Air Frame = Pressure Hull + X

Feel so...dumb. As in stupid, that I didn't see this sooner. And as in not able to communicate effectively. Only just comprehending just how dumb I've been, 'coz I've just had a Eureka! moment.

Outlining ... y'know, The Project, which because it's so big a project really should be outlined, not so inflexibly set that it allows no further step of exploration nor joy, tho enough plan for building the house on, putting the main bits where they should properly go, and the thing looking like a house when I've finished.

I was convinced I had the right POV, y'see. Only I hadn't, it wasn't, and in fact my choice of POV was not ever going to summon up a living breathing story before me. Not with one thousand years of tinkering and the synopsis dead-text-book perfect.

Because I had the entirely wrong point of view character struggling to tell the story impossible for him to tell. I might as well have tried cobbling together an aeroplane from mini-sub parts.

But. But it's my beloved project, y'see! he exclaims, as if being blinkered so long explains.

And it doesn't. First-Person voice worked in that longago when it first blazed along so very nicely: then it was all idea, a character, and getting his story down before gone forever, like a dream forgotten come waking. And not a thought about outlining, not then. But a story is like exploring an unknown land: writing it enlarges the map. Soon enough, in his effort to tell the larger story, his voice sounded less natural. Starts and stops jarred. I thought a road map, an outline, should restore story flow. Because I'd set it in motion using First-Person, and sprinting so promisingly in First-Person, then in First-Person it logically should continue. Shouldn't it?

[Cusses out self for the mistake that wasted quite a lot of time: none of which is appropriate to record here.]

No. But now I hear the best fitting voice, and it's all He, She, and They. Simple.

Once upon a time, there was this guy, and his name was Guy. And this is what happened to this guy, Guy, one fine morning when Julie Andrews, young and irresistible, invited him to picnic with her, and the pack of kids she was herding, high in a wide-angle sunny alpine meadow...

I can feel it writing itself!