On February 16, I posted on Bandersnatch meters and Vorpal Blades, fulfilling a promise made on December 1. In that same post, I also promised a “little more on zooming out and in” — so here goes!

Plenty of Korra ‘zoom’ happening here!

The premise is fairly simple, but it can be quite a powerful too, especially when one has been close to the authorial coalface for a long time. So if something in not working, in terms of either the narrative or a character’s arc, it can be really helpful to “zoom out” or even right out, and refocus on the big-picture plan for the story. Although not an infallible remedy, it very often provides sufficient realignment, along with a refreshed perspective, that allows the problems of detail to resolve.

You gotta take that big, blue sky view

When and if it doesn’t work, I then have to consider whether the problem is one of even finer detail: some problem so subtle that only the muse-subconscious fathoms it, but which is effectively acting as a spanner in the whole works. So if zooming out has drawn a blank, it’s definitely time to zoom even farther in to find the problem.

Dig into that detail; take no prisoners…

In both cases, once the issue is identified and resolved, the writing always flows again. So as author, I have to be willing to do the work to ensure it does, however frustrating that may feel at times.

Doing that thar work

And if neither zooming in nor out works, and bandersnatch meters are going off all over the show? Well, one option is definitely “Panic” (ha-ha—but which has been known. #Just Saying 😉 ) Another is to reach for the vorpal blade—but there may be one or two other tools in the kit first. Rest assured, I shall come back to you on those. 😀

It may take a writer’s cottage, in a wildy-wood

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February 16:  Bandersnatch meters and Vorpal Blades