Curve Balls
I hate curve balls. I'm not spontaneous. I resist change.
("Fun gal!" you're thinking to yourself. I know.)
A lot of us are this way. We like to know where we're going, and we like to be in the driver's seat when we're getting there. Even if control is mostly an illusion, we prefer the comfort of that illusion.
But when we shepherd characters through a book, we get to throw those curve balls. In fact, we must. Because if the character already knows every step of the road he's going to travel, there's no suspense. If he's prepared for every problem, there's no tension. Sometimes we make the mistake of protecting our characters the way we would like to protect ourselves, and the characters are safe. And boring.
Stories are about risk and danger--and they don't have to be physical risks or deadly dangers. A working title for one of my early unpublished attempts at a novel was Things You Can't See Coming. Or was it Things You Don't See Coming? Anyway, you get the drift. Flawed as that novel was (and flawed as its title was), at least by that point I had grasped the importance of the curve ball.
And there's no story without change--or at least the potential for change, the choice whether to change. It may be uncomfortable for us, but it's the heart of a novel.
If a writing project is getting slow, or dull, or sagging in the middle, perhaps it's time for a curve ball.
("Fun gal!" you're thinking to yourself. I know.)
A lot of us are this way. We like to know where we're going, and we like to be in the driver's seat when we're getting there. Even if control is mostly an illusion, we prefer the comfort of that illusion.
But when we shepherd characters through a book, we get to throw those curve balls. In fact, we must. Because if the character already knows every step of the road he's going to travel, there's no suspense. If he's prepared for every problem, there's no tension. Sometimes we make the mistake of protecting our characters the way we would like to protect ourselves, and the characters are safe. And boring.
Stories are about risk and danger--and they don't have to be physical risks or deadly dangers. A working title for one of my early unpublished attempts at a novel was Things You Can't See Coming. Or was it Things You Don't See Coming? Anyway, you get the drift. Flawed as that novel was (and flawed as its title was), at least by that point I had grasped the importance of the curve ball.
And there's no story without change--or at least the potential for change, the choice whether to change. It may be uncomfortable for us, but it's the heart of a novel.
If a writing project is getting slow, or dull, or sagging in the middle, perhaps it's time for a curve ball.
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