Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Two Steps Forward...



Sigh!
So, I had this great idea and tinkered around with my plot this morning. I started the day with a bonehead move. I left my laptop at home. DOH! It was an odd day without email or teh intrawebs. This gave me a chance to pull out my handy, dandy notebook. Fortunately I never travel without.

I noodled about and then had one of those glorious heavenly choir light from above epiphanies. :cue sparklies: This was followed by more brilliance and suddenly I had this awesomesauce plot twist and it worked perfectly...except...except...oh crap. It required my heroine to do something TSTL*.

Dang it. I hate that. It sounds like a good idea at the time but when you look at it under the lights--not so much. Very deflating.

But!!!!! But the first part of my uber wonderful idea? Still greatness.

Now if I can only pull it off! What false steps have you made in your WIPS?


*Too Stupid To Live

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Mary,

I'm so happy for you- getting an epiphany for your novel.

Good luck with pulling it off. I'm sure you will. :)

Marian Perera said...

Good call on the TSTL moment. It's a turn-off for me when anyone in a book has one of those brain-loss experiences, whether that person is an antagonist or a protagonist.

In my WIP, it's leading to a kind of arms race - the heroine did something smart, but the antagonist pulled an even cleverer trick on her.

Mary B said...

A good one upmanship is always nice. My heroine takes few false steps from being naive and lacking key bits of information. Stupidity is another matter and this twist would have required her to blab an important bit of information to a group of people when she has already realized she is in danger.

No. Can't do it.
But I think I've found a different way to get the same effect as that twist.