Creative Writing Course – Week #11
Week 11 of my creative writing course had us feeding back any changes of direction or edits we were planning to make to chapter 2 of our novels, having recently got them back from a first draft critique from the tutor. For me, I think I'll work on the dialogue, and possibly add a new passage which will introduce a new character to the frame. One thing I am grappling with here is the amount of exposition to slip into the dialogue. I hate it when films have characters saying stuff like;
FBI Agent #1: He's gone rogue…!
FBI Agent #2: What?
FBI Agent #1: The agent inserted into the drug cartel is now working alone…
FBI Agent #2: You mean he's working on his own agenda and could possibly have double-crossed us and be working with the enemy?
FBI Agent #1: That's right.
The above parody is not far from the truth in the case of my WiP – hopefully not in terms of the dialogue, but the cops-going-bad theme. I need to show the complexities of an undercover police investigation without pages of explaining.
We were also asked to work on a synopsis for our pieces, and then asked if/how they informed the work. I need to complete mine, but I suspect that once I start working on it I'll find my plot taking unexpected turns. I welcome these kinds of developments, but I find hammering out a synopsis a very taxing ordeal. I think the only way to approach it is to write the synopsis without any regard for its length – ideally they should be a page or a page and a half of text – making sure you have every aspect of the story down, and then whittle it down until it gets really succinct. Easier said than done.
I often read thriller novels, with multiple twists and conspiracies in them and wonder what the hell the synopsis looked like. I imagine it to be like a cat's cradle of interconnecting strands which hopefully make sense at the end. Seeing as a synopsis lays the narrative of a novel bare and can't include cliffhangers like '…but will our hero remember which wire to cut?…' it can make for some serious explaining. You just have to hope the person reading it follows and will ultimately be compelled to read the story within.
Now I'm uncertain: work on the novel itself, or finish the synopsis and then return to the work?
