Ask The Characters What They Want to Do

Today’s writing was in short, totally awesome. Ten pages, and I didn’t pull anything or make any sacrifices to any Gods, real or imagined. It felt like the good ol’ days, back when I was doing the first book. It’s like I stopped positioning characters and just stood back, turned off the thinking part of the brain (that does nothing for me except spin and throw me off) and the story just played itself out. Threads of plots are coming together, stuff is coming to light. The end is coming, and it is going to be a BANG.

I’ve also been waffling about a certain scene with a certain pair of characters. I went to a lovely writer of romance I have become buddies with for advice (Nancy, AKA, wannawrite). She gave me lots to think about, and chief among them was: see what the characters want to do. Then I remembered, they had to do it for the plot. Damn plot. Well, you know what happens then. When plot gets in the way, the characters balk. Apparently, throw sex at them and they get all agreeable. It’s possible my recent rubbing up against sparklepeaches on AW is rubbing off, because I wrote my first real sex scene. I had imagined it would be nothing but the before and after, but well, I just got in there with them. Now this is fantasy, and you can’t be graphic. Your euphemisms must be beyond euphemistic, in other words, throbbing and swelling aren't allowed. And it is integral to the story, I will jump up and down and proclaim that from the mountain tops. Without the information gained through this scene, things don’t add up.

Coming near to the end of book II, and a breakthrough. And I’m spent....