Thursday's thing to love...epiphanies, revisited

Warning: I'm about to state one of those obvious truths that recently hit me anew (hence the epiphany.)

Today's insight: excellent writing is more about content than quality. Put another way, what I say is more important than how I say it.

This hit me as I was rewriting another passage in Juggling the Keystone last night. The passage was polished and beautifully written--and still didn't work. It wasn't alive. It didn't pull me into the story.

I realized this was because I was writing about the wrong thing. I was focused on the events. The main character has just been teleported to a wizard's tower--an interesting even and interesting setting, but not the most important part of the scene. The important part is the main character's reaction. She's just had her world turned upside down and been whisked away to a wizard's tower. Instead of focusing on what she sees and hears and smells, I need to shift to what she thinks and feels emotionally. As soon as I began to do that, the scene began to pull together.

Now I need to finish that rewrite so I can submit it in the next seven days. Wow. If I do, that's what I'll be loving this time next week!

~Cheryl