The narrative had tension, but not enough, I thought, to carry for four days. And the ending and the beginning worked better as one story. By this point, Peter knew the story as well as I did. We'd analyzed and argued over the characters as though they were old friends. If he didn't get what I was getting at in my scenes, I was doing something wrong.
Conversation is a powerful tool.
It's where ideas get shaped and honed and stories crafted. Peter's an expert at it. He read and reread draft after draft of my story, and we talked and talked about it. Then I'd write and rewrite. Combining four stories into one forced us to move sections around, which meant I often had to rework the transitions between sections.