A Perfect Day

Hi everyone,

Today, I worked on the outline for my new novel and the revisions for The Search for Magic, plus doing another page of micro-tension revision for Destructive Magic while I’m waiting to hear back from agents. So a very productive day.

For the outline, I discovery wrote how my characters interact with the setting. They are looking for something. I wanted to see how they would react to the obstacles I imagined, how they’d try and get out of it. What kinds of tension the obstacles and solutions would give rise to. Any arguments between the characters. Also are the solutions they come up with doable or the best solution. Are my obstacles believe, too weak or impossible to overcome. I have to leave this sit for a couple of days and then re-read it. Stuff that sounds great now, might show up as deeply flawed later. A solution that’s stupid or an obstacle that makes no sense. I need a tiny bit of distance. Not much, just a couple of days.

In the meantime, I picked back up the plan of the missing scene in The Search for Magic. The tricky part of this scene is to make it happy and conflict-free for my main character but yet contain conflict. I want this to be a high point for my main character in terms of her being accepted, having ‘found her people’. A moment in time that is ‘perfect’ without the storm cloud that’s usually following her. Freedom from emotion, or rather from negative emotion. I want her to feel this freedom. This means that the conflict must come from the other characters and this conflict must make her feel even more intensely that she belongs and has found her people. It must be the thing that sparks off this moment of emotional freedom.

Tricky.

I have the conflict of the other characters sorted. I just have to write it and see if it does the job. If not, I’ll have to come up with another conflict to spark off this perfect moment. So a semi-cooked plan. ‘Al dente’ really. Some things are nailed down but others are still not there. I’ll discovery write it tomorrow so that maybe the other illusive details will cement.

I, also, sent off one query letter.

Finally, I added some micro-tension to my Destructive Magic draft. Not hard. Only eleven words. Warring emotions.

That’s about it for tonight,

See you tomorrow.

Happy Writing.

Joanne.

Micro-revision draft: page 19