author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Yeah. Phone call. Got it written - go, me!

In fact, I'm just about finished with The Prologue, or, more properly, Part I: Air. These are the ten single-spaced pages in which Our Hero finds out that He Has A Problem. I'm almost done writing him up to the realization of the exact extent of that Problem, and the scene will close with him driving back to Seattle knowing he will never be able to leave it.

Scene fades on westerly point of view, the Geo dwindles towards the Puget Sound, sun sets over the Pacific in a rather illogical way considering Our Hero had started out in the early morning and hadn't gone more than 15 miles but who cares it's symbolic.

And then what?

And then my sense of immediate structure dissolves. I know that my character needs a daily life and that supporting characters figure into it but really it's just marking time as interestingly as possible until The Problem Gets Worse.

Once upon a time, I wrote a lovely story of which I'm still very proud, about an angel who lost his wings. I wrote it for college, so naturally it came down to last-minute deadline panic during which I didn't know how I'd ever finish. What finally cut me loose and allowed me to tell that story from beginning to end was structure. I saw how the tale could happen over a week, with both the biblical allusions to Genesis (seven days) and to the Passion (death is explored on a Friday and rebirth on a Sunday). Each day would house one scene, essentially. And so the rough draft was no longer the aimless wanderings of an explorer with no sense of direction but instead an exercise in filling in blanks.

This year's novel does have a structure, but it's a pretty wide one, especially since I'm still reluctant to make any choices about the ultimate forms that the crises will take. That understood, it goes something like this:

Part I: Air In which Our Hero learns He Has A Problem, and we are tantalized with hints as to its Origin.
Part II: Earth In which Our Hero learns to live with his Problem, but is unprepared when the Problem takes a turn for the worse. A Crisis is reached.
Part III: Water In which a short-term Solution is found. Of necessity this solution causes a most inconvenient and unjust situation. The Truth is discovered, prompting Our Hero to make a difficult Choice (but not before enjoying Intimate Relations with a Mermaid; he's had a Rough Time Of It and deserves a little bit of Fun).
Part IV: Fire In which a final Resolution is reached, and our story Ends.

If that sounded a little vague, it's because I don't want to give anything away. If this ever gets published, you wouldn't want me to spoil the plot, would you? I myself have been avoiding finding out what's going to happen as much as possible!

So. Part II is going to consist of quite a lot of "day in the life" style word count padding. And Part III will contain much angst. Any more than that, I'll just have to read it to find out. And to read it, of course, I'll have to write it.

Quick! "Why does a writer write?"

Because it's not there.