Plotting Until 1:00 AM | Sherrie Lord
Plotting Until 1:00 AM
Aug / 11 / 2009
“So, which comes first, This, or That?” — This
being the emotional showdown, That being the
physical one.
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Not A Poser
It was last Friday night. About midnight. I was heading for a hot bath when the thought — the question — occurred to me.
I spun around, marched the few steps from the master bath to stand at my side of the bed, and asked, “So which comes first, This, or That?” — This being the emotional showdown, That being the physical one.
I think I startled him. Husband Harry lay on his side, facing me, his arm stretched across the mattress, but he jumped. When he opened his eyes, he blinked a couple times. However, being the hero of MY story, he immediately met my need, saying, “Huh?”
Quite patiently, I repeated the question.
His eyebrows bunched low. “In the book?”
Of course, in the book. What else would take me away from my bath? The water is hot, and my warm milk and current read are in there waiting for me.
His eyebrows bunched lower. “What does it matter?”
What?! I couldn’t believe he said that, as if I — as if every novelist — didn’t plan and orchestrate every conversation, every incident, every emotion to play out at exactly the right point in the plot.
He shouldn’t eat peanuts before he goes to bed; they interfere with his cognitive processes.
Finally, he rolled onto his back, stacked the pillows under his head, and joined the moment.
It’s not easy to plot a book. See, I’ve got This that’s gotta happen, and That that’s gotta happen, but which happens first? Once we talked it out — heard ourselves tell us what we were thinking — it was obvious: That had to happen before This. But then, when That does happen, how do we get the two men there for it?
His eyes widened with a thought. Could mean he just figured out how to do it. Could mean he just figured out why none of this will work.
The idea is to write the hero and heroine into a dandy mess, so the reader gasps and says, “Oh, no.” But then everybody, from my agent to the publisher to all those millions of readers worldwide, expects me to be clever enough to figure out how to get my characters out of that mess.
I don’t get paid enough.
Back to Harry’s bugging eyes: Turns out, he had the BEST idea for how to get the guys there.
Okay, so we have this testosterone showdown. Now, how do we get the GIRLS there?
Ugh. We both groaned. We stared off into space, silently sorting through possibilities. I was certain we were going to have to back up and come at this climax from a different direction.
Harry to the rescue again, though what he came up with was so obvious, so simple, that we laughed at each other. Of course. Duh.
It was 1:00 AM by then. My bath water was cool. My mug of milk was cold.
Harry was already turning over, giving me his back as he adjusted his pillows. “Can I go to sleep now?”
(sigh) Yes, dear. Sleep tight. Don’t have a second thought about me, sitting in the living room with my notebook and my reheated milk, scribbling notes before I lose this delicate thread of plot elements that will write my characters into an Oh-no corner, then write them out again.
Pug Walter joined me for a while, staring from where he lay in front of the bedroom door. When I looked up again, he was gone. I checked the fish tank. Even the guppies were lying among the gravel like they were dead. I went back to my notes.
Perhaps it’s my half of the agreement. That in order to keep the reader up late, turning pages until the night is lonely, the writer doesn’t get to go to bed either. It’s only fair.
Hugs, Sherrie ;-}
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