I needed to explore the significance of the thing that happened yesterday, because it’s a big damn deal, because I didn’t expect what happened, and because I don’t know what’s waiting for me when I take my character down to the end of the hall to look at what’s changed.
So today, I ran with that. Pulled my character out of the situation that filled her with fear and stress, let her back away long enough to get hold of herself…
And allowed her to show herself (and me) what she’s afraid of, why she’s afraid…
And I let myself watch her react.
I really like the bit with the mirror, but a lot of the rest of this is, I think, going to hit me as an unreadable chunk of worldbuilding and backgrounding when I re-read it during the one-pass revision.
However, I learned a few important things about my MC that I didn’t know. Learned a bit about what she fears might be waiting for her.
And tomorrow, I can pick up with the situation I left hanging so I could run her to the bathroom to get hold of herself.
I can take what she told me today and use that to make how she deals with this new and frightening situation more compelling, and more practical. I can pull in the folks who appeared in her memories of the past, and her discoveries from the very recent present, and while I have no damn clue yet what she’s going to find when she opens this terrifying door in her life (in this case, LITERALLY a door), I certainly have some new material on her to make her reactions and response interesting.
How exciting you’ve learned more about your character to deepen her POV.
I love it when that happens.
Me, too. 😀 It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of the job.