I know I shouldn’t be writing this…

I’m trying to write a crucial scene of The Novel. It’s the scene when the two main characters open their hearts and minds to each other for the first time…

Or rather I’m doing a very good job of not writing it. It’s taken me a few days to realise that what seemed like essential tasks were in fact displacement activities designed to avoid tackling this key scene. Checking Facebook and Twitter, exercising the gerbils, practising ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ on the piano, watching the French Open, writing this blog post…! These are all things I could save for non-work hours, or else delegate to a passing child.

Displacement Activity

I realise I must fear writing this scene because it’s so easy to get this kind of thing wrong. I positively relish action scenes, suspenseful scenes, scary scenes. They almost write themselves. They use a very well-exercised part of my brain – the linear, masculine, step-by-step, problem-solving part.

A conversation, however, particularly between two people I’ve come to care about, is a much more daunting prospect. I fear disappointing the readers, who will hopefully have come to care about these characters by this stage of the story. More importantly, I fear letting down the characters by not being fully ‘in their voices’ – by forcing my words into their mouths. They’re living, breathing people. I’m just a medium for their expression. I need to take a step back, and that’s quite hard as an author, particularly when I have the needs of the plot to consider.

When's he going to get us talking?

I wrote a first draft of the conversation yesterday, and it didn’t go too well. Character B is not behaving herself. Or rather, by being true to herself, she’s not doing what I want her to do. She’s being obstructive. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I should try and bend the plot a little in order to give her some breathing space.

It’s funny, writing this post has suddenly got me in the mood to have another bash at it. Maybe I’ll do that now. Right after I’ve made myself a coffee…