Killing Darlings

So, looks like I'm going to need another Haven marathon before next fall because there were still more of those big revelations that change your entire perspective on everything that happened before. What's fun is that I can already think of a few clues that were planted in season one for what we learned in the season three finale. But my rewatch will have to wait for next fall, or maybe summer. I have other things to focus on now.

When I watched the pilot, I thought of it as a kind of "Northern Exposure meets The X-Files" thing because we had the outsider coming to the quirky, remote town, and then investigating crazy cases. But then it turned out to be almost as much Twin Peaks as Northern Exposure, with a darkness under the quirks. Then they threw in a bit of Buffy, where there's something about the town itself that causes it to have increased supernatural activity, and then we have a snarky blonde who's specially equipped to deal with it all. Not to mention a lot of Enchanted, Inc., what with the immunity to "magic" and the snarky chick and the shy guy working together. There's even a hint or two of Star Wars. Now they've thrown in elements of The Terminator and Doctor Who, which kind of makes it the Best Show Ever. We just need a little The Princess Bride for it to be perfect (though I'm not sure how they'll fit that in -- unless it involves someone being "mostly dead," which has already happened once and may be happening again). I understand there's also a lot of Stephen King mixed in, and not just the elements from the King novel that's the basis for the series, but I'm too big a weenie for most of King's work. Even the non-horror stuff can keep you awake at night. There's nothing horror in The Colorado Kid, the basis for this series, but it can still keep me awake if I start thinking about it because I keep trying to solve the unsolvable mystery. Strangely, they haven't (yet) actually used the really puzzling elements of the book in the series, even though the series is based on the case in the book.

Now, though, I have to get to work on my own writing. I still haven't thought of what needs to happen in this next scene. I know where I'm going with it, I know what the character arc is. I just can't tell exactly what the first step should be. I may be back to baking as brainstorming because I have to make something for a party tomorrow. I'm still experimenting with a recipe. It's good the way it is, but it isn't perfect yet. Or maybe some Mozart will help. Mozart is supposed to make you smarter, right? So maybe doing some Requiem work will stir up something in my head. I think part of my problem is that the original way makes total sense to me, even though I can see why it might not work for readers. I can think of ways to change it, but they all mean changing something that I love. I suppose this is what they mean by "kill your darlings." If it's in the way of the big picture being right, it needs to go, no matter how much you love it. It's not worth sacrificing the entire book for the sake of a single really good line.

Or so I keep telling myself. This may be one of those times when I need to quit revising and just start with a blank page, writing a new scene, so I don't see the stuff I love. I can then mix and match old and new.