The Tourist (3)
13/04/10
I have now reached chapter 70 of my re-write of the first partial draft of my new novel, The Tourist. The process of tweaking (or wrenching!) the prose to fit my revised overall theme (as suggested by the new working title) is going well enough, and I am having fun inserting e-mails, voice mails and diary entries at the end of most chapters (see The Tourist (2) ). But I will soon reach the end of the first draft, at chapter 80, and so must soon face the dread question - How do I end it? In the narrow sense, the plot has reached a point where one infuriated character has threatened violence against another, ostensibly because of very bad actions by the threatened character, against the interests (to put it mildly) of the threatener. The PO’d character is mistaken in his accusation, but still has strong other motives for carrying out his threat. So what to do? Have him do the violence and let the author pick up the pieces of the story - in a real downer situation? Or have the angry guy learn the truth just in time to prevent his attack - with the author left with a climax where nothing happened?
More broadly though, the issue is how to resolve (or leave hanging?) all the interpersonal conflict in a believable way, while still saying something worth hearing about the point of the book. Someone is The Tourist. Why? What flowed from that fact? What did any of the characters learn or become because of the things that happened in the story? What conclusions did the author reach? The readers?
Anybody got any ideas? Any co-authors out there?
P.S. On April 21, don’t forget to bring your talent (or just your appreciation) down to The Launch Pad at Churchill Park United Church, 525 Beresford. Doors open at 7:30PM. The show starts at 8:00PM, and it’s all open mike!
More broadly though, the issue is how to resolve (or leave hanging?) all the interpersonal conflict in a believable way, while still saying something worth hearing about the point of the book. Someone is The Tourist. Why? What flowed from that fact? What did any of the characters learn or become because of the things that happened in the story? What conclusions did the author reach? The readers?
Anybody got any ideas? Any co-authors out there?
P.S. On April 21, don’t forget to bring your talent (or just your appreciation) down to The Launch Pad at Churchill Park United Church, 525 Beresford. Doors open at 7:30PM. The show starts at 8:00PM, and it’s all open mike!
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