If You Over-plot Your Book

If You Over-plot Your Book You Strangle Your Characters. Your Characters Have To Have Enough Freedom And Life To Be Able To Surprise You.

And At The Place Where Time Stands Still, One Sees Lovers Kissing In The Shadows Of Buildings, In A Frozen Embrace That Will Never Let Go. The Loved One Will Never Take His Arms From Where They Are Now, Will Never Give Back The Bracelet Of Memories, Will Never Journey Afar From His Lover, Will Never Place Himself In Danger Of Self-sacrifice, Will Never Fail To Show His Love, Will Never Become Jealous, Will Never Fall In Love With Someone Else, Will Never Lose The Passion Of This Instant Of Time.

That's The Fine Balance Of A Fiction Writer...to Be Able To Give Your Characters Enough Freedom To Surprise You And Yet Still Maintain Some Kind Of Artistic Control.

One Cannot Walk Down An Avenue, Converse With A Friend, Enter A Building, Browse Beneath The Sandstone Arches Of An Old Arcade Without Meeting An Instrument Of Time. Time Is Visible In All Places. Clock Towers, Wristwatches, Church Bells Divide Years Into Months, Months Into Days, Days Into Hours, Hours Into Seconds, Each Increment Of Time Marching After The Other In Perfect Succession. And Beyond Any Particular Clock, A Vast Scaffold Of Time, Stretching Across The Universe, Lays Down The Law Of Time Equally For All.

Thoughts Are No More Than Electrical Surges In The Brain. Sexual Arousal Is No More Than A Flow Of Chemicals To Certain Nerve Endings. Sadness Is No More Than A Bit Of Acid Transfixed In The Cerebellum. In Short, The Body Is A Machine, Subject To The Same Laws Of Electricity And Mechanics As An Electron Or Clock.