A day or so away from the planning of the story (see earlier posts for the whole process which started here), and I came up with the main thrust of the subtext.

The Kid (still nameless, but that will change) wants Dee to sponsor him, he wants her to give him money. That’s what he wants. What he needs is to forgive her (and himself) when he finds out that she wasn’t responsible for his father’s accident, regardless of what the locals say.

That means it will be his story, he will be the main character, and the first scene will be his POV.

Why?

Because the person who starts the story ends the story. The story question is the one attached the main character, and the reader needs to know the story question within the first scene, preferably within the first few pages. Prior to that, it’s a sense of change coming, but not necessarily ‘the big question’ that it takes a story to answer.

A story is this: A character in conflict who struggles to find a resolution to the problem.

The struggle is the plot — events and obstacles that need to be overcome, internal and external, to be able to move forward into the next stage of life. And these struggles have to be worth the journey. And they have to be relevant to the question. The question needs an answer by the end.

That’s what makes it worth the effort, the pushing forward. His want is strong, but he can’t be a winner until he makes unobstructed observations of reality without being influenced by the opinions of others.

Or I’ll think on it some more, but for the moment, this looks interesting and can create a lot of conflict between all the characters, the people in the town, and it has a history and a future.

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And now things are starting to come together, the weft and weave are showing their colours and patterns …

It all just pops in, and often well after the initial idea but a good story is worth the extra little grey cells getting a work out.

What do you think?