The Importance of Yet – A Pep Talk by Molly MacRae

 

Earlier this week my daughter-in-law and I were talking about her latest painting. She paints and draws beautiful, small landscapes and waterscapes (some with exquisite mermaids) that always make me say “Wow!” With this painting, she’s working on a much larger scale. The dimensions are big enough to be daunting, almost paralyzing. That isn’t stopping her, but she’s used to finishing a piece so quickly that it goes from concept to “Wow!” in a day or two. So when she showed me her work in progress, she apologized, saying “It doesn't look like much.” At that point we looked at each other and added the word that sentence needed to finish it properly—yet. It doesn’t look like much yet.

Isn’t that the way so many things start out? Maybe most things. Maybe everything. An acorn doesn’t look like an oak tree. A tiny, red, squalling baby doesn’t look like an astrophysicist. Someone who doesn’t cook might stare into the refrigerator and say (some of them whine) there’s nothing for supper. A cook will see the possibilities and turn them into really good soup.

And think of the projects that reach a point where they look worse than they did to begin with and before they reach the point of looking just right. The horror of cleaning and reorganizing a workspace can be like that. You have to drag things out, move them around, toss them, heap them, and generally make a mess. Why? Because situations are often darkest before the dawn. Because you’re not done yet.

This applies to writing, too. A story or book is nonexistent to begin with. Then it’s in the writer’s head. Then it might be a scrawl on a napkin. And so on and so forth with lots of opportunities to worry that it doesn’t look like much along the way. There are also those times when the work in progress looks absolutely #@%#-ing horrible. Then the writer and the work need time away from each other to cool down (and maybe a good cry, some slashing and burning, a pair of scissors and roll of tape, and a drink) before getting back to the job at hand.

In the crime writing field, the concept of yet is important for our amateur sleuths and detectives to understand, too. There might come a point in their investigation where the villain has the upper hand, there’s no way through the dark, their lives are in jeopardy, and they lose all hope. If you communicate with your protagonists in some way, give them a pep talk. Don’t let them despair (unless you’re writing noir and then despair might be the end goal). Let them know they just haven’t solved the crime yet.  

Readers: What activity, craft, or art do you practice that looks worse before it looks just right?