In life and in art,times of change can be the most important moments. When we move from one act of the novel to the next, from one book to the next, from one chapter of our lives to the next, we find ourselves balancing as on the edge of a knife, careful not to look down in case we lose our nerve, hoping to find the right way to step easily and cleanly from one world to another. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes the move is smooth, almost effortless. Other times, we fall and have to pick ourselves up, and start all over again.
Our characters help with these moments of transition. As we move from act one of a novel into act two, our characters can keep the story alive for us as we continue to build the mountain that is our plot, as we follow it up the trail into the unknown. And when we look back over it, and find that the transition was not as smooth and as effortless on the page as we had hoped, our characters take our hands and lead us back to the true path, the reason we began the novel in the first place: love of their story. The love of telling a story well. A story is not told well with only one draft. We have to hone it, over and over again, until as much truth as possible comes out of it. Transition after transition, we finally find the balance we seek, and have a novel that we can be proud of.
…our characters take our hands and lead us back to the true path, the reason we began the novel in the first place: love of their story. The love of telling a story well.
Beautifully said. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Thank you Char 🙂 I love musing on the Muse