Monday, June 23, 2014

You cannot leave the keep...

I'm still having trouble with the next scene. I know where this is going; I know more or less what has to happen to get us from where we are now to that point. And what needs to happen is, basically, that Roberr gets blocked from leaving Langoish Keep. He says, "I'm going to go get us a weapon that would let us win," and everyone else says, "You can't just go charging off to do that, and it's far more likely to turn out badly than you even begin to think it is."

Problem is, the first three times I've taken a run at writing that, it comes out... flat. Bloodless. Boring. The summary version didn't seem to do it justice as something that Roberr would perceive as a major stumbling block. The arguing-in-council version was worse; I don't really think of dialogue as my strong suit, and this was like listening to your local city council meeting: if you weren't involved in the issue yourself, it would be unbelievably boring. The version where Roberr tried to recruit Brother Wend to help persuade the others is probably the best, but it's still basically the two of them arguing; it offered some reasonably interesting exposition, but ultimately it just bogged down.

So instead, I think I'm going to read back through what I have so far, and see what - if anything - flows naturally into the next place.

But hey - if anybody wants to suggest an approach, I'm open to alternatives... up to and including the possibility of having Roberr and Miledha go ahead and try to retrieve the Great Gauntlet; there's plenty of potential for conflict that way, too, including an all-too-probable I-Told-You-So moment with the rest of the advisers.

Hm. You know, I might just try that.

Anyway, suggestions: if you have 'em, sing out.

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