Complexity

I had a few readers this week indicate my storyline is complex. It is true but then I always thought in complex terms. Nothing has ever appeared to be simple to me. Everything had its own degree of well degrees. Even the weather. It is never just hot or cold. It is hot and steamy with sweat dripping out of every pore in my body (which happens in the summertime in the south) or hot but clear and with a breeze permitting my hair to flutter around my face. Cold has its own degrees but I must admit cold and dry is preferable to cold and damp. Why is it after a snowstorm (I am from Washington DC area) the next day is cold and dry. It makes it easier to dig your car out from the mess.

All people are complex. I have been watching the TV show Heroes. Now that is complex but still not to difficult to follow if you are a complex person like me. My best friend is watching them too and depends upon me to keep the story straight for her. I usually can remember little things that happened six episodes earlier; she cannot. I can guess the direction of the scene; she cannot. I can say "That's his mother" before it becomes known even though there were no clues. She assumed it was just another "hero" with some power he wanted. Well, I see the nuances the writers have added which is easier for me watching something than reading something. I never really try to ferret it out when reading stories. I prefer to just get lost in the words and let the writer led me wherever he/she wants. But TV and movies are different. Maybe it is a visual thing. I find I can say the next line of dialogue and often do! lol that drove my oldest son nuts. My youngest son is the same way.

Stephen and I have a game we play (well this is about one of them). We use the remote and flash movie channels up on the screen and the first one that yells out the name and any specifics is the winner. He is better with the newer crappy movies and I call them and I am better at the deliciously old classics. He thinks the old classics are well not classic at all. Now he liked Pulp Fiction which I did not. I like Its a Wonderful Life and he hated it. lol Anyway we guess not only the movie but shout out the scene or next line. My oldest son hates the game because he is not as quick.

We did play a trick on my oldest son one time. I had just had TV put in his room (he was an honor role student in advanced studies unlike his brother that refused to go to school - so the honor student got the TV). It was hooked up to cable the same as the family one in the living room. Well, Stephen and I took the remote from the Living room and took turns going outside and would stand at Edward's window and change the channel. The remotes worked through glass. lol We kept this up for a while. Poor Ed. He demanded I call the cable company and tell them the damn thing was broken. I would go in his room and wait with him for it to happen again and when it did not I would leave. Of course, Stephen was outside the window ready to change the channel once I left. Was this a mean trick? I guess so. Would it have worked on Stephen. NO. He would have figured it out as would I. Edward was told that day - I don't believe on letting tricks go on forever and we did have a laugh about it. Edward is a good soul with a tender heart and has a fun sense of humor. He was used to us and I think he liked being the center of attention too. He tells this story all the time so he did not find it so cruel.

Well, complexity is my thought this morning. I have decided to add a scene with Darcy looking back on his entire stay in NP while riding towards London. Sort of a recap to help my readers. A lot has happened and I have left many clues some of which I will highlight and a few others, well, no. They shall remain locked in the reader's subconsciousness.

Yes, complexity is the game of life. We are made up of good and bad, strong and weak, happy and sad, brilliant and stupid, funny and boring, arrogant and compassionate, talent and no talent, meanness and niceness, and love and hate and every degree between them. Each person uses their degrees differently. Some cultivate the good while others allow the bad to bubble forth. But we all have them and that is what makes writing characters so much fun. Which degree of person's makeup will come out on the page. Yes, studying human nature was Jane Austen's forte I think. She was one of the best. We loved her couple and hated their enemies even though they were just regular people.

well, need to find a way to take the complexity out of my housework! lol

till tomorrow.

gayle