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Thursday, July 21, 2011

Does a Major Revelation Mean a Major Revision?

     There's something that I've been struggling with as I've been writing this book.  What is the message?  At first I really thought it was just a pure story of entertainment, so does it really need to be anything more than that?  However, as I think about all of the really good books that I've read they connect with you at a greater level than just pure entertainment.
     Now that's not to say that there are a number of good books out there that are still good, but are just an enjoyable read.  Just because that's what they were written to be doesn't make them inferior.  The funny thing is, that when I began writing that's what I thought I was writing.
     Flash forward now to a a few weeks ago when I was really stuck at one part.  My character is struggling between two relationships in her life.  She's truly torn between which to choose.  As I've said before, I've had an incredibly difficult time writing scenes between her and her love interest (well, I guess they're both her love interests , but writing about her budding relationship with the human has had me stuck....alot!).  I actually put aside the book for a good week or so because I really had no idea where to go.  There was even one point at which I thought I should just thrown in the towel.
     Luckily for me, I met up with another author friend who pointed me in the right direction.  We sat down for a cup of coffee planning on just going over a few pages of each other's work.  Our conversation turned to my block on where to go next.  As girls do, we talked and talked (I even had hard time articulating what it was that was troubling me about the relationship with the human character), but she finally said to me,  "Emily, you have to figure out what it is that she is struggling with. What is it that she sees in each of these characters?"
     Then it struck me, this book isn't just a pure entertainment book, it's a book about finding your place in life and about living with the choices that you have made even if they have caused you to loose something you cared deeply about.  Lizabeth had the opportunity to choose and she made her choice, now she has to live with it.  She lost her humanity and she spends much of the book looking for ways to restore it.  That's what Gabriel and Christian represent.  Gabriel represents her choice and Christian represents the humanity that she lost.
     Wow, what a revelation to have HALF WAY through the book.  I'm hoping that this has been in my subconscious all along and that this theme has somehow worked its way in without me knowing about it. (which I think would be better anyway)  In the long run though, it has made writing scenes between Lizabeth and Christian much easier.
     I made a promise to myself (on some advice from yet another author friend) that I would not go back and revise until I finish the book, (This is getting harder and harder by the way.) but now I just hope that when I go back and reread I won't have to rewrite the first half of the book to follow the theme that I now realize I'm writing about.  Oh well, live and learn I guess!

Write well,
Emily