I’m currently at a crossroads.
I got roughly 3400 words into a scene and realized it just doesn’t work at all. It’s not believable for the characters I’ve created, and it doesn’t even hold up to outside scrutiny – when I read back over, it felt rushed, completely out of character, and like I was just trying to cram through a section of the book (I’m REALLY excited for the next part, because it’s the climax of the book and I’ve been playing that fight scene over in my head for nearly a year).
But I can’t just gloss over it so I can get to the next section. This section is critical for setting up the political environment and action going into the next book. It is crucial I get it right and give it the right amount of space to flesh itself out and pull the audience in. The whole piece probably needs to be two or three times bigger than it is, with more believable dialogue and decision making by my main character who has proven herself to be logical and to think things through completely.
So I read the whole section again. I realized the section wasn’t going to work when I was having the main character inform the group of her plan based on just the tiny bit of evidence she had been able to gather, and I realized if I was in the story and part of her group, I would have laughed in her face and walked away. I thought I could just add more detail here and there, flesh things out, and make it work. But now I realize, I need to step back to the first interaction between the main character and this new group, and start the whole thing over.
So I’m mulling things over in my head, trying to rework the scene, get the dialogue right, and have a solid plan before I jump back into it. A couple of weeks back, I created a one-page outline for the rest of this book. This section, which is so critical, was only two lines in that outline. I think that’s where the problem started for me. As a reference, the next fight was nearly 20 lines in the outline because I have all the major parts so well through out. So it’s back to the drawing board for this entire section.
The crossroads I’m at is that I’ve now spent two days working the scene over in my head, and I’m no closer to having it workable. A part of me wants me to just leave it and come back to it so I can get to the next section. The other part wants me to wait until I get this all worked out so I know exactly how it’s going to feed into the next scene. I’m pretty sure I’ve figured that part out at least, but it may need to change, and then I’d have to rework that part as well. And if there’s one thing I hate it’s having to redo things that I should have just done correctly the first time.
How do you personally handle this?
Would you power through and just come back to it at some point later? Do you worry about not having things tie together nicely if you do that? Do you worry about the next scene writing yourself into a corner with the section that’s weak and needs rewritten?
Or do you halt your progress until you get it where it needs to be in your head before you continue on?