Sinew: things that take the longest to write...

Seriously, it’s the sinew passages. I just spent about an hour tweaking the set up for a crucial council: how we move into it, where people are sitting, folks who’ve been off doing other things returning… etc., etc., etc.

That’s sinew. It’s that “stuff” the encloses the meat of scenes. Crucial, but like “and time passes” scenes, can eat up an ungodly amount of time to get right.

You likely read right over it, barely note it–and that’s as it should be. That’s WHY it’s such a beast. You throw out the first draft, realize it’s shit and confusing and you need to consolidate and move this bit there, and that bit over here… It takes time to make it concise and smooth and brief.

But yeah. I just spent an hour on … five paragraphs. :-)

tlaquetzqui

It’s one of those “unnoticeable when done right, really noticeable when done wrong” things, unfortunately.

#I’m writing smth that’s told as a researcher’s journal in a mysterious magic cave wooo #which means that unfortunately I do need to mention what the team is studying and what they’re finding!#part of the magic is non-euclidean tunnels so the cartographer (pov chara) and the magic scientist are plot relevant #but like. the geologist is there for plot reasons and realistically there’d be mentions of his work #but the rocks aren’t magic they’re just rocks #I wound up making him a recent graduate who is Very excited to be doing real professional research with people who call him doctor #so since it’s a journal and I don’t have to write actual dialogue for him #my pov character is like yeah Hopsworth just talked about rocks for forty-five minutes and I did not understand it but good for him :)#and I don’t have to actually figure out what cool rock facts he’s babbling about