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Narrative out of Noise

Sometimes when you are writing you do things that only your subconscious mind understands. Sunday I wrote a scene in my current WIP that didn’t really do much for the story. I knew at the time I wrote it that it would probably get yanked. But I left it in and kept going. This happens frequently in a first draft, so I payed it no mind.

Several days later and I’m mulling over what to do with a minor character. I try some different ideas about how to bring the character back into the action for the climax. Finally, one idea works and then as I’m thinking about where to work in the character to what I’ve already written, I realize a new found importance in that scene that I knew was not really needed before. Somehow by leaving it in the manuscript, I was able to draw a connection between that scene and a few new scenes that brought that minor character back into the story for the finale.

I mentioned to a friend on chat that I found that particular episode kinda funny and he replied that he found it exhilarating when those kinds of things happened in his writing. I think he was right. It really is pretty amazing. The mind works through things sometimes without you knowing it. This is also a matter of experience, I believe. Humans have a natural ability to deduce narrative out of noise. As writers, we get to see this in action occasionally and it really is pretty exhilarating.

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