POV Shift Saves the Day--Again!

I sat down to pound out a scene, where the “big ending” is right around the corner. Larry and I discussed what I planned to write. I even had the scene in my head, all ready for paper.

Somewhere between my brain and my fingertips, the whole thing fell apart. Most of the information landed on to the page, but it didn’t pop.

What the heck’s wrong here? Was it my mood? Been feeling kinda tired and cranky. Was it that I didn’t have a clear vision? No, I could see it all happening in my head like a movie.

I decided to just walk away, let it sit for a day, and looked at it again, then realized—there’s no tension. The bad guys are on the way to kill the main character. This should be really tense, right?
            Not this draft.

So I rewrote it. Twice. I wrote that one scene three different ways, and it still stank up the room.

So I changed points of view. Again, the POV shift came to my rescue. When I first wrote the scene, the POV seemed obvious. Why would I write it from anybody else’s point of view?  

From now on when I’m struggling with a scene, maybe I need to just slow down and experiment with points of view instead of forcing onto the page only exactly what’s in my head.

Especially when we’re talking about the “big scene” coming up. I’m excited about being nearly finished with our novel. I can’t wait until we can hold up an entire manuscript and say, “We did it!”

We know what still needs to be written and for a couple of the scenes, the point of view is obvious. But for those that aren’t obvious, I have to remember to take it slowly, thoughtfully, and creatively.

Because even though finishing a novel is our ultimate goal, playing with the characters is half the fun!