So... I'm working on my novel in progress, and I find myself coming up against problems of plot mechanics. For example, I need to have my character take his children out of school and set off on an expedition with them. I realise that the scenario I currently have doesn't convince me that he has good enough reason to do that, so I write another scene that replaces the previous one. It means moving their school from the UK to Egypt and creating a horrible headteacher who didn't exist before. But the scene still has the same function - get them out of school and on the expedition. Hopefully, it's more credible than the previous one.
But it reminds me of the story about the hammer: a man has a hammer; it's the same hammer that belonged to his great-great-great grandfather. In those years, the head of the hammer has been changed many times, and so has the handle, as they wear out. Is it still the same hammer? Is my story still the same story, even though scenes have been replaced? Philsophical hmmm.

I love the bizarre logic of this. Character needs to take his kids out of school but it isn't convincing. Solution: move school to Egypt!

Love it.

LOL - it does sound weird, how I've described it. It makes sense in context!

Why not simply set it at the start of the summer holidays? - or a week before the start; nothing happens in school in the week before the start of the school hols.

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Or maybe they're stuck in Egypt in the Easter holidays because of a volcanic ash cloud.

I know what you mean though, Leila. Once you start changing little things, it affects the bigger picture and pretty soon you're looking at a different book. But even worse is six months later, when the revised version gets rejected, you start to wonder if the original was the best version. So you go back, see the same problems, change them and realise you're back on the path of the book that got rejected! Meanwhile, a submission you forgot about gets accepted - an agent loves your revised version, but suggests changes that take it back to the original.

All the fun of the fair, eh?

Oh, there are reasons for changing it to Egypt - I just didn't want to get into describing the plot when that wasn't the point. I didn't express myself very well originally. What I meant was, do people go back to their draft and change the plot of specific scenes while keeping the function of the scene. I think the difference between the function and the plot of a scene is an important one.
Colin, I hope it won't get rejected! Fingers crossed.

I know exactly what you mean, Leila. There was a scene in the original version of CLASH that was there as a brief comic interlude. It's very important in the story because the later sections of the book are sodark. (The porter's speech in Macbeth has the same function).

My comic scene was a funeral. During final edits I played with the idea that this particular character didn't die. Which meant no funeral, but I still needed that comic respite. It now takes place at a bedside, and although it's an entirely different scene, it performs exactly the same function.

Colin

What I meant was, do people go back to their draft and change the plot of specific scenes while keeping the function of the scene

- yes, but i tend to do this at whole novel level rather than at scene level. Not advisable.

What I meant was, do people go back to their draft and change the plot of specific scenes while keeping the function of the scene. I think the difference between the function and the plot of a scene is an important one.

Yes, I definitely do. I'm doing it a lot at the moment, in fact, with trying to get ATOG to work properly: I'm about to pick up three scenes set in the same house on two separate days, jam them together a put them in a building site... And I know exactly what you mean about the hammer - it still seems like the same hammer, somehow, but what that 'sameness' consists of is hard to pin down.

I wonder if it's rooted in the fact that as readers we tend to think, 'Oh, they're having a row about how strong the coffee should be,' and only after a moment (or at a second read if it's very elliptically done) 'Oh, they're having a row because the marriage is falling apart because of the strain of going through fertility treatment.' And as writers, we do the same, quite often. Like Jem's immortal french onion soup example, quite often our imaginations work in the concrete terms of specific settings and actions, and we, too, would say that the scene is 'about' coffee... So it's only after a while, and perhaps only because for some other reason that seeting/action isn't feasible so we have to do some digging, that we must start thinking 'Okay, what's this scene really doing, and how else could I do it?' Out goes the coffee, and in comes the top of the Death Ride at Alton Towers. Or whatever.

I can feel a blog post coming on - thanks, Leila, I was badly in need of an idea!

Emma

Yes, Emma and Colin, exactly. I'm glad that it's not just me! It feels like a good sort of changing things, not just tinkering.
And popsicle - I feel your pain!

Blog post here:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2010/08/is-it-the-same-hammer.html

So thanks for the inspiration, Leila - hope it's okay to quote you. It was nice to have this discussion in the public forum, too, so I could link to it from the post.

Jem, if you had a website I'd have linked to you, too, as well as Leila.

Emma

Sure, you're welcome - I'll pop over and have a read.

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I think you mean Colin, not Jem.

I did mean Jem, but Colin's is a great example too...

Emma

Thanks, Emma - off to read your post.

So... I'm working on my novel in progress, and I find myself coming up against problems of plot mechanics. For example, I need to have my character take his children out of school and set off on an expedition with them. I realise that the scenario I currently have doesn't convince me that he has good enough reason to do that, so I write another scene that replaces the previous one. It means moving their school from the UK to Egypt and creating a horrible headteacher who didn't exist before. But the scene still has the same function - get them out of school and on the expedition. Hopefully, it's more credible than the previous one. But it reminds me of the story about the hammer: a man has a hammer; it's the same hammer that belonged to his great-great-great grandfather. In those years, the head of the hammer has been changed many times, and so has the handle, as they wear out. Is it still the same hammer? Is my story still the same story, even though scenes have been replaced? Philsophical hmmm.

So you don't need to move to Egypt. Generally, this type of problem is resolved by a) referring to the Inner Challenge, b) introducing an archetype (some form of supernatural aid) and/or c) the loss of an attachment or an elixir.

In essence, some wrong comes to light/has to be remedied, something needs to be done or something desired will be lost. This causes the movement out of one world into another.

Then there are extrinsic forces - such as force; somebody arrives and pushes you out (in Citizen Kane, the guardian arrives and takes Kane away...).

Your problems are to do with story structure, suggest you look at http://www.clickok.co.uk/index4.html

Hope this helps.