The Joy of Reunion Stories. Not.

Still suffering from the 'mehs'. With a sprinkling of 'blahs' and some 'whatever' sauce. This is not good. It does not help that my current wip is a reunion story. This is the first one I've attempted and I gotta say it's hard! Now, back in the mists of time (a year ago), I used to find beginnings easy. Got my hook and it all came together nicely. It was the rest of the book that was the hard part. But things are different now and quite frankly, I am finding beginnings to be a pain in the butt!

So why now? I think it's the old craft thing kicking in. I know more about craft now that I ever did and that has made me aware of the things I need to know before I can start the book - before I used to dive right in and never worry about it. Conflict being the main one. For example, the couple I'm writing now have a painful past and I thought I knew what that past was but as I was writing chapter 2, I realised that in fact I didn't. Nor did I know what their most basic conflict was, the one that made their relationship fail the first time round. Or at least, I had an idea but then realised I hadn't thought about it deeply enough. Oh, yes, and of course I'd made it unnecessarily complicated again so I had to simplify it. Simple but deep.

And then there's the question about how to get across all that past, that sense of what their initial relationship was like, when they meet up again. It's tricky because the conflict that they have must happen in the present, not the past, so you can't put too much past in there. Argh!!

So, here I am, stuck in chapter 3, having rewritten the past couple of chapters 2 or 3 times and I'm still not sure I've got it right. Groan.

Anyone have any handy hints or tips for reunion stories??