"Does This Battle Scene Make My Butt Look Big?" ...

... or "The Perils of Taking Advice TOO Seriously"

The key revision work I am doing right now includes:  making Clovis more immediate, intimate - bringing that much-discussed charisma to a much more prominent position in the character.  Tightening the plot - though I have been cogitating some ideas on how and where to do this, it is my readers I shall trust for advice on this - this is perhaps the point on which I need the most objective, and savvy, advice.  Finally, working on my first battle scene.

The very very very first draft of that scene was of course extremely different.  I *hate* writing battle scenes, of course - as, I believe, I have mentioned.  Heh.  So the first go at this one consisted of little more than the comment that "this battle happened" with my personal stance of "ew. ick." unstated, but probably pretty obvious.

The essential critiqe of this first mention was, "Um.  Battle scene, please?" - and that was as correct as the current requirement.  Ya can't really have a SCENE without, say, verbs.  Maybe even a noun or two.

So I set to work in creating a setpiece, and the battle scene which had been offstage, came on.  It got big.

Taking advice is great, but one *can* still take even good advice too far.  "You want battle scene?  WE GOT BATTLE SCENE, MAN."  Pow.  Boom.  Crash.

The thing is, I'm not sure the scene as it stands is all *bad* per se - but there is just rather a lot of it.  I've already deleted a good bit, but am aware it still needs to come down.

Ahh, there's nothing like showing your enthusiasm for critique by overdosing on the point at hand.  I said it myself, basically, in that post I linked above:  I held my nose and plunged in.

Bit too deep.  We're working on that.  Working on, actually, quite a number of small things.  Details are coming to me - inspirations - intimations, immediacies.  Good things.  A glint of light on steel, a blur of anticipation in passion, the work of remembering a boy is not a man.  Power, and closeness.

It's been a good week and a half or so.  I love it so much when, being a writer:  I find myself actually writing.