Having trouble revising? Maybe you should hop on a train. Over the years, I’ve done my best work while riding the rails. Why? Maybe it has something to do with literally being on a track?
Yesterday as soon as I settled into my seat on the 7 a.m. train from DC to Philly, I pulled out my notebook and got to work. I’ve written about 390 pages of a new novel that I love, but that has been suffering from…what?…well, I would have fixed it had I known.
My two main characters have strong, clear voices, but the other people in the novel seem like puppets or props instead of real characters. So, as the train sped along, I wrote the major themes and things that happen in the first part of the book on the right side of a piece of paper, and on the left side I began to write down the major themes and things that happen (including the main character’s epiphanies) in the second half of the book. I began to notice that many things in the second half were a mirror opposite of things in the first half. This was exciting. So I actively looked for changes I could make that would echo this. BAM! I could see the problem: two crucial minor characters did NOTHING for the theme or plot of the book; and because of that, they were pulling the story off track. When I started playing around with how these characters could become the extreme opposites of each other, all the elements of the story came together and it zoomed. I was in the quiet car, so I couldn’t stand up and scream my Hallelujah, but I wanted to.
I’m thinking that the next time I get stuck, I should buy a round trip ticket anywhere.