Consequences
Sep. 1st, 2007 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceA couple of days back someone on my f-list (and no, of course I don't remember who) was speaking about the creative process - particularly, I think, the literary process - in terms of progressively closing doors, shutting off options, narrowing choices.
And this is entirely right, of course: every decision you make closes down whole areas of future choice, until finally you're almost running the rails of inevitability, there's nowhere much else you can go now. It's not so much painting yourself into a corner as painting out those areas you've chosen not to go, though it can perhaps look the same from a distance.
On the other hand, sometimes it can work almost entirely the other way around: new choices, new options, whole new vistas suddenly opening up. Almost always, given the way I work, when this happens to me it's because an unforeseen character has just muscled into the narrative.
As, for example, yesterday/today. To avoid spoilers I'm going to go all metaphorical here, to figure the scene without describing it, because this is suddenly feeling significant for the whole run of books I'm working on: but let's say I want my hero to go to the doctor's. And he comes across a mother with a dead goblin child, and okay, she's in a dreadful state and that's reason enough for him to take her to the doctor. Except that (yesterday's surprise) the dead goblin child isn't dead at all, it stirs and looks at him. Now he has far better reason to hurry to the doctor, and I still thought that's all it was about, getting him where I wanted him to be. Child was likely to die anyway, I thought; and it still wouldn't matter, not important. Except that we get the child there and the doctor takes a look and says "That's not a goblin, it's an elf. Hideously mutilated to make it look something like a goblin. Still an elf." Which is today's surprise, coupled with some concommitant stuff I needn't tell you; and you hear those banging noises? That's the sound of doors crashing open, all the way through the trilogy. I suddenly found myself writing dialogue from vol 3:
"You can't have him, he's the voice of our conscience."
"But he never says anything!"
"I know, that's why we need him."
God knows what it means yet, but I love it. Just at the moment, all bets are off and all choices are there to be taken.
[NB - there are no goblins, nor are there elves in this story. I told you, it's a metaphor. Hideous mutilations, oh yes. Those we can do. No child left unscarred...]
And this is entirely right, of course: every decision you make closes down whole areas of future choice, until finally you're almost running the rails of inevitability, there's nowhere much else you can go now. It's not so much painting yourself into a corner as painting out those areas you've chosen not to go, though it can perhaps look the same from a distance.
On the other hand, sometimes it can work almost entirely the other way around: new choices, new options, whole new vistas suddenly opening up. Almost always, given the way I work, when this happens to me it's because an unforeseen character has just muscled into the narrative.
As, for example, yesterday/today. To avoid spoilers I'm going to go all metaphorical here, to figure the scene without describing it, because this is suddenly feeling significant for the whole run of books I'm working on: but let's say I want my hero to go to the doctor's. And he comes across a mother with a dead goblin child, and okay, she's in a dreadful state and that's reason enough for him to take her to the doctor. Except that (yesterday's surprise) the dead goblin child isn't dead at all, it stirs and looks at him. Now he has far better reason to hurry to the doctor, and I still thought that's all it was about, getting him where I wanted him to be. Child was likely to die anyway, I thought; and it still wouldn't matter, not important. Except that we get the child there and the doctor takes a look and says "That's not a goblin, it's an elf. Hideously mutilated to make it look something like a goblin. Still an elf." Which is today's surprise, coupled with some concommitant stuff I needn't tell you; and you hear those banging noises? That's the sound of doors crashing open, all the way through the trilogy. I suddenly found myself writing dialogue from vol 3:
"You can't have him, he's the voice of our conscience."
"But he never says anything!"
"I know, that's why we need him."
God knows what it means yet, but I love it. Just at the moment, all bets are off and all choices are there to be taken.
[NB - there are no goblins, nor are there elves in this story. I told you, it's a metaphor. Hideous mutilations, oh yes. Those we can do. No child left unscarred...]