I'm thinking that I should try doing something a little different for Bart's story of how he got laid the first time. I can have a little more dialogue and give-and-take between Hap and Bart, and I can also stage it in an interesting place -- M.'s parties, I'm thinking. That will allow me to relate backstory as well as create this Bay Area atmosphere.
Keep in mind that M.'s parties were a pre-dotcom phenomenon. They were more related to the RDBMS- and aerospace-heavy high tech industry of the early and mid-90s than they are to the dotcom era. Make that clear.
So let's see... Who should I use (from my own history) for Bart's first? Has to be somebody young and impressionable... J., or that noisy little Berkeley girl with the jewfro. Yeah, that's it. Bart can tell this story to Hap at the party and they can have a big laugh over it. Then I can immediately transition to them standing at the dock the next morning ready to board the ferry.
This means there will be no scene in chapter 2 (or 3) at the hotel at the foot of the lake in which we meet both Bart and Seth at the same time, but that scene never came close to materializing in my mind, so the hell with it. This in itself is an important thing to learn. In the past I would have conceived of a scene when outlining ahead (cf. the entry for 7 Aug 07) and tried really really hard to write through it, even when it was resolutely failing to come. Now I know I should just jettison such scenes and go around them by presenting whatever I had originally intended for them elsewhere. And in fact I never had even a remotely good idea for this scene, had no idea what purpose it was supposed to serve -- it sounded dull as soon as I conceived it. And it devoted pages to sitting around in Lausanne when that's not even the setting of the book. The heck with it.
So: start ch. 3 the way I have it, with the long paragraph introducing Bart. Then cut to the scene at the dock where they're waiting to board the ferry. We can have a short bit of dialogue, some short exchange that tells something about Bart. (I'm always better at assigning myself such moments to write than I am actually writing them.) Then talk about how they met, and explain M.'s parties, and segue into the story Bart told of his first time. By the time we get back to the "present" the ferry should be well on its way.
I wonder if I should work in a few facts about the geography at this point, by way of setting the scene more. I can have the boat captain explain them and Hap quote them indirectly.
All this is a wee bit dull, though... I find myself asking "What are we trying to show with this whole novel anyway?" Keep that in mind, then: the way men talk, the way they behave. That's the point.
Keep in mind that M.'s parties were a pre-dotcom phenomenon. They were more related to the RDBMS- and aerospace-heavy high tech industry of the early and mid-90s than they are to the dotcom era. Make that clear.
So let's see... Who should I use (from my own history) for Bart's first? Has to be somebody young and impressionable... J., or that noisy little Berkeley girl with the jewfro. Yeah, that's it. Bart can tell this story to Hap at the party and they can have a big laugh over it. Then I can immediately transition to them standing at the dock the next morning ready to board the ferry.
This means there will be no scene in chapter 2 (or 3) at the hotel at the foot of the lake in which we meet both Bart and Seth at the same time, but that scene never came close to materializing in my mind, so the hell with it. This in itself is an important thing to learn. In the past I would have conceived of a scene when outlining ahead (cf. the entry for 7 Aug 07) and tried really really hard to write through it, even when it was resolutely failing to come. Now I know I should just jettison such scenes and go around them by presenting whatever I had originally intended for them elsewhere. And in fact I never had even a remotely good idea for this scene, had no idea what purpose it was supposed to serve -- it sounded dull as soon as I conceived it. And it devoted pages to sitting around in Lausanne when that's not even the setting of the book. The heck with it.
So: start ch. 3 the way I have it, with the long paragraph introducing Bart. Then cut to the scene at the dock where they're waiting to board the ferry. We can have a short bit of dialogue, some short exchange that tells something about Bart. (I'm always better at assigning myself such moments to write than I am actually writing them.) Then talk about how they met, and explain M.'s parties, and segue into the story Bart told of his first time. By the time we get back to the "present" the ferry should be well on its way.
I wonder if I should work in a few facts about the geography at this point, by way of setting the scene more. I can have the boat captain explain them and Hap quote them indirectly.
All this is a wee bit dull, though... I find myself asking "What are we trying to show with this whole novel anyway?" Keep that in mind, then: the way men talk, the way they behave. That's the point.