The Mind of a Writer is a Very Scary Place
Of course there is an outline for the book. The outline is the plan for the camping trip. We'll head up into the mountains, have an adventure, roast some marshmallows and everyone will learn something. Oh yeah, the heroine will fall in love. With a hot guy who smells good.
Then the bear shows up.
It's not every day that I write a bear shows up. Sometimes it's a bear free day and everyone gets to keep chugging along. I refer to the piece of paper on my left. Things happen as planned.
On a day like today the evil twin on my shoulder whispers, "have the old lady run away." So, while the heroine complained to her mother about the bitter, nasty, angry old woman, the old woman over heard. Since a lot of the book is the younger woman finding out that she has a lot more in common with this old woman than she'd like to find out, it's poetic that the old woman takes off. The younger woman panics. (And the hot guy, who is a Sheriff, is called. Ryan Gosling will play him in the movie.)
Now how on earth can a septuagenarian woman in the middle of a rural Southern town make it very far at dusk? It's up to me to figure out how this woman skedaddles and how far she makes it. Who does she stay with and how long does she stay lost? (Answer: long enough for a good, long panic.)
I do stuff like this all the time and it makes every day interesting. I have plopped people who didn't know how to ski at the top of a 3 diamond ski run with "instruments of death" strapped to their feet after they'd bragged about knowing how to ski. I've had a dog fall from a helicopter -- into a bank of powder snow. He lived. (And it's based on a true story.) I've had a woman get drunk trying to drown the spice from her boyfriend's cooking attempt, who also dangled from a mountain side. I've had a kid set his dad's Mercedes on fire, I've had that Dad ride his bike into a moving car, I've had that kid kidnapped. I've had a middle aged book group strip down to their unmentionables at a charity auction when the audience was expecting modern dance.
All of this was on the spur of the moment. Hopefully it doesn't read that way. Hopefully it seems like the well executed plot that couldn't work any other way.
My old lady will live to see another day. All my characters will. I think. For now.
Happy Halloween.
Then the bear shows up.
It's not every day that I write a bear shows up. Sometimes it's a bear free day and everyone gets to keep chugging along. I refer to the piece of paper on my left. Things happen as planned.
On a day like today the evil twin on my shoulder whispers, "have the old lady run away." So, while the heroine complained to her mother about the bitter, nasty, angry old woman, the old woman over heard. Since a lot of the book is the younger woman finding out that she has a lot more in common with this old woman than she'd like to find out, it's poetic that the old woman takes off. The younger woman panics. (And the hot guy, who is a Sheriff, is called. Ryan Gosling will play him in the movie.)
Now how on earth can a septuagenarian woman in the middle of a rural Southern town make it very far at dusk? It's up to me to figure out how this woman skedaddles and how far she makes it. Who does she stay with and how long does she stay lost? (Answer: long enough for a good, long panic.)
I do stuff like this all the time and it makes every day interesting. I have plopped people who didn't know how to ski at the top of a 3 diamond ski run with "instruments of death" strapped to their feet after they'd bragged about knowing how to ski. I've had a dog fall from a helicopter -- into a bank of powder snow. He lived. (And it's based on a true story.) I've had a woman get drunk trying to drown the spice from her boyfriend's cooking attempt, who also dangled from a mountain side. I've had a kid set his dad's Mercedes on fire, I've had that Dad ride his bike into a moving car, I've had that kid kidnapped. I've had a middle aged book group strip down to their unmentionables at a charity auction when the audience was expecting modern dance.
All of this was on the spur of the moment. Hopefully it doesn't read that way. Hopefully it seems like the well executed plot that couldn't work any other way.
My old lady will live to see another day. All my characters will. I think. For now.
Happy Halloween.
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