Kernel of Truth

I feel like these tacos could have been centered better in the frame. Where was this? I'm thinking it was somewhere downtown. Maybe I was on the way to a ballgame. I have no idea, but that's a pretty good guess given the time frame. It's the sort of thing I would have been doing back then. That and taking off-centered photos of tacos.

* * *

A part of fiction I have trouble with—and I'm not alone in this—is generating real conflict. It seems real in my head, but when I read stuff later it feels like everyone is getting along too well. There's also way too much “How are you?” and “I'm good, thanks” that doesn't advance anything other than my boredom at hearing flat characters speak.

Recognizing these problems is a good first step. Fixing them is... a thing I haven't figured out how to do just yet, but I'm working on it.

I need to dig deeper, go to the darker places. I can do that in my head, but somehow I haven't been able to translate what's in my head into actual words on the page. But then, isn't that the challenge of writing, of being a writer?

* * *

Tacos being off-centered in a photo don't qualify as conflict. They're more an annoyance that nags, like flat characters speaking. Where this photo was taken, who it was with, and other details of the affair would be far more interesting and could potentially advance a plot or at least characters.

The good and bad thing is that I no longer remember the circumstances of this particular event. I can guess at them and fill in the blanks with recollections or imaginations of similar events. Use a kernel of truth to feed everything else.