{"id":43695,"date":"2026-03-23T06:30:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T17:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=43695"},"modified":"2026-03-22T20:53:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T07:53:57","slug":"shooting-the-rapids-of-why-and-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2026\/03\/23\/shooting-the-rapids-of-why-and-what\/","title":{"rendered":"Shooting The Rapids of “Why?” and “What?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my Zoom In; Zoom Out<\/a> post of March 2, I indicated there were other tools in the authorial toolkit if zooming in and zooming out both failed to resolve, or completely resolve anyway, a narrative or character issue.<\/p>\n

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We zoomed like Korra, but…<\/p><\/div>\n

Usually, in reaching that point, it’s very likely that the original vision for the narrative, and\/or a character, has been superseded by the story’s evolution so is no longer fit for purpose — which is why no amount of zooming in or out is likely to resolve matters.<\/p>\n

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Sometimes zooming ain’t enough<\/p><\/div>\n

Whenever I arrive at that apparently insoluble juncture (hint: more often than I would like \ud83d\ude00 ), I find\u00a0 it invaluable to focus on “why?”, and then “what?”<\/p>\n

Firstly why, when I have a good handle on both the individual trees and the whole of the forest, is the story still not working the way I envisaged? One of the main ways I shoot these particular rapids is by means of the “morning pages” (a phrase attributable to Julia Cameron<\/a>), i.e the three longhand pages I write most mornings, which I find an excellent means of wrangling snarls and gnarls in the writing process.<\/p>\n

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It may be that I will then try different ‘takes’ on a scene or sequence to give effect to the wrangling. Or it may be that I have already done so in reaching this point, which is when asking “Why <\/em>isn’t it working?”<\/em> may not suffice. At this juncture, it’s time for the rapids of “what?” — i.e. “So if the story isn’t working out in accordance with my vision, then what <\/em>is happening?”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Time to navigate wild waters<\/p><\/div>\n

This question can be very illuminating, with a range of possible explanations. For example, it may be that an outcome similar to what I originally intended for this scene or sequence has occurred earlier in the story, even if in quite a small way, and the muse doesn’t like to take the same road twice.<\/p>\n

Or it may be that given other changes in the story, the original plan isn’t going to work out farther down the track. The ‘snarls and gnarls’ arise when I have realized subconsciously that the story will work better if a different path is taken, but then need to give effect to that on the page.<\/p>\n

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Gnarly, huh?! AKA not every course runs smooth…<\/p><\/div>\n

For example (hypothetically!) if two protagonists don’t fall in love as intended, after all; or the conflict between a hero and villain is worked out by some other means than fighting each other, with one or both dying. Or it may be that a duel to the death is<\/em> the required solution, when the story vision was that the paths of this particular pair would never cross…<\/p>\n

So it’s important to be prepared to try different approaches, and also to be willing to change — because no matter how genius one’s original vision, the muse is wise and almost invariably right when it comes to finding the best path through a story. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

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But books, like rivers, do eventually end in sky. \ud83d\ude42<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my Zoom In; Zoom Out post of March 2, I indicated there were other tools in the authorial toolkit if zooming in and zooming out both failed to resolve, or completely resolve anyway, a narrative or character issue. Usually, in reaching that point, it’s very likely that the original vision for the narrative, and\/or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43695"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43708,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43695\/revisions\/43708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}