Riffing

In Lyon's book, she discusses a trend that she's seen of under-writing. One exercise she puts forth is riffing. It's a pretty simple concept:

You take a passage that you've written where you move through a scene or image really quickly. Then you take out a fresh piece of paper or do a hard return and you just start writing. You write on that passage and instead of having a paragraph, you go write a page, two pages...

The exercise especially caught my attention because I'm someone who's often heard my readers say, "Slow down. Where's the fire?"

With Oracle, one scene where the CWC crew were especially displeased with me was the scene where two major characters, lovers, say goodbye to each other. Yeah, they're totally right, I went way too fast. So, it seems a good spot to use for an expansion exercise.

First, the scene as it is now (and yes, this is the whole scene between the two characters). Next post, the riff.

“Gwyn,” Sedge started.

“Don't say you're sorry, or any of the rest of it, 'cause I don't want to hear it.”

“I love you.” He kissed her. She kissed back. Now was his last chance to call it off. He held her tight for a moment, then released. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

“You'd better be.”

He climbed into the saddle, gave her one last wave, and headed south. A few days ride south was Selm, his destination. It was the nearest Nyman temple with an oracle. He hoped to get answers there about what he was being called to do. When he got back, he would tell Gwyn everything. All the secrets he had kept for the past seven years.