Wednesday, September 28, 2005

"MindBlind": Clarity

I'm starting to re-work 'MindBlind.' I've added some more foreshadowing and dropped hints for the fear of discovery Isabel lives with. I've also reconfigured chapter 2 to simply be about Isabel. I think the artificial constraints of 2 scnes per chapter, alternating the 2 main character's points of view was confining the story.

I also think I will expand the number of POV. My main antagonist will have to be a POV character and so will Kennet. I'm starting to think about the scenes where the underground group of Hyper-empaths confront Hallowell. That should be fairly explosive. (Writer rubs hands together with glee. . . )

So I'm getting excited (again) about the story.

---

Current reading: Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen. Man, how does he do it? He consistently writes the quirkiest bunch of characters, the most unlikely of scenarios, the most bizarre coincidences and plot twists. Yet his books have a strange internal logic and are a delight to read.

On the other hand, I recently finished Kathryn Neville's "The Magic Circle". Published in 1999, I found this at a library book sale and since I had read and enjoyed "The Eight" and "Calculated Risk", both 'intellectual' thrillers, I though it would be a good summer travel read. I trudged through this dense novel hoping that it would get better. It never did. The story was jumpy, moving in jagged leaps between historical events and the present with an enormous cast of characters all of whom end up being related to one another in more and more bizarre and incestuous ways. The heroine is unbelivable and the plot devices were obvious and torturous.

So why did I finish it? Because it seems vaguely sacrilegous to not finish a book once I've started it. One of the very few books I've not ever finished was Stephen King's 'The Stand'. My husband assures me it's a classic--he's even re-read the unabridged version.

No comments:

Post a Comment