Story Development I

They say there are two types of writers. Architects and gardeners. Abstract and intuitive writers if you like. I’m the latter. So I pinch and twist the plot, tie and undo its knots as I write here. I aim to share this process of gardening with you, of cultivating the life of the novel without imposing a plot on it mechanistically, while acknowledging that blueprints are all we have for imagining life. As a gardener, I hope to cultivate love for our earthly profane existence, to reconcile with planet earth, and to let stories unfold on their own pace.

Since I began to write these posts, two plot twists caught me by surprise. First, the greenhouse that was supposed to be located in the backyard, moved to the center of the house, as an indoor patio. The more I wrote the house the more I realized the patio is the beating heart of the house and all that it embodies. You will see this on episodes 16–17–18.

The second was the question of genre. I knew this was not going to be a strictly genre based piece of writing. But I wanted it to be a full length novel. In the beginning it read like a haunted house psychological thriller. But later, the brother character became more pronounced. The loss of the father triggers a much deeper and older loss of the protagonist. One that she has been in denial about. So now, she will be chasing clues to find a brother that she lost years ago. I always wondered how is it possible that the genre of some works (like Parasite for instance) shifts in the middle of the story. Now I think I am beginning to understand. Stay tuned to see if this twist sticks.