Why?

It's the hardest question to answer, and the most satisfying when you finally do.

There is a scene in Book IV that I have been banging my head against the wall trying to figure out why it hasn't been working for... well, a while now. Ahem. I rewrote it, rewrote it, and it refused to work. I truly didn't know why, but I just could not make it work. So, I had to sit down with it and dedicate time to trying to figure out why without looking at it. I stepped away from my computer and moved to a different environment completely, and gave it a good think. 'What is the problem, why isn't it working?'

Then I figured it out. Explaining would be spoiling, so I won't go into any detail, but it involved taking my own advice, and the problem ended up having nothing to do with the actual content of the scene itself. I simply hadn't done enough work laying the groundwork for it. So I went back and planted some seeds, and now it's much more satisfying. It plays now. It sounds so simple, but novels are massive, sprawling things, with weeks in between events that you the reader bridge in only minutes. It's sometimes hard to keep it all straight, and being on Book IV, even harder still.

So sometimes, pouring energy into endlessly fiddling with something may not be as effective as coming at it from a different angle. But the answers don't always come. If I had less experience, I may not have realized what the problem was. This is Book IV of this series, my fifth novel overall, and it still took me forever to figure out. So don't be too hard on yourself if you can't make something work. Sometimes you can't, and you really do just have to chuck it and start over! (Done that already).

Writing books is a process, and not always the same one every time. Adapt and persevere. 'Why' is hard, but rewarding, and worth asking.