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Written by Paul
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Wednesday, 25 July 2012 08:46 |
This is the part of the story where things kind of slow down, and I always worry about it. The second act of the novel is the point where the lines are drawn, the problems known and delineated, and the characters start to interact more heavily. Also, you usually have a big action scene you just finished and another one coming up. After the next one you will definitively be in the endgame, so you need to get character development in now. But you always risk getting a big dead spot in the middle of the book, where nothing is happening but a lot of talking.
So here we have our main couple starting to work some shit out. I enjoyed writing their arguments and still do, but I wanted to make a kind of statement by having their reconciliation not be a big dramatic reveal or romantic gesture, I wanted them to start fixing their problems by fucking TALKING to each other. That is how real couples in the real world solve real problems = they talk about them. This is not a dramatic way to show a relationship developing, and so it doesn't get much play in fiction. But I kept thinking about the 'romance ideal' in movies, where the guy makes a Big Gesture and the girl melts and they embrace and rub faces in the rain to show how super shmoopy their feelings are. I wanted to do the opposite of that. I wanted to show a working relationship that was 20+ years old and spread it all over the place like a disassembled car, guts everywhere and the parts out on the lawn. A lot of people seem to think that unless they have that giddy first-falling-in-love feeling, then their relationship is broken, and they get this idea from romantic bullshit on TV and in stories. Nobody shows a real relationship, nobody shows the work that goes into something as big and complex as a marriage. I wanted to show that.
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