sometimes I think that’s all I ever really do. My personal journals are full of complaining, justifying…

Still working on my rewrite and will be for probably another year. I just know it. In the process of simply trying to figure out plot, character, symbol and theme I had to neglect someting–and that something was description. It’s lacking in my rough draft. What you really have is just the dry bones of a dead animal. You can tell what it is and that makes you curious as to how it got there and what killed it. I think of my second draft as trying to magically bring it to back to life and ask it all those questions, tricking it into telling me it’s secrets.

But, it’s going to take work. In just a few short paragraphs I’m going to introduce my second lead. Problem: I really haven’t thought much about these people in terms of concrete detail–because the best descriptions don’t rely on things like eye color or hair length. So in my draft I’ve never elaborated. Not important–until now. Because now you are in my lead’s POV and he sees this character in his own way–it’s a colored perception, tinted with his assessment. No longer objective. Perhaps more insightful. Certainly the reader will feel his bias. Maybe even share his empathy for her. And it all comes from the words he uses when he describes what he sees.

So that’s where we are today. I’ve got my notebook handy with a pen tucked inside. And a new book comes today even–one especialy about POV. I think I understand it well enough–certainly well enough not to slip in and out. But with two different POV and only two–it will take careful crafting of other elements to be sure they are tied together and relevant at all times, moving as one, not two episodes across a wide sea having nothing to do with one another outside eventuality.