Paksworld

Long, long ago, when I was writing the proposal for the current group of books, I wrote a nice long chunk that I thought would be likely to stay in the book all the way to the end.  I didn’t really think it would be chapter one, but in the book as then envisioned, it would have been close up in volume one.

As volume one did its rapid expansion last year, complete with the final burst of plot-bombs, this long chunk slid into book two.   Surely it would be the first chapter of book two, I thought.  As book two has done its own rapid expansion, that chunk slid toward the middle of the book, where it lodged in Book’s throat.  Periodically, in the course of adding newstuff, I’d re-read it and think “Needs a little touching up now, but I’ll catch it in second draft.”

But now…it’s more and more obvious that it doesn’t fit what’s grown up around it.    Book is not upset.  Book thinks “Good, more room for what did happen. ”  Book doesn’t care how many hours I spent writing it and polishing it.   We–that is, Book and I–have been arguing about this for awhile now, and it’s clear that it really can’t be handled by tinkering with the wording.  It’s not how I said it–it’s that I said it.   Just having it there is part of what’s impeding something farther along in Book, and Book–like someone with a stone in their shoe or a speargrass seed in their sock–wants it gone.

I have reminded Book that I am Book’s Writer, with the clear implication that I have the Power,  but though that works with characters (sometimes at least)  it does not work with Book.  Book laughs off any suggestion that my conscious mind (at least)  has any authority whatsoever over the actual Story.    That chunk, Book insists, isn’t right and doesn’t belong.    (“And it’s boring,” says Book at this moment.   It is not, I say, with authorly pride.  “It is,” Book says.  “Now go delete it–all the way, off the hard drive in draft, too–no keeping it around to get other opinions because you think they’ll agree withyou and you can argue with me again–and then we can get on with the REAL story.”

Book is a tyrant.  Book is a bully.

But in my experience, Book is nearly always, just-about-without-exception, right.

Dammit.

At least you’re not being deprived of Elis of Pargun and her inimitable aunt or her extremely difficult father.