It's late so this will be short but I want to celebrate. I've been revising my novel and I discovered what I felt was an imbalance in a secondary story-line. After reviewing the particular plot line in isolation, I realized a minor character disappeared after the first half of the novel. This is a dear friend to a main character so I wondered, why isn't she involved? Why does my character have her at arms length?
See, once my characters are developed, they have minds of their own and I merely record their story. (Side note, my boyfriend was fascinated the first time I explained that one character refused to be a jerk, a throw away character, or a door mat. He intended to force his correlating female character to face something in herself, no matter what I (or she) wanted.)
I worked on a scene tonight to resolve some of these questions and imbalances. Is there anything more satisfying than writing a scene that not only solves an issue, but does it better than you imagined? I love it when the main objective is clearly achieved but also layers of subtlety are cultivated. I addressed a plot arc as well as a major theme of the novel. It's a powerful scene that FINALLY gets at something my character tried desperately to hide.
So satisfying.
