Pamela's post this week about not knowing her own whodunit got me thinking. With Deadly Exposure, I thought I knew who committed the murder. In fact I wrote the book working toward one particular individual. Then as I was in the last 30 pages or so, I prayed before writing. Now I try to do this all the time, but that day I was talking with God about what would happen next.
He whispered that a certain somebody did it. I looked a little funny up at the ceiling. "No, he didn't."
"Yes, he did."
I went back and forth a few times before thinking, "Okay, I'll try it." Inside, I dreaded all the rewrites it would require. Wouldn't you know, it didn't take much of any. The antagonist makes sense. Most everything had already been planted. And the readers love the way it turned out.
And before you wonder if I'm incredibly strange, I really do pray about my books. I pray when I'm writing proposals asking God for creativity and wisdom. I pray as I'm writing, and not always, "God, help me, please. I'm stuck!" And I cling to Daniel 1:17: God gave Daniel and his friends, knowledge and intelligence in all areas of wisdom, literature and understanding dreams and visions.
I don't want to waste an opportunity He has given me.
3 comments:
I watched the special features on a DVD once on which the director was talking about how they decided on the killer in their script. I have forgotten which movie that was or I would give them proper credit, but he said that they consistently kept laying down clues that seemed to implicate each character. During screenings, if the people watching guessed the right killer, they would change the killer, so that no one would guess the correct killer in the end.
Oh, that's great! I need to write a little faster so I can get enough first readers to evaluate a book like that!
Now that is an interesting plan on the director's part, to keep changing clues so no one could guess. Yeah, and we are always guessing!!!
Post a Comment