I usually don't like to put a whole lot of detail into my outlines. It's quite vague and generalized, but Cherry Blossoms had to have some rigidity to it. Normally I let the vagueness keep the overall ideas in my head and let the characters play. It can get a bit hectic as the writing will usually discover new paths and new story lines to effectively trouble the path, but I like to, and want to, maintain a lot of motion in what I write. I have always felt that if you make your key marks in the story too rigid, your characters and plot can feel shoe-horned in. Characters make decisions that don't necessarily gel with the way the story has been going, rather than letting the story and key points shift to fit where the characters would "naturally" choose. This changes the endings dramatically at times, but I find usually for the better.
When I started writing Blood Talon, I knew what I wanted in the ending. It would be ship to ship, and I had the climax crystal clear in my mind. However, two chapters before this battle was to take place, I realized I had the wrong characters going onto the wrong ships. I couldn't make the story work the way I had originally envisioned the battle because I would end up killing characters I didn't want killed. So I reworked the ending, because the characters were actually on the right ships, my ending was wrong. My ending had the right idea, but it didn't take into account how the story would unfold.
Today, I finished Chapter 9 of Cherry Blossoms, and when I had it in my head, the scene played out with an initial burst into crowded streets, then the characters popping their heads up over the crowds. I was going to have multiple characters involved and a lot of running around. When it came to actually writing it, I stuck with only two, the chaser and the chased. It simply made more sense. I'd actually envisioned this chase years ago at the inception of this story, though not nearly for as long nor as involved. The actual writing also had to be tapered for the reader, compared to what I envisioned. To my mind's eye, the chase could last fifteen minutes in a movie, however in writing it the descriptions become quite repetitive. Trying to maintain a quick "pace" in storytelling to match the pace of the two men meant cutting down on descriptions, leaving my list of word choices very short. As a result, what seemed like a good idea visually, didn't translate as well on the page without making drastic changes to my writing style.
The actual chase was shortened from it's intended ten pages to five, with a lot thrown out because, as I was writing it, it was clear that anyone trying to do the things I envisioned would be so tired they'd not last half-way into the intended scene. Some realism was needed and less of a "movie reality" that would seem "cool," but highly unrealistic.
I'm mostly pleased with it. I say that mainly because I know when I get to the rewrite, I will go over the scenes with a hammer and what is there now will not look the same later. Still, the groundwork I am happy with. And it allows me to move on to the climax. This was like in those old cartoons where a small snowball is set on the edge of a hill, then rolls down it constantly getting bigger and bigger. Parts 1 and 2 were packing the snowball up and setting it onto the top of the hill. Chapter 9 gave it the initial push towards the bottom.
David Barentine
www.wotps.com
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