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Writer's Blog: Weaker in Context
🕑 Added 2022-03-19 01:45:59 +0000 UTCLet’s start off with the good news: another one of Mind Blind’s endings has been fully written! My wordcount currently tops 670,000 words in my private build, and this only includes parts that are coded! My feelings of accomplishment are so profound and excitable as to require exclamation points to end of my sentences!!
The bad news: I deleted Chapter 4’s new phone call with Hope. I loved this scene. Adored it. Button got to be vulnerable/angry/sad clown, and Hope got introduced earlier. I was excited. Jazzed, in the way that actually had me doing jazz hands over my keyboard. (Seriously. I wildly gesticulate when excited.)
Until I did a playthrough.
. . . And that scene? The scene that had made me tear up because yes, I’d somehow manage to hit the perfect mix of poignant and funny? The 8,000-word scene that took me days to code in all its glorious variations?
Yeah, that scene sucked.
Independently, it was fine. Great, even, which is why I’d been so happy over it. But when read as part of the chapter’s larger whole? It didn’t work. At all.
Having a phone call with Hope made the entire chapter drag. It felt lethargic. Nick’s condition, and Button's desire to see him, no longer came across as a priority—instead, Button (and thus, the reader) was being lured back into Chapter 3’s family drama. Hope’s presence diminished Nick’s, and dude is in a coma so it’s not like he could give me much to work with in order to take front stage. Having Hope in this particular chapter, without bookending her presence between lighter scenes, simply didn’t work. It turned an emotional scenario into a soap opera.
There was also the issue that Hope’s call could be immediately followed up with a second phone call from one of Button’s three possible chauffeurs (should you choose not to visit Nick). Since Button can reject two offers before settling on a ride from Lev, this meant that the bulk of Chapter 4 was just . . . a lot of phone calls. Which is not something I’d ever want to read and was horrified to realize that I’d written. A superhero inspired mystery, and the protagonist spends half a chapter on back-to-back phone calls? It was boring.
Last but not least (and perhaps most importantly), I realized that Hope’s prior absence had been important. The Wiseman family, regardless of Button’s unique relationship with either parent, is broken. Hope not being present on page emphasizes her physical absence, whereas introducing her at this point in the story meant that she became overshadowed and ultimately diminished by the high-intensity scenes before and after (Aeon’s explosion and Button’s later farewell at Nick’s hospital bed).
I attempted a few variations to fix the problem, but the end I was left with a single hopeless conclusion: Hope had to go.
(Hopeless conclusion, heh. See what I did there?)
Cuts like these, which require deleting passages that I’m genuinely excited about, are always the most difficult for me to make. I fight tooth and nail to keep them in, because gosh darn it, I like that particular sentence! But editing requires that every single scene be in service to the larger whole—no matter how good a scene may read individually, sometimes it doesn’t fit within with forest. And today, I had to cut down a redwood.
That being said, I’m working to incorporate aspects from Hope’s now-deleted conversation into Chapter 5! When Button comes down to converse with John, they’ll find him already on the phone with Hope. Button will then have the option of making their father hang up or explaining the situation to both parents at once.
Honestly, I feel like exploring how Hope reacts to the reveal that Nick is inside Button’s head will be even better than the original version. She’s gonna have so many mixed feelings. Additional bonus: I’ve already written versions of Hope’s reunion with Button during this most recent ending, and thus can add in some sweetly poetic mirroring between the Wiseman’s family “shadow reunion” (where Nick is technically comatose and Hope is in Milwaukee) and their later, in-person reunion at game’s end.
Chapter 4 2.0 will be updated later tonight, along with a list going over what changes I did keep (there are still a lot!).
Chapter 5 will go up as soon as I’ve finished writing the new Hope-inclusive variation.
Comments
rachel
I feel like with editing, the "right" decision is often the hardest to make. No matter how beautiful a scene turns out, and how masterfully dialogue is executed (I love your writing- I believe your excitement at how the scene played out), it's not as satisfying if the price to pay for including it is throwing off the pacing for the rest of the story's elements. You know your characters really well, and you know the story you want to tell, so if your gut is telling you now is the not the time for THAT conversation, then trust it! :) Future You will thank yourself for the decision you're making now - especially since it sounds like you're already making headway on an even better version. But also congratulations (again) on another route being completed! Just that much closer to the endgame. I'm in awe of IF writers, who take on the task of not just writing multiple versions of a chapter, but also coding it all together. Throwing out scenes that don't work is hard, but those 670,000 words that DID make it in are worth celebrating!
Jo O'Connor
Good luck on your paper! Some tears were definitely shed over this scene's deletion, but ultimately I think the story is strong for its exclusion.
Fish
I get having to take stuff out that you LOVED but it just doesn't fit. As a STEM major who writes a lot of research papers, i cry when i delete a section because i spent so much time working on it and researching, but it just doesnt fit with the vibe of the rest of the paper. I will say, though, as someone who has been following mind blind's development since the original chapter 2, i felt like hopes absence was incredibly important. It added that sense of alone-ness button feels knowing nick, the last member of their family they have every day contact with, is virtually gone. I feel like adding in that hope phone call does ultimately damage the relationship, and can even feel a little cheap and betraying in the sense that buttons currently absent mom only checks in for a relationship now that the "golden child" is out of the picture functionally. The idea of it is so great and i wish there wouldve been a way to keep it, it sounds amazing, but ultimately i agree with the decision. Anyway, tldr, it was a good choice to make and i feel how much it sucks to have to remove it. Please ignore any typos as im writing this on my phone at the moment in between a STEM paper i have due at midnight haha.
John Q. Adams
It sucks that you had to cut a scene you liked, but at least you were able to incorporate it elsewhere!
