I’ve been quiet about my progress on C. If you’ve been watching the WIP bar, you can tell that I’m making progress — after all, I’m closing on having 25% of the book done, and should be rolling over that mark today.
But there has been something too easy about the character’s journey; she hasn’t been seeing the dark side of her new world, or her place in making it.
That changed yesterday, in a scene where, because she saved a friend’s life, something horrible happened to another character. And now she’s realizing that, just as every bad deed does some good, so every good deed does some bad. Tao has kicked into her life.
I don’t know that this realization that she can never act with a completely clear conscience will fix my concerns with the story as it’s unrolling in first draft. I don’t know if, in confronting her with the price of both action and inaction, I’ve found the soul I’ve been looking for in the story. But it does help.
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