Writer's block, an owner's guide: Master and Commander, again

Now here’s a coincidence, even a synchronicity. Just yesterday I was telling you about Patrick O’Brian, in a long aside to what I was really trying to say about whether authors can just omit troublesome scenes. It was so long and so half-relevant that I actually wondered if I should just omit it.

And today, in a quiet moment between clients, I came across this thought, which I’m quite sure is O’Brian’s own, in the mouths of two of his regular characters: “Are endings really so very important? Sterne did quite well without one; and often an unfinished picture is all the more interesting for the bare canvas… The conventional ending, with virtue rewarded and losses ends tied up is often sadly chilling; and its platitude and falsity tend to infect what has gone before, however excellent. Many books would be far better without their last chapter: or at least with no more than a brief, cool, unemotional statement of the outcome.”

When we’re having trouble with a scene and we’re tempted to label that as the work of the imaginary demon Wr*t*r’s Bl*ck, another possibility is that the scene does not belong in the work at all.

Published on December 2, 2006 at 3:47 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/master-and-commander-again.html