Friday, November 5, 2010

Crit Dare Day 14 - Making The Universe a Little Less Stupid

On critique: I got a long set of comments done for a book I just finished - they are notes in retrospect on the whole thing. I hope they are useful. They are more like "notes" that you give as a script analyst than simple critique.

WIP: Now that the middle of my own book is falling into place I find that rough parts of the end chapters are coming clear. Or rather than rough, perhaps I should say weak. Sometimes, when you are writing an adventure story (especially a light one) there are these moments when something needs to happen that requires some basic stupidity on the part of the universe. The laws of physics are suspended, competent people become drooling idiots for just a few convenient minutes, and God goes off to play golf and forgets to set the Time and Distance Regulator on auto.

That's a rough draft thing. Don't sweat it too much when it happens. If it is a truly embarrassing gaffe, you will think of some way to fix it before you have to show it to anybody. A little change of timing. A better placed revelation. Your characters turn out to be just a little bit cleverer than you planned.

That's what I was doing today. Making my universe a little less silly. (The characters are silly enough.)

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