Mar 29 2010
“Oh I’ve been through the desert with a book with no theme . . .”
Frequently my characters are having a conversation. I know exactly what points I want that conversation to touch on and I even know some of the dialog word for word before I write it.
But I don’t know what order the topics have to come up to flow correctly. I have a small scene I have been trying to put together for ages. It doesn’t even seem that important at the time where it falls in the story but it is basically a metaphor for the entire book and, most importantly, states my theme. It is giving me so much trouble. I know exactly what is going in it. I just can’t get the stupid sentences in the right order.
I was trying, for the hundredth time, to talk this scene through with my husband and he says to me, “When I write a book, it isn’t going have a theme.” So then, for reasons I cannot explain, I started singing, to the tune of America’s Horse with No Name:
“Oh I’ve been through the desert with a book with no theme, it felt good to get rid of that themeIn the desert, you can’t remember your theme, cause there ain’t no one to give your book a theme.”
As a midi, this song totally sounds like music from a Zelda game.
No, I’m not getting rid of my theme, though it is very tempting. But now every single time I work on this section (or even a section that reminds me of this section) this song gets stuck in my head.
Hillary is an award winning playwright, fiction and non-fiction author best known for her play, The Love of Three Oranges which has been performed around the world. A Script Frenzy and NaNoWriMo ML, she loves connecting with other writers no matter what their experience levels. For the business side of blogging, publishing and selling, visit Hillary at The Whine Seller. See a complete list of Hillary’s blogs and books here.
