Saturday, August 29, 2015

Command Decisions

Command decisions must be made on the literary battlefield.

And while the resulting blood and gore, angst and mayhem are limited to screen or paper, their impact is no less agonizing for the story’s author.

Case in point: Thackary.

The skewed homage to my off-kilter life in my novel The Hushing Days has become an albatross around my editing neck. He’s not only weighing the story down in needless tangents, he’s sucking up all my creative time.

If I’m ever going to get this novel to my agent, I have got to keep pushing the chapters from first to final edits in a somewhat orderly fashion.

So, my command decision is this…

Dawdling is out.

Thackary, of course, will remain.

He’s too entrenched in a number of storylines to extricate from the plot tangle at this point. However, his motivations and his inner struggles will remain a backstory to which the readers only see glimpses.

From here on out, Thackary will be a tantalizing mystery whose oddities the audience is never quite able to figure out.

Publishing wisdom states: “always leave your readers begging for more.”

Time to put that axiom to the test.

Until Monday…

Chloe

Post Note: Visiting family will preclude me from gracing your lives with a post tomorrow. Chin up! Your blogger will be back Monday.

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