The Draft, The Process

I’ve been working on a novel through this year. It came to the point in writing this third draft where it was clear that one plot just wasn’t working. I cut it out.

It’s taken two months of going over the ideas, revisiting the concept at the core of the book, exploring the dimensions of the character and looking at the overall story design to finally, just last week, have the new idea slip into focus.

At first a new character emerged as the foil for this act. She developed depth, becoming more fascinating. Her character was clear but the actions weren’t. There needed something else for her to do that would cause conflict between her and the main character. Two months of ideas that didn’t work for different reasons until it all became clear.

The process is the point. This is not wasted time. It is development.

Now, as I write out the scenes of this chapter, more pieces are pulled into focus. Two scenes that I thought were mostly unrelated but were needed to develop the story now work better as one scene. Because I went back to revisit the core ideas in the book when I redesigned this plot the values in the story align with the new chapter. A passage I wrote this morning sets up an idea that is echoed in a part three chapters later. I didn’t intend it to do that. There are other parts that pull together on the same thread and I can see how they work with the book overall. The ground work in going back to the early foundation notes – and even having written those in the first place – give the new material the same melodic harmony as the rest of the book.

These insights make the writing an artistic work. By this, I’m not holding up my writing as “Art”, but I’m saying that it is human expression. It is a culmination of ideas, inspiration and effort.

This is the creative work. This is the process.