Marching Through the Doody--Reb MacRath
This will be--I promise you--my only post about doody...American slang for poop.
If you're still with me, I refer to literary doody. And I don't mean hack novels ground out in a month or a week between shifts at Walmart or McDonald's. I mean the sort of doody real writers like the lot of us have to flush out as we work now and then.
May I share one gross example?
Thanks.
About halfway through my WIP, which was coming right along, I found myself in real trouble. The next scene was already clear in my mind, one involving a smash action scene and a crucial change in my lead character. The pacing seemed almost right for this scene. But my character wasn't quite ready. He had to learn, hear, or see something that galvanizes him.
I had an obligation as a writer to honor this need. But my duty led me to doody as I kept trying everything to fill in the narrative blanks. I tried different p.o.v's, a news report, text messages, and so on. And as I worked, refusing to censor my muse, I'd think 'God, this is far worse than doody. I'm laying a stink pickle, drowning a brown snake, driving out the prairie dogs, building a log cabin.
With your permission, I'll stop there. The thing of it is, I kept going: amazed at how badly I was writing but also trusting the muse to take care of business. This patch of doody filled in blanks, tied up loose ends, raised the stakes against my man, and gave a welcome cushion between a quiet scene and one in which all hell breaks loose.
It did its job and got me back into narrative gear.
I must be sure, however, to destroy all evidence of what I went through on the way.
This is my report.
*****
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