It is definitely winter outside. Everywhere it seems snow is falling. I thankfully do not live in Boston but I enjoyed having an extra snow day from work yesterday when DC got snow. It was an unexpected snow day. I know the weather guy may disagree but I always wait to see if they are accurate in their weather reports. When it comes to weather for me "seeing is believing." When it comes to life I tend to be a person of faith.
The snow day did another amazing thing other than give me an extra day to rest and relax at home. It gave me the opportunity to finish Chapter Thirty. This means that I am so much closer to the end of my novel. I only have a few more chapters left. Chapter Thirty was supposed to be done last week except there was a flaw in it that needed to be corrected. The time at home yesterday gave me the opportunity to do just that.
I have spoken at length about the spontaneity of characters and the story line. The original outline and thought of a story often takes on a life of its own. It is always exciting to see how the action will unfold even to the writer. Yet, there is still a consistency with the characters and the plot. Unfortunately, when I was writing Chapter Thirty I realized an error in the sequence and characters. As you write each chapter you start by just writing, writing, writing. The problem with this chapter was that it was like I was trying to fit a jigsaw piece into the wrong spot and as we all know you can not force something that does not belong to go where it shouldn't.
Each character has their own personality and motivations. When you are beginning a novel you are developing the characters personality so that the reader can picture how they would respond to a situation. But, when you get towards the end you are focused more on the story and being led by that established personality. We see this in life. I have read many articles on the psychology of a person trying to break bad habits that have become a part of a personality. When I was writing Chapter Thirty though the habits of one of the characters went too far away from their original design that the story stopped. I could not move to the next events because something was not right.
Even when we think we have learned about ourselves and better ways to respond to negative situations we all maintain a core essence. Characters in a book are no different. They are real people in a writer's mind. Those real characters need a consistency of personality that flows within a story. I have many hobbies in my life. I love jigsaw puzzles, I love to read and to write stories and I love art and to cross-stitch. When I work on a picture or a sewing project I follow a pattern either in my head or designed on paper. I have worked on projects and halfway through realized I made a mistake in the design. This is so frustrating that I put down the work until I can decompress from the error and then patiently undo much of the work that I have already done or just leave it permanently because I don't want to deal with going back over the work.
A writer can make errors resemblant to these in the story and that is exactly what I did. The problem is the task of going back and correcting them feels so big that I put the writing down for a couple of days and did not want to look at it. Often in life we want to keep moving forward but the act of having to look back and correct is needed and takes work and we may not want to do it. Yesterday I had unexpected quiet time and when I looked back at the chapter I realized that my mistake was not as epic as I had imagined. I read through what I had written and easily corrected what I needed to and then ended up finishing the rest of the chapter.
Mistakes can seem so big but being able to correct them makes one feel so accomplished. I am ready to move forward again onto Chapter Thirty One.
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