So much to think about, so little time to write…at least in any coherent fashion. Yet if I continue to wait until my muse mojo is visiting, well, let’s just say it might not happen. So while the newfound knowledge and the excitement I felt while learning it is still with me, I’m sharing a few things you too might find helpful.

At a recent SCWA (South Carolina Writers’ Association) writing retreat, I learned so many things that it makes me wonder about the multitudinous* things I’m still completely ignorant about. It’d be amusing if I weren’t so sad. For instance, one speaker mentioned in a casual way that a good method for getting into a flashback was to use “had” in a sentence moving into the memory and then just going for it. “It had been a sweltering day at the lake. We walked down to the water’s edge and saw….Maria gasped.” 

I listened politely but didn’t write it down. I had already picked up that helpful hint at another conference, and hearing it again was a reminder of how grateful and enlightened I’d felt when learning it. “Ah, I had thought. So that’s how you do it.” 

But here’s something I learned from a session entitled “Repetition and Evolution” that was truly eye-opening. Your characters can’t keep doing the same things over and over again without something happening. The same event(s) can’t keep occurring without some sort of resolution, even if it’s a dire one. Even if loss, heartache, illness, or even death result, something’s gotta give. 

The two presenters used several books and short stories to illustrate this concept, but the one I could most identify with was a children’s book titled There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. She swallowed several other items too, and the reader begins to think that something’s got to happen. She can’t go on swallowing things and continue to live. After the cat gets gulped down, I began to realize (like all readers probably do), that things are looking bad for this old lady. I mean, who can swallow a horse and live? Something has to happen and it does.

I recently discussed the repetition/evolution structure with a friend who’s writing a tension filled novel about spousal abuse. With careful planning and help from friends along the escape route, the abused spouse has fled the scene. She feels it’s her only choice, and from the picture the writer has painted, full of tension and downright fear, the protagonist is right. She needs to get out of Dodge posthaste. 

But here’s the burning question: what’s going to happen? How is this novel going to evolve? The abused woman can’t run forever. Is her husband going to die? Is he going to find her and do a little more pummeling? Or will he kill her? Or perhaps he’ll have an accident and go over a cliff on the search to find her? Maybe his car will explode from a bomb that ignites when he pushes the Start button. The possibilities are many, and I know this writer is aware of it and is in the process of creating the perfect evolvement right this minute.

Something else I’ve learned recently helped me to reconcile feelings of anger with understanding when I read an essay titled “A House in Collapse: Empathy in the Face of Unforgivable Acts.” But that’s a story for another day. Right now I need to ponder how to put repetition and evolution in a story I’m playing with.

*I know my critique group would disapprove of this word, but honestly, it’s the best one I could think of for this situation.