Journey with Gillian: Rewriting Insanity—Problem Solving that Impossible Scene

Gillian Adams blogs over at Of Battles Dragons and Swords of Adamant where she writes about anything related to books, fantasy, villains, and costumes. Her book Out of Darkness Rising will be published sometime in 2014. She loves interacting with other writers and readers on her blog or facebook page.

I’ve heard it described this way: understanding comes through learning from your past mistakes, wisdom through learning from the mistakes of others so you need not repeat them, and insanity through making the same mistake multiple times and expecting a different result.

That worries me.

You see, I’ve been writing the same scene for a week now, and I’m already on the fourth rewrite. It followed pretty much the same pattern each time. I’d sit down determined to pound out the next scene and I’d get three … four … five pages into it, and then read back through it all, and throw up my hands in disgust. Failed again.

Wise authors will tell you to turn off your inner editor until you get through the first draft. I’ve tried it before, and for me, it works up to a certain point, but after that if I’m not content with what I’ve written, there’s no earthly way I can move forward with the story.

So I go back. And rewrite. And get stuck writing the same scene three or four times in a row.

Insanity?

Sounds like it. I’m about to start typing my fourth draft of this scene, and I think I’ve finally figured out what I was doing wrong the past three times. So, if you feel like you’re going insane because you can’t figure out what’s going wrong with your scene, stick around, you might learn something from my mistakes. Wisdom, right?

1. If you can’t picture it, you can bet your last dollar your readers won’t be able to either.

After my second re-write of the scene, I realized that I couldn’t really picture the scene as I read through what I’d written. It’s a tough scene to write—a massive battle—but while there was a lot going on, there wasn’t much broad description so readers would be able to picture it in their heads.

Not only that but I didn’t have a clear picture in my head of what it should look like.

Red flag.

If you can’t picture the scene as you write it, you won’t get the necessary visual points onto the page, and your readers will be lost.

2. Make sure you start in the right place

It wasn’t until I finished the third rewrite, that I realized I’d started my scene about four or five paragraphs sooner than I should have. Too much description. Too much backstory. Not enough action.

Red flag.

If you feel like you can’t get your story off the ground, chances are you started the scene too soon. Erase, cut and paste, and start it closer to the action.

3. Don’t get trapped inside your character’s head.

I write in third person POV. It’s just my favorite, the one that comes most naturally when I sit down to write. And it’s important to be in deep POV where everything you describe and show is filtered through the character’s eyes and thoughts.

But it’s a balance. You don’t want to get trapped there.

I realized on my third re-write, that I was stuck so deep inside my character’s head the story was getting bogged down by my character’s thoughts/perceptions/emotions … with very little action … in the middle of a battle.

Yawn … Boring.

Red flag.

If you notice that your story feels like it’s dragging, your character’s inner reflections might just be stealing the show. Cut it short and jump into the action.

4. Make sure you’re in the head of the right character.

Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Nope, not really. To determine the correct POV character for a scene, you want to pick the character who is most affected by the events that are happening. And it’s not always the first character that pops into your head.

I got done with my third rewrite of the first four pages of the scene and sighed in relief! It was working. I’d done it. So I closed my lap top for the night and went to bed.

I do a lot of my story brainstorming in those first fifteen minutes when I’m lying in bed trying to fall asleep. Somehow, the things I’ve been puzzling over in the back of my brain all day long just work themselves out … and then I fall asleep and hope I remember them the next morning. J

But that night, it struck me like a bolt from Thor’s hammer …

I’d written the scene from the wrong POV character.

The scene felt wrong because my character was observing things happening in the prelude to the battle, rather than having them happen directly to her.

Red flag.

If your character is observing for long periods of time instead of acting, you might be in the wrong POV.

Random side note: You do want to be careful when you add a POV character. In my genre, epic fantasy, it’s easier to get away with having multiple POV characters than in others, because it’s almost expected. People are used to it, and a lot of times, you need it to tell the full story. But you should never add a POV character just for the sake of adding one.

So, I hope you can glean wisdom from my mistakes … and I can learn through them and gain understanding … And I sure hope the fourth rewrite of this scene finally works. If not, I can always plead insanity, right?

Are you stuck with an impossible scene right now? What are some steps you take to figure out the problem?