Revisiting, Revising, and Jumping on the Bandwagon

Part of writing a second draft is discovering when to rewrite parts you loved. And in this case when I say loved, I mean parts about love. I have a nebulous relationship with romance in novels. On one hand, I believe that it's part of life and needs to be written about. If I profess that I'm writing mainly about different types of relationships between people, I can hardly leave out romantic love. However, I feel that sometimes books and movies (especially movies) build up unrealistic expectations of what love looks like. 

Fantasy is walking that fine line between making something fantastic enough that you forget about real life and putting in enough reality that you can relate those self-same fantastical events. (Excuse while I wax poetic.) That means that romantic scenes should be magical enough that they hit at someone's heart while not allowing the cynics to get too, well, cynical. So as it's February 12th and I've been seeing nothing but Valentine's Day posts online for the past two weeks I might as well jump on the bandwagon.

I wrote a Kalynn and Rafi scene a while ago where they had their first kiss. (Oh hey spoilers.) I want the two of them to have some sort of romance although I'm not quite sure what it will be eventually. However, the first scene I wrote was unrealistic, slightly random, and now that I'm a bit wiser, seems just a little foolish. This past week I went back and kept the setting, kept the timing, and updated their dialogue and actions. 

The scene feels more real now, more them. I understand Kalynn and Rafi better as people and I understand just a little bit more about relationships as well. I'm sure this will not be the last iteration of this scene but it's certainly a step in the right (or write) direction.

To read the scene go here and look for the bolded title "A Longer Excerpt".

Words of Comfort, Words of Wisdom

I've posted about authors before and I will continue to do so because reading about those who have done what I am trying to do is not only inspiring, but a way to learn. Recently, Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket to most) interviewed this year's Newbery Medal winner Kate DiCamillo. The whole thing is amazing. It's always fun to see two authors talking to each other because they compare notes, war stories, and generally entertain each other and us.

My favorite question came at the beginning of the interview when Daniel Handler asked Kate DiCamillo what her favorite part of writing was. She answered, "...I am most happy when I have an idea of the shape of the thing [story] and can settle into the work of making it better. That would be somewhere around the third or fourth draft..."

I can't even begin to express how comforting it was to read that a Newbery Medal winning author doesn't feel comfortable with a story until the third or fourth draft. After working on a story for three years and being somewhere around draft 1.5-1.75 (also known as confused but working hard) it is good to know that the more I write one thing the more it will come together. It's been hard recently to just keep writing because I need to make sure scenes fit in, and that nothing contradicts, and that everything makes sense. Writing can end up being more work than fun and it can be hard to remember why you love it.

Then you read an interview by two of your favorite authors and it all comes rushing back.