Season 2, Episode 52: Change, Change, Change
IN THIS EPISODE
This week, Mel finds her own mistakes - the fuzzy pronouns, the over-generalities, what Kemlo calls "the curse of knowledge" - giving too little information on the page because it's all in your head. It might be clear to you, but it's not clear to the reader! Experienced editors will find these things on their own, and it's a good sign when you can read through your own work and pick out common missteps in a first draft. For Mel, this tends to happen in scenes with lots of action - which she happily works hard on - but the little things get forgotten about and need to be filled in later.
Mel's protagonist is having seemingly contradictory thoughts - she's made the decision to leave her brother in order to help save him and other characters in the book, but she keeps thinking of abandoning her plan and returning to her brother. How do these motivations play out, and do they make sense for the character? It can work, but Mel needs to spend more time fleshing out the decision process for her protagonist. The conflict needs to play out in her thoughts, not just her actions.
“You have the first and the second bit, showing her thoughts and what she’s feeling, but not why it matters - once you get there, you’ll be all set.”
Can you include bad weather to ramp up the tension, as Mel has done in her chapter? Sure, as long as it's not the only thing that's ramping up the tension, and as long as you show the characters' reaction to it. Things like weather or descriptions of surroundings can add to the atmosphere (no pun intended) - as long as it's enhancing the scene, and not the only thing your characters are dealing with (unless it's a book about a storm, or a hurricane, etc).
“Message of the Week: we want to be seeing change, change, change - not just externally, but changes in her as she’s affected by everything.”
That's what our readers want to see - how does the story change the characters? Or not? Sometimes our characters are stubborn and refuse to change despite what we throw at them, and that's interesting too - we just need to know why it matters to them, and it will matter to us. Show us what's at stake and what the characters are wrestling with.
Mel's got a character that comes back at the end when everyone had given him up for dead, and while that's fine, Kemlo suggests he take up more space in the story before his appearance. This doesn't necessarily mean he's got to appear sooner, but he's got to be on the other character's minds before he shows up. Make some references to him, show that the characters remember him, show that he mattered so that when he shows up the reader remembers who he is.
