Unstuck - Sort of

Current word count on The Wall of Silence: 43902.

I think I’ve finally managed to find a way out of my frustrating scene. After pondering the matter more at length, I realized one thing - both my groups have their little secrets to hide. Ren and Kittin still believe the Watchers are after them, while Kheril and his friends are on a diplomatic mission which, if the Church was to learn of it, would likely be interrupted through violent means. None of them wants to be questioned about their motives and destination, not by someone they’ve just met, and this wariness, I decided, could very well lead to a temporary statu-quo, a ploicy of “no questions, m’kay?”. It’s logical. It’s udnerstandable. After all, at this point, all Ido wants to do is make sure our two young techies don’t die from their wounds, and all the techies themselves want is to not be caught by the Watchers. I think they can reach such an agreement for, say, a couple days. After this, the pressing questions will really roll in, but not before something else happens.

This said, I’m now deep into a combat scene, and I’m seriously rusty when it comes to these. I absolutely need to put some pressure on my little characters (15 people against, uhm, 5 - among which one is heavily wounded, one is blind, and one is a healer with a strong respect for any kind of life. That leaves Iswann and Kittin as potential fighters. Niiice.). At the same time, even though he won’t use his power to kill/maim/wound/dominate mentally, Kheril is quite the strong man in his craft, and I also need to let it appear that if he stands there in the corner channelling energies, it’s not just to look cool.

Well, back to the fight, then. Let’s see what Iswann will do, now that his weapons are unsheathed.

NaNoWriYe | Niltoy | word count | writing

Frustrations

I’ve just understood why, without me noticing it at first, my writing has somewhat slowed down - and by this, I don’t mean the problems with my dead hard drive, but something more general, with different roots.

I’m currently stuck at a scene I absolutely hate, yet a scene that is essential to the story. The one where my two groups of characters meet, and realize they come from different places, places that shouldn’t be in contact with each other to start with, places about which each involved party has its own beliefs/ideas/legends. It IS an important scene, one that has to happen at some point, since this little bunch of characters wear signs of not originating from the same continent, and it would be totally out of character for them to not ask at least a few questions. On the other hand, my attempts at writing it have, so far, all been pretty dull.

I could distillate the information in-between action scenes, but I’m wary of burdening the reader under too much action, under combat chained to pursuit chained to combat, or anything close to that. I could write your average sit-around-the-campfire evening and have the characters honestly answer to each other’s questions, yet this is a) too much exposition all at once, b) revelations that are spoon-fed too early and too fast to the reader. I’m pondering trying a mix of both methods - a beginning of discussion, followed by an interruption, from which other relationships/a spark of trust could emerge.

In a way, I’m even glad that I’ve ran into this problem: I know that when I manage to overcome it (because I WILL overcome it, I’m not giving up!), I’ll get out of it with a new experience under my belt, and a very valuable one at that.

Right now, though, I’m just at a loss about how to make all of this interesting. * cringes *

Niltoy | scene | writing