Plot, Plot, Plotting!

I've been struggling a bit with my current book.  It hasn't been coming together in the way I hoped despite several drafts and sessions with the index cards.  But I've just done another mega card session and - cross fingers - I think I'm there.

I posted earlier about one of the earlier plotting sessions and how I couldn't decide whether to start earlier, or feed that story through the plot as scenes of flashback.  Well - surprise surprise given my oft-stated aversion to flashback - I've decided against that.  But it still wasn't right.  The index cards were laid out on the table yet again and I stared at them until my eyes hurt.  It wasn't working.  Characters were having to make abrupt emotional about-turns - I love you, oh no I don't, I love you instead. (Sort of - I paraphrase.) Plus, there was a lot of misery and moping, which I don't like writing much.

Then - ping! - lightbulb moment.  Time was going to come to my side. Time, the great healer.  My story was going to spread over several years, not several months.  Characters had time to meet, change, do whatever they were going to do.  Suddenly it all fell into place.  I didn't have to explain how A had met B in the past - I could show them meeting.  I didn't have to explain how C once looked after D - I could show it.  When F behaves badly, it was because F was young and foolish, not older and more calculating.  When G gets taken in, it was because G is young and naive, not older and, frankly, a bit dim.

I looked at the cards again.  Same scenes, but now a very different flavour pervades the book.  And I'm happily re-writing again.