The ups and downs of being focused

I’m still busy chugging away on The Sweetest Burn, but last week, I took a couple days off from writing to – gasp – think about the book to make sure that I’m showing the characters, plot and subplot the way I see them in my head. That’s a lot harder than it sounds, believe it or not. I’ve said before that what appears on the page is usually only 25% of what I have in my head. That’s because I know a thousand miscellaneous details that would kill the plot or pacing, should I write even half of them down. So, with every book, I cherry-pick what I show. Sometimes, that results in boring data-dumps that will get deleted in revisions. Sometimes, that results in being too vague and more clarity needing to be added. After all, readers only know about the characters, plot and subplots from what’s on the page, so what seems like an obvious reveal to me might need to be spelled out more since readers can’t read my mind to get the rest of the details ;). This “taking time to think” part of the process doesn’t result in any new words – at least, not while it’s going on – but it results in better words when I’m back at my keyboard.

You may remember from my last post that I tend to be very tunnel-visioned when I’m close to the end of a book. My husband likens it to a form of literary ADD because I can get so wrapped up in the story that I sometimes don’t notice what’s going on around me. This once resulted in my leaving the house without pants on (don’t judge me; I only made it onto my porch before a draft had me looking down and then I ran right back inside!) but this guy might have even more tunnel-vision than me. *grin* Watch the video below to see what I mean.

Click here for a link to the entire story.

Hope you’re having a great week!