Actually more of a serious disagreement. I don't like repeating actions. My weakest scripts were those where I had the characters doing the same thing more than once, just to get through the story. But there are moments of repetition in Place of Safety and I want to avoid it but the actions are too damn important so I'm worried they will look like lazy writing. And that is the last thing I want in this book.
But...they do advance the story. And Brendan is insistent they happen when they happen in the way they happen, so I'm fighting like crazy to figure out how to make them dissimilar while still being similar...if that's even possible. And right now, I don't think it is.
Something else I have to keep in mind is, as horrible as The Troubles were, they did not affect a large part of the population of Derry. Yes, lots of people were killed and probably everyone knew someone who'd been burned out of a job or lost a relative or friend to a bomb or sectarian murder, but there was a lot of There but for the grace of God go I kind of thinking, too. And the farther away you were from the city center, the more likely it was you wouldn't be touched.
I'm not sure if that would figure into the story...or even how. Brendan's first love, Joanna, comes from a background of middle-class Protestant privilege so doesn't see the world in the same way as Brendan. She can't. Hell, he doesn't even see the world the same way his brother, Eamonn, does, and he's only six years younger and raised under the same conditions. He's an anomaly in his little section of life, which causes him a lot of conflict with his mother and even his friends, at times.
But is it so important to have that many viewpoints in a story being told in first person by one particular boy as he grows into a man? Is that too wide a net to cast in order to make the points I know need making? Or am I worrying too much about nothing?
Brendan thinks I'm an idiot to even consider thinking about this, now...and he's right. I'll be rewriting the story for some time in order to find its purest essence, and I think, for some stupid reason, worrying about this now means I won't have to deal with it later. Must be the anal side of me forcing its way forth in an attempt to hijack my forward movement.
Or...is it a new character?
But...they do advance the story. And Brendan is insistent they happen when they happen in the way they happen, so I'm fighting like crazy to figure out how to make them dissimilar while still being similar...if that's even possible. And right now, I don't think it is.
Something else I have to keep in mind is, as horrible as The Troubles were, they did not affect a large part of the population of Derry. Yes, lots of people were killed and probably everyone knew someone who'd been burned out of a job or lost a relative or friend to a bomb or sectarian murder, but there was a lot of There but for the grace of God go I kind of thinking, too. And the farther away you were from the city center, the more likely it was you wouldn't be touched.
I'm not sure if that would figure into the story...or even how. Brendan's first love, Joanna, comes from a background of middle-class Protestant privilege so doesn't see the world in the same way as Brendan. She can't. Hell, he doesn't even see the world the same way his brother, Eamonn, does, and he's only six years younger and raised under the same conditions. He's an anomaly in his little section of life, which causes him a lot of conflict with his mother and even his friends, at times.
But is it so important to have that many viewpoints in a story being told in first person by one particular boy as he grows into a man? Is that too wide a net to cast in order to make the points I know need making? Or am I worrying too much about nothing?
Brendan thinks I'm an idiot to even consider thinking about this, now...and he's right. I'll be rewriting the story for some time in order to find its purest essence, and I think, for some stupid reason, worrying about this now means I won't have to deal with it later. Must be the anal side of me forcing its way forth in an attempt to hijack my forward movement.
Or...is it a new character?
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