March 09, 2004
Rewriting revelations
Today has been interesting. I haven't made much progress in terms of actual word count, but instead I went back and rewrote a scene from the perspective of a different character, and what do you know. I think the scene works MUCH better this way.
I also had a small worldbuilding revelation. (Actually, it might not be that small.) Bear with me if it's obvious to everybody else--in truth, I think it was unconsciously obvious to me, it was just nice to have it float to surface consciousness.
I was thinking about how my sidhe in Exile view death, then thought "Oh! I should make sure it's clear that although they don't age or get sick, they can die by other means."
Then I realized I already had, without spelling it out in exposition. Alex's father is sidhe. He died. Alex, although she is naturally angry and grieving, isn't baffled or confused or shocked that a sidhe would die. It's accepted as a fact of life because of how the characters react to it, rather than because I stuck it in exposition somewhere: "Okay, sidhe don't age, but they can die."
I don't know what to call this technique, although I'm sure someone else has already coined a term for it (in fact, I've read about it before). It makes me wonder what other aspects of my world I've presented this way--and more importantly, it makes me wonder what exposition I can go back and cut in order to present the information this way.
Gods, the more I write (and rewrite), the more I realize just how much I still have to learn. I'm still planning to use Exile to agent hunt, but I swear, if I get an agent because of it, it's going to be because the agent saw some potential in me, not because of my mad writing skillz.
