Along the very Edge

 

Many things take place far from the middle.  It is only as we explore our possibilities that we find ourselves getting closer and closer to the edge.  As a plot thickens, it is usually towards the center of the page.  It’s a balance thing.  But as we expand our thought process and start including other situations and possibly more characters, we wander dangerously close to the margin.   It takes room to build excitement and consequently an author can become caught-up in the frenzy.

When this happens, mistakes are made, dialog becomes confusing, props are forgotten about and only in later chapters do we discover the phone can’t ring, as you forgot to have one on the table.  Here is where painting with wide strokes, white-out can come to the rescue.  Caution must be exercised, however, for it is here, along the very edge, where paper cuts happen.

I am told that Wuthering Heights would have gone on for several more chapters, had it not been for an unfortunate paper cut.