The Pivotal Point

Last week I awoke from a hectic dream where I was the central character at a moment of high drama. I was aware that the world was fully formed in the background and the moment of the dream was a wonderful plot twist where the villain tried to destroy me but instead empowered me. There were four basic facts I needed to remember and I repeated them over and over in the hope that I would still remember them when I woke in the morning. Fortunately it worked.

As I re-imagined that scene from my dream, I realised that it was the key pivotal point in a much greater story. I could very easily trace backwards in time and see the steps that had to have occurred in order for me to arrive at that moment, indeed the pivotal moment practically dictated the starting point. I realised too that the rest of the story was simply playing out the inevitable consequences of that pivotal moment. I sat down for an hour and, seven pages later, I had mapped out the entire plot line for a high fantasy novel. The pivotal moment is not the climax, indeed it may not even be at a moment of crisis, neither is it just one of the key moments which joins a novel together like a dot to dot puzzle. It is the point to which the characters move from the beginning and from which the characters travel to the end.

For me the pivotal moment of JRR Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" was Frodo saying "I will take the ring to Mordor, though I do not know the way" Up to that moment the characters had been fleeing from a half understood evil, and were driven towards Rivendell. The rest of the novel related the consequences of that decision for each of the fellowship. Here the pivotal moment was comparatively early in the novel, but the pivotal moment could just as easily be nearer the end

Take an entirely different genre, say Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice". For me the pivotal moment was not Elizabeth's visit to Pemberley, even though that was arguably the point at which Elizabeth's feelings changed from contempt to admiration, it was, I believe, the moment when Darcy declared Elizabeth to be "handsome" after she and the Gardiners had dined at Pemberly. Up to that point the characters words and actions had been controlled by their pride and prejudice, but this was the point after which the characters actions are controlled by their hearts rather than their heads and the story unfolds as a natural consequence of this.

Can you identify a pivotal moment in your favourite book. Can you identify one in your own book?

Day 1 - 14 October 2010 - It had to be done!

A new start - a new blog. Prompted by a little blog-fest competition hosted by Brenda Drake here *tips hat* I decided to have another go at writing a blog and this first post contains my entry. The object is to "write a new scene or post a scene from your current project that is no more than 500 words, which has a rocking cliffhanger (pun intended). It can be any genre. Just leave us hanging, craving more, and cursing your name for making us want to turn a page that isn't there. Easy peasy, right? Right."
So ... here it is ...

Tori gazed out of the window across the shadowy cityscape as the sun blushed the horizon. The misery of the last forty eight hours had taken its toll on her, leaving her eyes red rimmed and puffy. She had a blanket draped around her shoulders and she cupped a hot chocolate in her hands, its warmth and memories of childhood a small comfort in her distress.

Friday night had been special. Friday night was Jim’s surprise night and this Friday he picked her up from work and took her to see a rom-com, much to her delight, particularly as he seemed to enjoy it more than he was prepared to admit. Afterwards they went for a meal and in the soft glow of candlelight he told her that he loved her. Much later, curled up on the sofa in her flat they started to talk tentatively of a future together. When Jim got up to go, Tori asked him to stay.
“I would sweetheart,” he said, as he kissed her, “but I have to be up early in the morning”
“Oh? What are you up to?” she asked him in mock inquisitorial tones.
He grimaced. “Work.”
Then with a hug and a kiss he was gone.
Tori busied herself all day Saturday and wasn’t too worried when her texts to Jim went unanswered. When she called him in the evening his phone was switched off or was out of battery. There was no reply to his home phone, nothing on Twitter or Facebook. Perhaps he had had to work late? What would have stopped him from contacting her?
Sunday morning there was still no response from either of Jim’s phones. She spoke to a couple of mutual friends but they had not heard from him. As the afternoon wore into evening, Tori battled with a rising sense of panic. No-one had heard from Jim, no-one knew where he was. His blog was untouched, his webmail unread. There was no point phoning hospitals, he could have driven anywhere. She began to imagine him lying in a coma, alone, dying, dead. Sleep was out of the question. Over and over she replayed the special Friday night. They had talked of a future together; oh God, had he run from the commitment? In the dark hours before dawn, she was haunted by thoughts that he had vanished into the arms of another.

Now she stood and watched the sun rise on another week, her heart desolate. She could think of no reason why he would not have contacted her that was not heart-wrenching. Her reverie was interrupted by a knock on the door. She flew to the hall and flung it open to find not Jim, but the mailman. He handed her a brown envelope too thick to go through the mail slot. The writing was unmistakably Jim’s cursive script and she could feel through the envelope a small box, a couple of inches to each side. With trembling fingers she opened it.

Yes I am from the UK, and yes I did have to use a UK-US dictionary in a couple of places. I am sure someone will tell me if I got it wrong! I hope you are impressed that this happens to be exactly 500 words long!