Unkind Cuts, Part Three

There’s a maxim in creative writing called The Rule Of Three.

1. You do something once to show it can be done.

2. You do it a second time to show it always happens the same way.

3. You do it a third time to do it differently, surprising your audience.

Before showing how that working in this story, let me demonstrate something I do in my writing:  I don’t write linear stories.*

A James Bond movie is a linear story:

• Bad guy does a naughty.

• M tells Bond to find out why the bad guy did the naughty.

• Bond finds a clue about a bigger naughty.

• Bad guy tries to stop Bond from finding out more about the big naughty.

• Bond keeps probing until he discovers what the big naughty is.

• Bad guy almost keeps Bond from stopping the big naughty.

• Bond stops the big naughty and kills the bad guy.

• Bond gets laid (again)

Now it’s possible to add all sorts of subplots and colorful characters to the story to make it more interesting, but in the end they’re just decoration added to the spine:  Bond stopping the big naughty.

That’s his goal, that’s what the movie is all about, and as fun as the subplots and colorful characters may be, they’re all in service to Bond reaching his clearly defined goal:  Stop the big naughty.

My stories are lattices.

My characters rarely have grandiose goals.

Mostly they’re just trying to live their lives as best they can.

They often get swept up in the machinations of others -- some good, some not so good, some downright rotten -- that forces them to respond in order to keep living their lives as best they can.

In all my stories, my protagonists are not fully aware of the forces impacting them, just the result of those impacts.

And in opposing those forces by simply trying to deal with the impacts, they often end up thwarting the forces’ goals.

My sleazy film pirate has a rationale to deal with the TV station (he supplies public domain films to them).

He has a secondary rationale, a station employee who can pirate films for him to sell.**

That’s my first example of The Rule Of Three re the film pirate.

Him finding the potential blackmail is the third.

I needed a second to link them.

Easy enough, just have him encounter another memorabilia dealer who logically could inform him of the existence of the potential blackmail material (without realizing is has blackmail material) which sends the sleazy film pirate in search of it.

I can get the material in his hands.

I can logically have him link up with the pollical organization to offer the material to them to use against my protagonist.

My protagonist is not capable of stopping them from using it.

Who can stop them?

The trophy widow.

She’s a former fashion model.  Logically the sleazy film pirate can find similar material to use against her -- and the political organization would love to have leverage over her.

But the former fashion model is rich and well connected.  She can find somebody to take care of the problem.

Great!  So now I can do scenes where the former fashion model interacts with the political organization, the sleazy film pirate, and another character who can do something about the potential blackmail.

Don’t want to spoil anything here, but that character is also in a position to help other characters close to my protagonist, so now I’ve got all this tied together by overlapping threads that connect half a dozen characters ///with most of them not evening being aware of the others’ existence///.

Problem:
The book is still too long.

I could cut all the fashion model and related scenes and shorten the third draft.

Problem:
Cutting those scenes snaps the skeins connecting numerous characters.

It certainly shortens my manuscript, but requires extensive rewriting since it no longer provides the character who deals with the blackmail a rationale to do so.

It also renders the political organization’s plans a bit more abstract and less clear since there isn’t a character they’re moving against for a specific goal.

It fails to clear a path for my protagonist/s eventual triumph.

I don’t want to do that. 

It turns a fairly simple edit into a complete, complex overhall.

But I gotta squeeze at least 1,000 more words out.

© Buzz Dixon

* See what I did there?

** The station employee has their own rationale to help my protagonist, but I’m trying to keep things simple so I’m leaving that out of this discussion.