Climbing Plot Mountain

I was talking last night with friends about the process of sending a novel out into the world, and mentioned that I was working on my synopsis. One of the things I was doing to amend the synopsis, I said, was to work on the direction of its spin. At that point, the synopsis for Cavalier was primarily focused on the internal plot--Dimo's character arc as he hits bottom, sees a way out, and takes it--and I needed it to focus more on the external plot.

And then it occurred to me, while lying in bed a bit later, that this is what this book has been missing all along, this focus on the external plot. The synopsis was focused on the internal plot because the novel was focused on the internal plot. Yes, I want to know what Dimo's growth arc is. Yes, I want to feel his pain as he struggles with his past and his future. Yes, I will always write character first, and always read for character first. But there has to be a strong external plot to drive those struggles and that pain and growth, and this is what I have been missing.

It's why, when I rewrote the opening for Cavalier this past winter, I opened with a scene showing the point where the external plot collides with Dimo's internal arc. I knew what the book had been missing, but hadn't dragged the conclusion up out of my subconscious yet.

I look back now on the conversations my crit partner, corrinalaw, and I have been having about the need for external plot, and I wonder whether I was working through issues in her book, or in mine.

So, now, I need to go through the book and find the scenes that are purely internally driven, and see if I can strengthen their connection to the external plot. Subconsciously, those connections are there; I just have to unearth them.

I feel like I've dragged myself over the edge of a sheer cliff on this mountain I'm climbing, and found a shelf lined with moss and a tremendous view of the heights below. *g* It's not a resting place, and it's not the summit, but it is an accomplishment nevertheless.