Going to a Higher Place

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From Jane Espenson's blog:

If I were sitting down to write a House spec, I think I'd start by listing emotional moments I want to see that character go through. Regret? Genuine undistanced anger? A need for a human connection? What would cause that emotion? What would that emotion cause? I'd start working backwards from there. Notice that I am not starting with a disease.

Me, apparently I sit down to write and go, 'Hmmm, what would make Buffy do Spike?'

Options:

1) Arrange for Buffy to be really depressed and disconnected and flailing

2) Make it her solemn Chosen duty

3) Put her under a spell

Comments

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I don't write the way she does either, but I love reading her blog. I find I do the same sorts of things that she discusses sub-consciously (whether this is emulation from a decade or three of voracious reading, or some hard-wired way in which the brain creates narratives, or a bit of both, I do not know) so I find it wonderfully revelatory to have her discuss things and how they work that I had never before thought of as 'things'.

Some people like the Great and Mysterious Oz, but I've always been the sort that is delighted to discover it is actually a very clever trick that even a tiny old man can do.