I’m hating what I have to write tonight. I have a fear of commitment.
There comes a point at which suspense becomes frustration; instead of keeping the best parts hidden, you’re just frustrating the audience. But once you’ve given up enough of the story to the audience, you risk losing the best parts of it: is the moster ever as scary once you’ve actually seen it in full frame on the screen? Obviously, no.
This is the point I’m at: some of the curtain has to draw back — I know this because of the main character: by god, if she doesn’t find some stuff out right now, she’s going to fuckin’ walk out. I can’t ignore her anymore, but I still hate this part.
Up to this point, the mind of the reader does a lot of my work for me: whatever I don’t say they fill in for themselves with the most delicious terrors and boogeymen in their own head. Now I have to shine a light in there and say “here’s the boogeymen that I see”. Some people will see it and say “that’s what I figured” and some others are going to say “eh, I’ll deal with that”, and the rest will just lose interest.
At least that’s how it plays out in my head. I love the suspense, the shadowy zones of undefined space, but if I leave it that way for too long I’ll get to the end of the story and everyone will be writing me to ask what the hell they just read.
It’s the thing you’ve eventually got to do, hoping that most everyone says “well, now that I can see the rest of ride, I’d say it looks fun and I’m staying on”. That’s what you hope. Here’s hoping.
3 Replies to “Where the rubber hits the road.”
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I’m pretty confident that it will turn out to be frickin’ scary, as always. Looking forward to getting back to reading it …
(Well, yeah, of course I read your novel while you are writing it. I mean, it seems like the polite thing to do, right? I read the one you did last year, too …)
*duckin for cover as Dave’s subtext rapidly becomes… text*
I have downloaded Catspaw to my palm to read today. I’ll be doing the same with other people stuff over the week, and offering feedback.
Swear *crosses heart*
:-)