Leave Space for Collaboration

Second drafts are curious beasts. You relive the original telling of the tale and see the overwhelming number of flaws. If you're lucky, somewhere along the way you remember why you fell in love with your characters.

For my current project, it took me getting 95 percent of the way through to reach that point. Then I remembered why I loved them. And I realized that, although they end up where they belong, I hate the way they got there.

This is my fault, of course, but that's the beauty of drafts. I can go back and fix the flaws. Not fix them, exactly, but reshape them so that the whole constitutes a more plausible truth. The characters need to earn their place, even if that place is where they ultimately belong.

Petty conflicts won't suffice. These are real people who need to suffer more for my art. They deserve better challenges and obstacles to overcome, so that the conclusion of their story is satisfying.

* * *

I'm listening to Tycho, a chillwave band from San Francisco. It's evocative in the way I like music to be and also the way I like storytelling to be. I appreciate when artists leave space for those of us taking it in to collaborate by filling in the blanks.

Less analytically, their music takes me to a place that I cannot find on any map nor define in my mind. It's a mind-altering sonic drug.

* * *

In my next draft, I need to not only reshape the path these characters take so they end up where they belong by earning their way but also remove the obvious parts. Readers should love my characters the way I do, and the only way that can happen is if I leave space for collaboration.