Day 211

Spoiler Alert! May contain planning-stage plot/character details or other spoilers!

03 Jun 2017

Basically failed yesterday; going out for some fresh air turned out to be a brutally pointless exercise as the cottonwood poison is out in full force and I spent the rest of the day barely able to keep my eyes open. I know it’s not very artistic or environmentalist to hate trees and nature, but… evil, evil stuff, it is.

I’d hoped to finish substantial rewrites yesterday and do a last quick once-through today, but stalled out again just heading into the climax. There are lots of ways to end it, most of them emotionally involving, but whether it’s that I haven’t quite hit on the right one, or the plot and story arc are too clouded by all the revisions, it doesn’t quite flow through the way I think it needs to. So I pulled back and filled out the plot worksheet, which I have worked through something like in the past, repeatedly, but since I change it every single time… yeah. It helped, maybe? This time round I came up with a whole revenge angle, which is interesting, but also derails things and would make for a major revision that I don’t have time for. I think I need to cut some ideas, or at least get clear on what’s primary vs. subplot, but agh! I thought I was way past this point and nearly finished!

Interestingly, this time round I was able to see more clearly how Cole’s initial goals and damage (driven by the desire to be accepted/good enough/not a failure) do actually feed into the entire plot, despite a ‘story goal’ of bringing down the Tower. Thus the revenge angle; I think it could be very emotionally honest for her to work out at some level that her motivation to save people (altruism) is really selfishness and essentially a desire for revenge or to take down the system she can’t ever win under. But then I have this whole thing about connection woven in, which is related but maybe too tangential? And all the threads don’t quite weave together for the ending. So she’s realized her motivation is selfish, despite looking good on the surface, but then she committed to it for more altruistic reasons? To the point of being self-sacrificing? But realizes things aren’t that simple, that self-sacrifice hurts others?

And then there’s the issue of rising stakes, where it’s as clear as it should be how things get worse as they go…

Saturday

Start Time: 11 am

Location: Abbotsford; home; chair

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