In an initially-unintended way, this book is becoming a story of friendship, it seems.
I find that leaning into relationships, in general, makes it easier to find next scenes. However, I have a tendency to question logic a lot while drafting. And by questioning it, I pay a lot more attention to it than relationships.
To a certain point, questioning logic is necessary, especially because what I am going for is “real world meets inexplicable phenomena” in almost every story. I love that balance between “what’s possible” and “what isn’t possible,” which is why in-story logic feels so crucial to me.
However, relationships do break “logic.” Even in the most logical “real world,” there are stories like “A mom exerts superhuman powers to save her child stuck under a car.” Yeah, no one can explain logically how that happened, with the limited version of science that we currently have. But would many people be able to nevertheless explain the situation? Oh, totally. People who have never heard of gravity as a concept can understand why, in actual actuality, a thing like this is possible.
Personally, I dislike stories that attempt present things “realistically.” So far, 10 out of 10 times, as in, literally every time, their reality simply wasn’t my reality. (For example, the phrase “the “real” struggle of being so-and-so”–eh, no. I have my struggles, but they are mine. I don’t doom other people in the same arbitrary category to struggle, and I find it annoying when someone drags me into their struggle because they assume I must struggle. I do not.)
“Realistic” version: The mom couldn’t lift the car and the kid died. Does that happen in real life? Oh, yes. But is that more “realistic”? No.
People move mountains for people they love. People kill for people they love. Wars happen for love.
Now, that said, this current WIP isn’t that dramatic when it comes to relationships with others. Friendship is powerful, but also, friendship tends to be non-exclusive. Also, in friendship, I don’t think there is the sense of “I made that entity exist and it is an extension of me. Failure to protect it is a failure on my part.” The main drama in this WIP is self-on-self. (Which is another characteristic of stories that interest me. Even if I were to write heavily relationship-focused stories, I would probably lean on that last phrase: “failure on my part.”)
Still, friendship is more powerful than logic. My weakness is trying to check recheck strengthen defend and cling to logic, which actually doesn’t result in stronger logic, because logic isn’t an island. Logic is built on whatever needs to happen. What needs to happen for the self is rarely logic itself. Therefore, I really should lean into this friendship thing here. How logical!