I had to make a dessert with slim pickings in the ingredient department, and this is how we get things like cranberry-orange coffee cake with a layer of thinly sliced canned cranberry jelly instead of studded with whole berries. It felt very much like having to incorporate the groan-inducing “surprise” ingredient on a baking competition show, but joke’s on them because I love me a bittersweet tube o’ gloop.
I wish I’d done a yeasted dough (the one I use for cream cheese-filled) rather than a muffin-like cake, which came out a bit weighed down and slightly soggy from the burden of gloop, but it tasted all right, which is always my priority with food. I would even try it again, with the superior dough (and cream cheese if the fridge is better stocked next time). It might also work with more of a pressed, shortbread-like crust and crumble.
I’ve never done anything with canned cran other than eat it with a spoon, but look at me expanding my horizons now. Desperation truly is the mother of invention.
I didn’t change anything substantial in the first three scenes in this bunch. Not because they’re wonderfully and perfectly untouchable but because they’re… fine? I know to worry about cloudy judgment if I’m having paroxysms of ecstasy about something I wrote, but I really don’t know how to interpret “it’s fine.” Is it fine, or has my brain finally discovered a loophole in the judgment-questioning clause of our TOS?
This is why we have editors. Even if it is fine, they can massage something better out of it.
I should probably keep in mind this is the second revision. Not everything in the rough draft was a complete mess, and if not-a-complete-mess has already survived one run through the revision gauntlet, it might actually be up to snuff already. The scenes that got major rewrites last time are technically undergoing the first revision of the new material, so it’s normal for the amount of attention required to be uneven. It is, in fact, a measure of “finished” when the quality level evens out. It would be extremely undesirable for every line to require the same amount of work through the final draft. Clearing out reams of problems is Good, Actually™, not cause for alarm.
OR AM I DELUDING MYSELF? (This is why we have editors!)
I bettered a spontaneous, free-floating decision of Heroine’s by giving it a prompt for her to literally trip over. That falls under the umbrella of “show, don’t tell” or the more durable awning of “dramatize, don’t summarize.” This also went a long way toward addressing my note for this section: The scene break before going into the rooms is awkward. Would anything be lost by skipping/consolidating? Sometimes the answer is more, not less.[efn_note]Always a possibility the next read-through exposes “more” as a gargantuan error in judgment the sole purpose of which is to inflate my enthusiasm for purging what was once an insubstantially harmless imperfection. This is a valid purpose![/efn_note]
Up high and exposed, the wind tugged at her clothes.
Yeah, you probably know what I mean, but as written, the wind is up high and exposed. As it is generally recommended for one to write what one means rather than abusing readers’ tolerance, that can’t stay.
Up high and exposed, she became a plaything for the wind. It tugged at her clothes and fumbled its way inside like an icy-fingered suitor.
I had “lecher” at first, but since I’m committed to making these books free of sexual violence and harassment, I opted to omit even a metaphorical creeper. If I’m setting an expectation when I use “necromancer,” I’m also setting an expectation if I use “lecher.” I don’t want anyone reading with dread in the pit of their stomach (or stopping reading) because I dangled the possibility of encountering some form of sexual abuse later.
Ain’t none. Sick of it. Rest easy on that score.
There’s a sit-and-talk scene in here that still needs more work. Hero should be displaying more… personality? More something.[efn_note]There’s a point in every draft where it becomes impossible to delude myself that this will be the perfect draft. This was that point this time.[/efn_note] I think I’ve given Heroine too little information for her to be willing to draw conclusions, when what’s needed is for her to be wrong. I may have to have him commit to a lie. He’s deeply traumatized and desperate, and I perhaps haven’t let him be ruthless enough in a misguided attempt to make him the “nice one.” I’m going to put a Problem Pin here, proceed as though he has lied to her face (as opposed to the big lie of omission in the premise) in order to gain something (not sexual—see promise above) he believes she wouldn’t give if he told the truth, and hope the nature of that lie suggests itself in the next few scenes. I hate to be doing character development this late in the game, but I think it will be okay because he’s just not filling the space that the plot has made for him? There’s plenty of room for him to grow before there’s any danger of damaging anything already in place.[efn_note]I can, in fact, probably accomplish this by shifting forward a lie he fumbles toward later while she’s badgering him for answers. Same (mis)information, just sooner and more confidently stated. I’ll have to weigh the damage it does to that spot with the benefit of moving it when I get there, but at least there’s a potential solution in the revision notebook now.[/efn_note]
YAY, IT’S NOT FINE!