Talk it out

A few days ago I had the opportunity to talk to a friend about what I was writing.  Now, I talk about what I'm writing all the time.  "I'm writing an article about such and such."  "I'm writing a novel.  There are werewolves.  Right now I'm writing dialogue."  "I switched to first person today.  Here's a blog post about it!"  But I don't often get into the nitty gritty of plot problems.

I was sitting in the coffee shop, scowling at my computer and dramatically sighing and groaning--not really looking for attention, but if there's someone at the table with you, you can make noises without the people at other tables giving you the side eye.  But it (obviously) caught the attention of my friend across the table, who asked me what my problem was.

"This fight scene isn't working."

And instead of "Ah...Well...Power through?" he said, "But you're good at fight scenes!"  And then he asked me questions about it, and I started explaining details. 

What I generally do in this situation (and what I'm going to do for you) is to be vague.  I was having trouble because I needed to hit a balance between way too easy for our heroes and comically ridiculous to the point that they'd never survive.  This doesn't seem like it would be too hard, but it felt like if I made it difficult enough, the action went on too long.  Maybe I needed something to mix it up?  Maybe I needed to make the mission easier, but have there be more henchmen?  Less henchmen?  How many henchmen can I reasonably get away with before this place turns into a clown car?

But the other day, I just explained what was happening in the scene.  "Dude A is doing X, and they have to keep the hordes of bad guys from killing them while he finishes."  And we talked about it, and it was great.  I didn't have all the answers when we were done with our brief conversation, but I had the start of a plan, and I felt better about the whole thing.

The other benefit was that I had to verbalize what the problem was, making it clearer in my head and easier to approach.

A lot of people don't like to talk about their writing, because if they explain it, they lose interest in writing it.  I don't have that problem, but I'll often not talk about my work because I'll get embarrassed half-way through the conversation and I'll back out saying, "I'll figure something out."  Then other times, I don't want to bore people when I know my verbal presentation of a situation won't be nearly as good as if I have it written down.

But I think there's something to be said about brainstorming with another person.  One of my favorite things about he "post as you go" method of publishing stories is that you get immediate feedback.  People will often tell me where they think the story will go, or what they hope will happen, or "don't you dare do this!"  I don't take their ideas and write them without changing them, but their thoughts will often spawn something.  They'll light a fire that burns into something unrecognizable.