I hate this. It's the worst part of writing. It's when you get to a seminal point in your story and you have to make a decision. The issue for me, now, is story development. In 'In A Green & Shady Place' I have reached a crossroads.
If I go on as I have the story at this moment, it's too vanilla. There's nothing exciting, nothing to question or ask, so it's dull.
If I change it up, as I've attempted, it affects several major story points later on. It also makes it harder to get from here to there, because I do want to get to there. There has a point and a purpose.
Is there a third alternative? Yes. And there's a fourth and a fifth, but which is right? Do I spend time writing each out, developing each and winding them back to where I want them to be? That would be, probably, an extra ten or fifteen thousand words, just to experiment. Of that, I might end up using most, some or none, so where's the break point - the balance in cost/benefit?
I don't know, and that's why I'm stuck.
See, the deal is this. My female MC (main character) is in a miserable marriage. She's marking time, sticking it out because she feels she has to. Along the way she meets someone new, someone who is equally attracted to her. He offers her an honorable diversion - nothing untoward, at first (of course) - by offering her a job in his company. She accepts and talks her husband into agreeing with the move - even though it's a big move. For her. See, the job is in another city but he can't leave where they live because of family obligations, so it involves her living in this other city during the week and flying home on the weekends.
So, she starts her new existence. New job, new city and looking for an apartment. Weeks into her new situation something happens that makes the wisdom of what she's been doing questionable. And no, sorry, it's nothing immoral or unethical. It does lead to immoral and unethical, but by the time it does, I think the background is hinted at and explained well enough to make it understandable if not laudable.
After that, one thing leads to another, and I won't say what here because this is not what's got me stuck. She starts leaning strongly in the direction of divorcing the husband with whom she's been so unhappy. Before she does though, there's this seminal event which has me debating direction.
She's been invited to a party - a major Hollywood type party. Because she has to, simply for form, she asks her husband if he wants to go. He declines. And that's the breakpoint and it's where I'm stuck.
Option One: Hubby declines and she goes 'by herself'. She has a marvelous, vanilla and not page-turning-inducement Cinderella time. At the end of it, she goes back home with her lover where all is well until Sunday morning, about twelve or fifteen pages into this vanilla passage, when the society pages show up on the breakfast table. There, spread across the pages, are pictures of her and her lover. There's nothing more than embraces and smiles, but for anyone with eyes, it's obvious she's in love with him and he with her - which causes a future problem because her lover is a very well-known, high profile personality. The pictures will probably make the tabloid front pages. It is likely, then, that hubby will spot the pictures when he's standing in the check-out line at the supermarket. What else does one look at when standing in line to pay for your groceries?
From there, the way it is currently written, she decides that before the pictures show up at the check-stand, she has to break the news to hubby that she's leaving him. She's met someone new and their marriage is over. Which is more interesting because of the lead-up to it. And it's that which I don't want to lose - it's good stuff.
Option Two: Hubby declines and she goes 'by herself' but in the middle of the evening, hubby shows up. He's changed his mind. It spoils her evening and the weekend her lover had planned for them. Lover is frustrated and angry. Hubby is superior and annoying. Even though it's the last thing on the planet she wants, she has to take hubby home to her apartment - her sanctuary, the one place she has ever created just for herself.
With this, there are two other issues. First, this is a formal affair. If hubby shows up late in the evening, where did he change into his monkey suit? Of course he wouldn't fly from San Francisco to Los Angeles dressed to the nines, so he would have had to change, somewhere.
Does he show up at her apartment? That has potential, because she isn't there when he gets there. She's running around other places - getting fixed up, meeting her lover and the limo, and riding to the venue. It still leaves the problem of where he goes from traveler to formally dressed, but that's minor. Heck, he could change at the bus station or in the back of the taxi cab for that matter. And it would add interest because of irritation and accusation.
But I don't have that now. So, back to the apartment and the potential for divergence there.
Option Two-A: She takes hubby back to her place after the party. Hubby doesn't find the aftershave and extra toothbrush under the sink. She manages to get him out of her hair and send him on his way Saturday morning and then calls lover and apologizes. They get together, talk it all the way out and it picks up from where they had wanted to be eighteen or twenty hours earlier. Then the society pages, etc.
Again, that's boring as can be. Pedestrian and milksop stuff that isn't going to promote any interest at all in what comes next.
Option Two-B: He does find the evidence under the bathroom sink. Then what? Does she tell him, 'it's over, there's someone else?'.
If I do that, I lose all of the other interest. If she doesn't, it's not believable. Of course there would be a row. Of course he would yell, scream and demand that she come clean. Of course he would storm through the apartment, searching for other evidence, which he would find.
Option Three: She manages to get her lover to the side during the party, they have a heated discussion. At the end of which he recognizes she really didn't have a choice but to ask the interloper to interlope. In capitulation and compromise, he offers her an out. His assistant booked a room at a local hotel for an investor who called at the last minute to say they couldn't be there. He offers her and hubby the room, and she accepts. It keeps hubby out of her sanctuary. It also solves the problem of the aftershave and toothbrush. And leaves the door open for the resurrected weekend because she can use the excuse of 'I have to work because there's a lot to be done after the party'.
See? It's not easy and I'm not sure which direction to take. Although this, the putting down on paper, does help me formulate a strategy. I just don't know for sure... Hmmm. Thinking... thinking... thinking... bingo! I've got it.
Thanks! That was a tremendous help and I know how I'm going to tackle this issue.
Now - I hope you have an equally successful day.
Best~
Philippa
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