A friend of mine recently complained about the show Lost: “It just seems like they don’t know what they’re doing. Nothing relates.”
Well, this might be true, but I’d suggest that for a television show with a shooting schedule, stars to hire and renewals to worry about . . . the writers probably DO have an idea of where they’re headed. Are there story threads that have meandered and petered out? Sure. But I have a lot of sympathy/empathy for writers — wonder why?– and I’d suggest that what looks like a meander is part and parcel of a work-in-progress.
The show’s producers have acknowledged, for example, that the character of Ben Linus was initially supposed to be around for only a couple episodes. The thing is, Ben grew on them and opened up another story avenue for them to follow–so they did. Has that changed the story that might have been? More than likely, yeah.
I can understand that impulse, though. The book I’m working on now has taken the weirdest turns; things occur to me that I hadn’t thought of before I started–and I started with a pretty detailed outline and a finished draft! Now, in the throes of another rewrite–the first just didn’t gel and while it was “okay” it wasn’t what I wanted or was after–I thought of a complication the other day that made the book way more interesting to me but also changed what must happen. Now I’m simply writing my fingers off, hoping to make a certain, self-imposed deadline (gotta have those or else you’ll never get done).
Will this Ben-equivalent be the key to making this thing go? Hope so. But I do believe that writing is what Stephen King once said about his own approach and process (and I paraphrase): Writing’s like piloting a 747. You take off and you pretty much know where you’ve got to land and there are probably landmarks along the way . . . but, sometimes, when you’re lost in the clouds, you just gotta have faith, follow the path, and hope like hell the runway’s still there when the clouds melt away.
Happy flying.
