Harry the Pirate Captain

A title has so much promise. You read the title and immediately your mind starts conjuring worlds. I am in the beginning process of doing a first edit of enough chapters to be able to read to my grandson for Thanksgiving. I’m only about halfway done with my first draft of the second book but I want to continue a tradition of a big story for Thanksgiving. So I brought up the newest book, in my editor, and it came up to the title page.  There is so much promise and potential in a title. As I looked at the title a hundred different story lines popped into my head. I’ve found that I like writing more than photography (stay with me I’ll tie it together). With writing I can tell a story, not just convey an instant in time. Looking at a title it seems to me that maybe what I’m missing in photography is looking for the emotions it will evoke. Maybe what I don’t understand about pictures is that it’s like the title. It’s not what’s there but what emotions it brings up. That still is not a story but that may help me become a better photographer. When I started taking pictures it was so I could feel what I was feeling at the time of the picture (usually on the trail) when I was sitting in my windowless office. All I had to do was take a quick snap as I was hiking and that would bring up the memory. My photography is just pretty pictures (sofa art) it doesn’t go beyond that. Next time I am out with the camera (these days usually my cell phone) I will have to look at the subject with a different eye. 

So back to the writing. I just got past 30k words in Harry Breaks a Jail and am about halfway through my planned story arc. It’s funny I seem to do the same thing over and over. I have a story arc of about 3 or 4 main scenes and then as I’m writing, the story moves me along in different directions, Just the other night I was writing and the story took me in a different direction than I had intended for the night. I am still inside of the story arc I had originally planned but getting to the climatic scene has changed. The characters and how they were getting to the scene have changed. I remember one creative writing teacher I had (I hated English in school so I always tried to do something easy like creative writing) he would always say you are the writer there should not be any unplanned or unexpected things in the story. 

Well, I guess depending on how much of a planner you are as a writer will determine how many unplanned scenes there are in your story.