author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Finally got around to revisions on "Down Wind" today, with the result that I'm confused and annoyed and in despair. Well, OK, it's not that bad, but--this is not simple fix territory. This is hard, frustrating, mind-boggling work territory. And the darn thing's only 1400 words long! Well, 1750 now. Good thing? Bad thing? Unknown at this time.

The story is very short and cycles between three different characters' points of view. Right there we have potential problems. I received feedback that the scene segues were a little confusing; the reader didn't easily clue in that we'd moved from one scene to another. This is probably because I'd tried to be "clever." I was trying to do this sort of pivot maneuver on a word or concept that two adjacent scenes had in common, like referring to the prospect of a character "leaving" somewhere or someone in both the last sentence of one scene and the first sentence of the next. But while I was busy doing this, I was failing, to some extent, to make clear that we had in fact moved on to another character.

Solution 1: White-space scene breaks! ...which, no, because some of these scenes are more like "scenelettes," barely two paragraphs long. Separating them by white space would be just awkward and annoying.

Solution 2: Some sort of "meanwhile, back at the ranch" lead-in to each scene! ...which, maybe, but runs the risk of sounding hokey if done badly. And even if done well, that lead-in would represent a significant percentage of the scene it's part of.

Solution 3: Eff it, that reader who gave me that feedback was just silly and wrong! ...which, well, NO. I'm often tempted to respond that way to negative feedback, and it's really not a good habit to get into. That way lies golden word syndrome and no one wanting to critique my stuff because of all the unhelpful push-back. Not going there, if I can help it! Besides, even if the reader is dead wrong, there's often useful revision pointers to be unearthed in trying to figure out how they got so wrong.

Solution 4: Still looking for one. Probably some combination of all of the above, though, even Solution 3 in careful moderation, in proportions to be determined on a case by case basis.

Also, on the reread I am spotting theme and character depth and other very ambitious things that I want to salt onto the stew, like the idea that the pigeon singularity really is all about keeping things and people together by infinitesimally slowing the expansion of the universe, and can I show that in each scene, and also these people have lives and background and history and can't I show that in each scene by just adding maybe one more sentence per, only it has to be the right sentence that also plays into the keep-people-together theme, and can I maybe do something meta with this, like right in the very structure of the story?

Argh.

Y'all, revision is hard. I do not understand people who enjoy the revision stage. I really wish I did. What I actually enjoy are those couple seconds right as the revision ends. That's the bit where I sit back, all pleased with myself, and say, "Yes, I have made it perfect. Or very nearly so, anyway. Damn I'm good at this." The long hours of brain-wringing work involved getting to those couple seconds, those are not nearly as enjoyable except in the sort of abstract "hard work that I know will be worth it" way.

Breakthroughs tomorrow? I sure as hell hope so.