Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook: 74 tasks completed out of 591 possible,  5 since 7/28.

Lesson 11: Developing the Antagonist only gives credit for about a third of the work. I agonized over the villain, revising twenty-seven individual scenes. The follow-up began with the secondary antagonist. I changed seventeen scenes. The checklist gives the writer credit for five. Five. Not twenty-seven plus seventeen. “Did it help?” you ask. Absolutely. The fact that I found so many things to add makes the story god smile.

Now I’m on to the second part.

Lesson 11: The Antagonist’s Outline.

Summer vacation is over again. Here are my girls on another first day, Cherry’s last of elementary school. Coco’s shirt says THINK. It seems appropriate. Below are last year’s and the year before’s photos. Click for a larger image.

The wind propels it around the dune and down the road. I’m right behind pounding the sand, huffing and puffing, but the bastard is beyond reach. With each step I hurl my body forward. Dollar Tree drifts. My lungs burn. I kick the sand with my flip-flops.

Why am I still running? Over my shoulder, the car is a half-mile back. I’m chasing a sack that I’m never going to catch. Leaning forward, hands on knees, I let it go.

What have you chased lately?

Ten years ago this week, I became Cherry’s mom. She was a smiley Chinese version of the Gerber baby. Today, she is a Barbie Doll. You know, the one that comes dressed in the nuclear physicist suit.

We celebrated with a weekend at the beach.

Come on in. The water's fine.

No thanks. I'm fine right here.

The mechanic pointed to an apparatus under the hood. “What’s that?”

My dad said, “The air conditioner.”

“Hey Ralph! Come get a load of this. This guy’s got an air conditioner. Bet you feel like a fool for spending money on that?”

The air conditioner in my minivan went out this week. In San Antonio or Sauna Antonio, if you aren’t indigent and living under a highway overpass, your car has an air conditioner. Panicked that destitution would surely follow, Bacon led a convoy to a garage owned by a friend of a friend. Too late for business hours, we left my Mommy-mobile in front of the overhead door under a security camera.

Panic never pays. While we were gone, Lilly, the bird killing schnauzer, helped herself to an unsecured cheese pizza. Let me rephrase that. The dog ate her weight in cheese pizza. We came home to an empty box neatly propped against the leg of the kitchen table and a dog wider than she is tall.

Yep. It’s August 2. Right on time. The first moonflower of the season bloomed a little before 8:00 p.m. Last March, out of an entire package of seeds, four sprouted. The odds of a bloom were lousy, but at the top of an arched trellis–a gift.

Miles walked: 3 since 7/21.

I flew through Lessons 8, 9, and 10.  I’ve worked on these things before.  A little tweaking, a new paragraph here and there, and I’m good to go. Lesson 11: Developing the Antagonist is the red meat of revision. I started last night. Basically, the writer looks at the book like the bad guy (antagonist) is the hero.  Not in white hat/black hat terms, but from the perspective, “What is the antagonist’s story?” Like many, my villain is a little cardboard. She needs muscle to fill her space, to make her menacing, and to show her motivation for things she does. Step 2 asks me to:

Create an extra dimension: write down your antagonist’s defining quality. Write down the opposite of that. Now create a paragraph in which your antagonist demonstrates the opposite quality that you have identified.

Her defining quality is ruthlessness, an inability to feel compassion for those, who stand in her way. Last night, I came up with the idea for the opposite. She feeds feral cats. Those strays are infiltrating my thoughts already. I can’t wait to put them on a page.

I walked a few miles around the neighborhood. I dug out the yoga routines, as well. The best thing I can say about yoga is I’m relieved when it’s over.

Nothing bad happened. I took Coco to her violin lesson. Her teacher was pleased. She practiced. Cherry read a book. I cooked dinner. Bacon came home. We ate. We went to the pool. Everyone was happy.

After my family was tucked in bed, I put on headphones and listened to this white noise thing. I keep expecting the government to release a warning. Caution, this recording has been known to eat brain cells. But, it helps me focus.

I wrote. I feel better.

Miles walked: 0 since 6/16.

I have finally finished Lesson 7: Personal Stakes from the workbook on pages 48 and 49. I wrote in longhand and then typed the revisions into Scrivener. This exercise did more to change my story than any so far. I wrote six completely new scenes, altered the point of view on a number of others, and revised fifty-six pages of text. My manuscript is formatted in single-spaced pages, so roughly one-quarter of the book has changed. I started working on Lesson 7 on April 28. I finished yesterday, June 20. I coped with plenty of interruptions, but in the end, I put my head down and ploughed through because I could see the benefits on every page.

I walked everyday on vacation, but at home, it’s too hot and the girls are with me all the time, so I’m not getting any mileage.

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Seriously. If you haven’t seen this, take a peek. It analyses the style of the text you insert–sentence length, structure, punctuation–but not content. It’s just for fun.