It Seems My Main Character Just Talks on the Phone

I didn't intend to turn all my main character's interactions into phone conversations, but boy, does she do a lot of talking on the phone! To be honest, I never took note of that until yesterday. (Not sure how I missed it.) This is going to severely limit the novel's movie potential. 😁

I think it all started when she moved back to her hometown. Many of the important characters live hundreds of miles away, and communicating by carrier pigeon would be hopelessly inefficient. HOWEVER, it's getting out of hand. During yesterday's writing session, the MC had phone conversations with four different characters. (fun fact about me: I hate talking on the phone.)

I'm choosing to view it, for now, as events culminating and creating a whirlwind of conflicting emotions and decisions that need to be made. My session was longer than usual, which led me down twisting paths, akin to the last time I had a long writing session and ended up creating a jumble of scene cuts. I don't have ADHD, but ideas kept flowing; my mind got ahead of my literary sense. While I rarely write lengthy scenes to begin with, yesterday's were very short. Not every scene requires pages to convey its essence. Things happen; move on. 

My first scene was a continuation of where I'd stopped previously. This didn't take place by phone, but rather involved the MC and her producer waiting at the airport for his flight to be called. In the course of their conversation, he told her that she didn't belong in Nashville, and she was hurt by that; it was yet another blow to her self-esteem. It turns out, as the dialogue progressed, that it was a backhanded compliment. Then he left (buh-bye!) and she went home to...talk on the phone.

She had a couple of voicemails, one from her mentor, who she hadn't spoken to in weeks. Nothing impactful rose out of their conversation; it was more a resumption of their relationship. (Plus, the character is a favorite of mine, so I wanted her back in the picture.)

Then MC spoke to her attorney. Thankfully, I chose to write a summation, rather than another dialogue exchange. The gist of it was, the record label wanted to settle her lawsuit, but wasn't offering anything except a cancellation of her debt (for paying back her advance). It was a cheap, miserly move, considering they were the ones who breached the contract. At first, MC resigned herself to the outcome, but then had second thoughts. She instructed her attorney to turn them down.  

On to the night's gig, where she had an exchange with her cousin as they were setting up. I'm not 100% sure this was necessary to include, but it did reveal the fact that instead of one of the duo's songs, the mentor had chosen to record five. This drove her cousin to panic, because their band had put those songs on their own album, assuming that the mentor's silence meant she'd rejected them. MC assured him that since they'd recorded several songs, the producer would just replace those tracks with others. Later, via phone, said producer urged MC to leave those songs in ~ she and her cousin had written them, after all ~ but she flatly refused.

Lastly, things took a turn. It began when the band was invited over to her cousin's apartment to say goodbye to his Russian friend and to view the videos the friend had shot of their recording sessions. It turned out that the guy's skills had grown by bounds since the last time he was in town and had put his grainy videos online, only to later be discovered by her former love's friend, which led to their breakup due to her dishonesty in not revealing that she was a singer. While she was never fond of the videographer, she acknowledged that those videos had saved her from making a life-altering mistake. 

Now they all sat and watched his new handiwork, which was magnificent. The hour was late and MC got up to leave, but was advised there was one last video to watch. It consisted of her, isolated by the camera, recording I Was Wrong, and crying. Seeing it threw her into a tailspin.

I'm not certain I'm crazy about where I took things next. She fell back into her previous existence of over-drinking and sleeping away the day. She reverted to the person she'd escaped two years before. The underlying factor is that she'd tried hard to forget about the man she loved; the one who got away. She'd performed I Was Wrong a hundred times in the club, but it was a performance; she refused to let the words even register. Seeing the video brought it all home. That song was written for him, and now he was gone forever.

On second thought, maybe that's the right place to take it. I may, in fact, make her sink even further. Her mentor may need to step in. Or her friend from Chance, who really does need to make an appearance.

I think I'll explore that more.

It looks like I'll get another shot tomorrow at furthering the story. If that storyline goes haywire, I can always change it. But I do like the angst.

Amongst all the telephone jabbering, against all odds, I may have actually hit on something.