Saving Grace: Step Nine Finished? Not Quite!

Last Saturday, I mentioned my hopes that story design for Saving Grace would be finished by the end of that day.

That didn’t happen, but the process is drawing to a close.

At least I hope it is.

A couple of days ago, I finished the scene descriptions front to back for the second time. I’ve added a few new sequences to spice up a lagging stretch in Act Two and a possible addition to or alternative for the Final Conflict has also been bouncing around in the gray matter.

For the last few days, I’ve also been struggling to convince myself that the set up is believable and the best it can be. Those kinds of questions always make me think I’ve missed something, so I’m not yet ready to call the final step of the design finished.

It is shaping up very nicely, though, and I have to admit that having these sorts of struggles now, before writing begins instead of after I’ve spent weeks or months on the next draft, is a better way to do things.

As I write this post, the real question is whether the story needs a lot of work or a vacation over the weekend. It’s not like I don’t have other things to do, after all. An order of fresh drawing paper arrived today and part of me is anxious to start making marks on those nice, clean sheets of paper. Stepping back from a story is usually productive, whether the ‘vacation’ is a day, a week or long enough to write something else.

On the other hand, it would sure be nice to start next week with writing the second draft. To do that, I need to find the answer to the set up questions in Act One.

What I think I really have to do is learn to sit back, relax and see what God will do, though. I tend to worry these sorts of questions like a dog worries a bone, thinking I can fix it if I just work at it long enough. Usually, that produces frustration and discouragement before it produces a solution, but it’s so difficult to sit back and wait.

Oh well! The answers will come when the timing is right. I am confident of that.

In the meantime, there are other little tasks to do with writing and, if that gets boring, there are ten, fresh, new 22×30 sheets of Rising Stonehenge paper just waiting for an introduction to my colored pencils!