55: What Was I Thinking?
5/6/2013
Well, the fifth scene is done, where Diallo’s friends find him unconscious. For some reason I had a lot of difficulty with diction with in (see?) this one. It started to flow fairly well toward the end, but it was herky-jerky and rough going there at the beginning. It also turned out a lot longer than I planned – 9 ½ pages. The last scene of The Wounded won’t be long, but this next one could be. Part of me is still debating whether I want the idea of Alena dancing for Ombure or not. That may be over the top and pushing credulity. And yet… I’ll write it and edit it out later if I change my mind.
I have mixed feelings about this fifth scene I just finished, as I do with the whole chapter so far. It isn’t terrible, but it’s missing something. Missing momentum maybe. Loss of direction maybe. It almost seems unnecessary to the plot. It’s developing character and tying up loose ends, and planting seeds for the future, but the story seems to stagnate in The Wounded as a whole. I suppose this should be no surprise since this entire chapter is the first one where I completely abandon my original scene outline and am more or less winging it.
Originally, Chapter Seven was meant to be all about Alena helping Diallo make Mosai’s boma and solidifying their budding romance. But the making of the boma isn’t in this chapter at all anymore, except indirectly in the next scene when Alena helps Diallo gather the clay. And it only vaguely hints at their budding romance.
And yet, despite my misgivings, there’s nothing major I’d change about any of the scenes in The Wounded. Clean up the phrasing some more, of course. Polish it up and make it shine. But in essence, what I already have is exactly what I want. It’s an odd thing to have precisely what I want yet still feel like something is missing. Something that spans the entire chapter. Maybe it will occur to me later.
Present-Day Reflection
7/19/2026
To be honest, I have no idea what I was talking about in terms of “something is missing” back then. Over all the years since I first wrote The Wounded (now restructured as Part Two – consisting of 24 chapters – of the second book, Tears of Stone), it continues to shine in my memory as the very heart of the entire series. It remains the thing I’m most proud of, in terms of being true to my authorial voice and the kind of writer I want to be.
It’s not about being technically perfect, or even creatively inspired, to be sure. It’s about being true to what I think of as the soul of my vision for the series. This may be all in my head, not in the writing itself, and that I’m the only one who will ever see it this way.
Such is the difficulty of being a father and not being able to judge one’s children objectively.
