Ready. Set. Cook!

In my post last week, "Good game, Bad game", I talked about how I had been learning a great deal about conveying the proper level of detail for a good story. Honestly, it's a fine line. Too simplistic and the world can't coalesce for the reader. Too much detail and the story bogs down - excruciating detail leads to excruciating sequences.

This exact level is important in character development - characters are expressed through both their descriptions and emotions, as well as their interactions with other characters and the world. A character's clothes may need to have tiny details explained to complete the picture, but put those details in while that character is interacting with another and the conversation becomes stilted and unnatural.

But this week I've discovered something even more difficult: Action sequences. Although I've written plenty of action sequences before, I never realized their difficultly quite as much as I did this past week, when I reached the first particularly complex action sequence of my novel, and realized how much tweaking it needed.

Action sequences are unique not only in that the precise balance between detail and flow is so exact to create an enjoyable experience, but also in that you only get one shot. Whereas characters can grow and change, and a few off-kilter sequences still allow the reader to form a coherent picture, action sequences are a one-shot deal. You convey the action appropriately and you move on. If your character jumps across the chasm to fight the monster on the other side, your reader better darn well realize it, otherwise they are going to be very, very confused in a very short time.

All the momentum you have garnered up to that point in the story can come to a sudden, screeching halt. And once momentum is lost, it can take a long, long time to get back, assuming your reader wants to stick with you that long.

Case in point - in this blog post I wanted to talk about a new recipe I made up the other night: Goat Cheese, Spinach, Sausage, and Mushroom Stuffed Shells with a homemade Alfredo Sauce.

But how do I do that? Writing the recipe down isn't all that exciting, even if you do like to cook. Sometimes the greatest challenging is, ahem, "spicing up" the most mundane of sequences with enough detail and action to make each sequence interesting enough to hold the reader's interest.

I could write about the step-by-step process of the recipe, or simply say I cooked it. But both would be very passive and uninteresting. One is overloaded with detail; the other lacking.

Instead, I engaged in a dazzling display of culinary prowess. One hot summer afternoon, with my stomach growling incessantly for a meal, I was suddenly struck by inspiration. By combining the soft creaminess of goat cheese, the aromatic spices of hot sausage, the freshness of new spinach, and the mellow flavor of portobello mushrooms, I could create a delicious new pasta dish. And when topped with a homemade alfredo sauce to accent its creamy flavor, it would be truly fantastic.

Idea in hand, the kitchen became a flurry of activity, soon filling with the aroma of frying sausage and sauteed vegetables. Juggling pots and pans, mixing bowls and utensils, and chopping ingredients, soon I had labored to produce my goal: One pan with a delicious, smooth filling of goat cheese, sausage, spinach, and mushrooms, and another, simmering a mouth-watering combination of heavy cream, butter, and cheese. After but a few moments of adding spinach and mushrooms to the alfredo sauce, and rolling a lump of goat cheese into each shell, I had created a dish fit for kings!

It was ready for the final step: to be baked, each shell carefully topped with alfredo and a fine layer of grated cheese. A few, but interminable minutes later, I pulled my bubbling concoction from the oven, the intense heat the only thing keeping me from eating it straight from the pan.

And after stuffing myself with far more than I should have, I realized that the most difficult task of all still awaited me! No, not writing about it on my blog, as you may believe! It was doing the dishes - but no one wants to read about that!