Writing Wednesdays: Missing Missing Missing
I had a boss when I worked in advertising who used to call together the Creative Group (four two-person teams of copywriter and art director) just before he would submit a pitch or proposal to a client.
Maybe we’d forgotten a “call to action” in a TV commercial … or we’d failed to justify a claim in a print ad.
But always there was something. When we got it fixed, we’d all go, “Whew! Glad we didn’t send this stuff out the way it was.”
As I write this, I’m finishing a first draft of a novel. It’s still raw as hell but the basic elements are there (I think.)
What I’ve found with fiction is what’s usually missing is the Deep Stuff. “What does this all mean?” “What’s the metaphor?” “What’s the theme?”
I ask myself, “What scenes am I missing?” “Am I missing an entire sequence?” “An entire act?”
