Sunday, May 5, 2013

One of those Duh Moments...

Have you ever had one of those duh moments?  You know, where you think why didn't I realize that before, like five years before.  Yeah, well, I had one of those recently.  Not today, but I was thinking about it today while I was doing some re-writing.

Problem is that it's going to be hard to talk about it without giving away the changes I've made, but just so you know, it deepens my story significantly.

In my duh moment, I realized that I could have Maggie do something [again, not telling what], and originally I only thought, well that makes the story more complex, but what I realized later is that the something she does finally gives me the reason why the MacAllister curse is broken, hence a better ending.  I always felt like it was cheating to not spell out why the curse gets broken, but I really didn't have a clue myself why it was broken.  [Okay, if you didn't suspect that the curse will be broken, sorry, but don't be silly, of course it will be--plus telling you this gives nothing away, story wise.  Even my stories have a happy ending, per se.  Personally, I think Couillon has a happy ending, but that depends on your point of view about...  not telling, or will give away the story.]

So I know you're asking yourself why it took so long for this duh moment to happen.  I mean, really. Theoretically, the book has been finished for over a year.  But the lack of closure has nagged me for a long, long time.  So go ahead and ask why, but, let me ask this first.  Have you tried writing a full length novel?  Yes, then you know how you get involved with the characters, and they create the story, at least in literary fiction.  Well, this was something Maggie didn't want to tell me, I guess.  Or you could say, since I've never experienced it [thank goodness], it wasn't in my book of knowledge. After all, we write what we know.

I stumbled across the idea while I was reading someone else's novel.  That protagonist was in a situation I won't describe because it would give too much away.  Anyway, while reading, I thought, what if?  [I do that a lot with books and movies.  About half way through a book or movie I either guess the ending, or, in my head, I re-write the ending.]  In this case, I guessed the ending which lead me to what Maggie does, and the answer to why the curse is broken.  Yay.

So part of what I've been doing in this re-write is layering in Maggie's thoughts about what she's done, leading to a much much larger last chapter [or what was the one page epilogue before]--which still has to be written.  The last chapter will also have a short excerpt from Rose's diary, which answers the question about the curse, and reveals to Maggie, at least, why it's broken.  Now I just got to come up with Rose's voice.  And write that last chapter.


1 comment:

  1. Personally, I agree on the "happy" ending of Couillon... since happiness comes in different forms for different people and situations...

    Good luck on the completion of the last chapter... Saturday, I picked up some champagne that is flavored with peach juice and we can pop open to celebrate!

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