On today’s Raw Reading, Alida Winternheimer reads from her current work-in-progress, working title, Playing with the Wind.

This scene focuses on the backstory of a supporting character.

Playing with the Wind is a historical novel set in 1920s and 1930s Minnesota. After watching the video clip, read the author’s reflections on this particular text.

Raw Reading

Reflection

Sometimes writers get stuck. Even writers who don’t believe in writer’s block. Which I don’t, because creative flow is as much about process as it is inspiration. That said, I was finding scenes felt sticky, sluggish, and unsatisfying. I kept at them for a while, because that’s what the process demands some times. And when things didn’t organically begin to flow, I stepped back and looked at why.

I was trying to write scenes involving supporting characters I hadn’t developed sufficiently enough to bring to life. When a character is a one-off, someone the main characters bump into and have a brief encounter with, development can occur as I write. They need enough color and shape to be living beings. But like the people encounter once and never again, they don’t require much color and shape. Characters with recurring roles in our characters’ lives, the co-workers and neighbors, need more than color and shape. They need personality.

I had some of what makes these supporting characters tick, but not enough, it turned out. So when they came back into the current scenes, I found I wasn’t always certain what they would say or how they would behave or why. I needed to dig deeper before I could really show them on the page.

This scene reveals some of Mrs. Dubrowski’s backstory. She’s Edie’s landlady and a minor but important supporting character. I wrote this scene not caring whether it wound up in the novel or not. My purpose was purely exploratory, and I knew I needed to see her, get an actual visual sense of her, so I wrote to discover her physical size and shape. It has wound up in the novel, at least here in draft one, because what the backstory reveals about Mrs. Dubrowski will factor into her choices later, choices that absolutely affect Edie’s fate. 

Now that I know her better, have a more solid picture of her in mind, a voice, and understand something of her personal challenges in life, I’m able to write more freely. Both the scenes she’s in and the ones she isn’t in. Mrs. Dubrowski is part of Edie’s world; not understanding that part made the whole world a little sluggish. Since stepping back from Edie to focus on my supporting characters, the writing is flowing better. 

And that is a big relief.

This is a first draft. To what extent these words will need revision later remains to be seen. All material herein is copyrighted. © Alida Winternheimer 2021