[Writing] Mirrors
So I've arrived at Chapter 24 of The Persistence of Memories, which I will need to completely rewrite. I don't know what I was thinking, other than that I had to get Matthew out of his cave somehow...he'd been hiding behind his computers for way too long, attempting to keep things under control. He had to be pulled away from the strings he was pulling.
The current chapter has him witnessing a horrifying yet purposely improbable car crash, which gets him out of his apartment, calling the PD to report it (because it's the right thing to do), and in the process of trying to assist or at least calm the victims, he comes face to face with Evil and Mysterious Antagonist Character. Said character does his antagonizing and evilling right up until he gets caught by the PD, who realize they've finally caught The City's Most Notorious Hacker. And the chapter ends soon after when he's subsequently released by none other than the Governor himself, whom he had helped keep the peace in Book 1.
So in short: a really horribly written, half-assed chapter written when I wasn't quite sure where I wanted the novel to go and did the "let's try this, see where it goes" bit. I've never liked the scene all that much...I always felt it was a kludge. It doesn't do anything, it distracts, and...really, it doesn't make sense within the context of the rest of the book.
Then it dawned on me the other day--I had totally the wrong character antagonizing Matthew.
Thankfully, this has to do with something I learned waaaaaaaaay back in the day at Emerson, had completely forgotten on a conscious level, and had been reminded of via a panel I attended at Worldcon (which I will go into in a later post). Long story short, it's my way of dealing with a multi-POV storyline--most every major character tends to have another character he or she is connected to somehow. Caren and Poe (partnered agents), The One of All Sacred and Saisshale (diametrically opposite deities), Governor Rieflin and Ampryss (community leaders), Matthew with Dolan (characters known for throwing wrenches in the works), and so on.
The problem was that I had put Matthew and Saisshale together in this scene...which made no sense. They had absolutely no reason at that time to be working for or against each other at such a level. And Saisshale had already been poking at Caren (because she is the sister of the OoAS) and Poe (because...well, I can't reveal that just yet), and Matthew had already been poking at the Governor (because he had to show who was really in charge)...but neither of them had directly crossed paths at this time.
So yes--this means that I know EXACTLY who needs to antagonize Matthew in this scene.
Now for the hard part--figuring out what the hell to write for this scene. :p
The current chapter has him witnessing a horrifying yet purposely improbable car crash, which gets him out of his apartment, calling the PD to report it (because it's the right thing to do), and in the process of trying to assist or at least calm the victims, he comes face to face with Evil and Mysterious Antagonist Character. Said character does his antagonizing and evilling right up until he gets caught by the PD, who realize they've finally caught The City's Most Notorious Hacker. And the chapter ends soon after when he's subsequently released by none other than the Governor himself, whom he had helped keep the peace in Book 1.
So in short: a really horribly written, half-assed chapter written when I wasn't quite sure where I wanted the novel to go and did the "let's try this, see where it goes" bit. I've never liked the scene all that much...I always felt it was a kludge. It doesn't do anything, it distracts, and...really, it doesn't make sense within the context of the rest of the book.
Then it dawned on me the other day--I had totally the wrong character antagonizing Matthew.
Thankfully, this has to do with something I learned waaaaaaaaay back in the day at Emerson, had completely forgotten on a conscious level, and had been reminded of via a panel I attended at Worldcon (which I will go into in a later post). Long story short, it's my way of dealing with a multi-POV storyline--most every major character tends to have another character he or she is connected to somehow. Caren and Poe (partnered agents), The One of All Sacred and Saisshale (diametrically opposite deities), Governor Rieflin and Ampryss (community leaders), Matthew with Dolan (characters known for throwing wrenches in the works), and so on.
The problem was that I had put Matthew and Saisshale together in this scene...which made no sense. They had absolutely no reason at that time to be working for or against each other at such a level. And Saisshale had already been poking at Caren (because she is the sister of the OoAS) and Poe (because...well, I can't reveal that just yet), and Matthew had already been poking at the Governor (because he had to show who was really in charge)...but neither of them had directly crossed paths at this time.
So yes--this means that I know EXACTLY who needs to antagonize Matthew in this scene.
Now for the hard part--figuring out what the hell to write for this scene. :p