Weaving A Tangled Web

A challenge for writers is getting caught up in weaving a web of storytelling and losing sight of the story which results in weaving a tangled web. We use charts, sticky notes, notebooks, and vision boards. Then there are the characters that just show up. Mine show up most often when I’m walking to the barn or driving. I hear entire conversations between characters in the car. And they are excellent! But, of course, I can’t write them down, so I hope it all comes back to me when I’m at my computer.

I met a new character a few weeks ago. She’s a wizard living in a cave in the Forbidden Woods. Or, at least, I thought that’s who she is. I pondered why she lived in a cave, not a village like everyone else. Was she the one who was creating the Forbidden Woods? Yes! That was it. She’d been bullied by some other women and decided to show them what evil looked like. She was making the Enchanted Woods die and changing all the critters of the soil into oversized creepy crawlies. That would be fun to write and so cool, but in this story, my gut told me it would be weaving a tangled web if I followed her for too long.

Last night, in that twilight where many authors dream of stories, just before sleep, I wondered why all that mattered to Angelina, Katie, and the others living in the Enchanted Woods. I know it matters to her – her name is Carlina, by the way – but does she belong in this story? And, now that I know her better, I don’t think she is the type to stoop to revenge. I think she is wise enough to dismiss the bullies for who they are and get on with her role in the woods. She’s a conduit to nature. Right now, she has more important things to think about than worrying about what a couple of old biddies are saying about her behind her back. My gut was right.

A good story should be like a perfect spider web, all the strands of the story weaving from one to the other until they all converge at the center. The center is when you, the reader, close the book and sigh with satisfaction. I had created something messy instead of weaving a tighter story web.

Even though rewrites are sometimes challenging, there is nothing a writer loves more than writing!

Susan