurer-archaeologist story at heart. And there is a lot of variation within that concept but a common core plot module is to go to an exotic place and, despite opposition, solve a puzzle that advances the final goal. (Typical goal being "get the artifact." Whether the artifact is the goal of the bad guys or a way to stop the bad guys or a key to something else with the bad guys getting in the way, there is almost inevitably an artifact center stage).
So. As per the current outline she didn't chose to go to Munich. She doesn't go there hunting answers to specific questions. She doesn't struggle against opposition to solve a puzzle, well, not very clearly. This would be acceptable in a full work as there are times when what the protagonist achieves is to befriend the right person or stumble on a discovery or otherwise advance through the story in other than doing a specific archaeological puzzle. The problem is, the Munich scene as outlined is entirely typical.
I have other issues, of course. Even if I do nothing to the thematic plotting and the creation of concrete antagonists, there are structural problems. The first-act development takes too long, with the plot starting after a lot of extraneous material has been presented. The big crux either happens too early or too late. The story is meant to be primarily Athenian, but switches tracks far too early to spend time in two other nations; settings that largely do not advance a central coherent theme.
I've been complaining about being constrained by geography and time. Places and events are where they are, even if it is inconvenient to the plot. But the current set of problems comes from the current plot structure. I don't have to go to Venice at all, and I don't need to do a big episode on the Adriatic; I could, for instance, fly out from Munich (or even from Frankfurt) and move the ferry scene to the Aegean.
This is the problem of having outlined the mechanicals. The outline essentially said "it should take this many thousand words to get from incident A to incident B, pad out the journey with other incidents as needed."
The first sign of trouble was when the word counts weren't lining up. The second sign of trouble is that I can easily put in enough incident to hit the outline, but that same outline never had specific goals and obstacles that were integrated emotionally and thematically by using specific characters to embody them.
Sure, you don't have to plot this way. Hemingway got a hell of a story out of a man, a boat, and a fish. (So did Melville...well, there were more people on the boat and that's one big fish but anyhow). It is just the strongest plot.
And what's so frustrating is the pieces are there. I have characters who could take larger roles. I have themes which could be made clearer and more concise. And I have settings that are exotic and could be used as proper steps on the quest and arenas for conflict and puzzle-solving. If you squint really hard, that's even how Munich is currently being used. But it isn't focused enough to work.
So I'm stopped while I try to re-plot. If I can find the through-lines then I can do a heck of a lot with juggling and re-purposing scenes. And I will have stronger material to expand the existing scenes and build new ones; at the end of the day my word count won't be so terribly impacted. IF I can solve this...I might still have draft done before the end of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment