More bombs good

WARNING: This is a writing update. I'm sorry if it's a little 'me-centric', but I'm hoping by blogging about my writing it might keep me more firmly on track when it comes to writing progress. Also, I might blog more consistently! Onward.

I can happily report that today I rewrote an entire scene and it is at least twice as awesome as it was before. That is not to say that it is now AWESOME, just that the previous iteration needed a lot of improvement.

I once wrote a blog post about dropping plot bombs. The basic premise is: if you feel like a scene is going nowhere, or lacking conflict/tension, there's one sure fire way to sort it out - drop in a plot bomb. Ask yourself, what's the worst that could happen right now to these characters? Be sure to throw in an evil cackle for good measure.

So before the scene went something like this: MC finds enemy soldiers (only three), kills two of them (one in cold blood) even though she's never killed anyone before, rescues girl, goes on her merry way (albeit a little depressed over killing two men).

Now: MC finds a group of around 20 soldiers holding a girl captive, she hides out until night and slips into the tent with the girl, kills two men in self defense and gets a stab wound in the side and almost strangled for her efforts, rescues girl and hightails it outta there with 18 pissed off soldiers on her tail. Will she make it?

Favourite bit today:

My eyes widened as the knife sunk into my side. I fisted his shirt and dragged him closer to me, staring into his snarling face. Victory glinted in his eyes. He thought he’d won. Perhaps he had.

Either way, I was taking him with me.


It's exciting being able to see improvements in your story, isn't it? How's everyone else's writing going?