August 2010

Aug 27 2010

A rough draft!

in writing

I now* declare the first draft of my vampire story to be complete!

I wrote an ending** and I printed it out–20 pages, double-spaced.  Very exciting!  And then I had to reprint parts of it, because the printer ran out of ink and was printing too faintly.  *sigh*

There’s a lot left to fix.  There’s one scene that needs to be rewritten, because the wrong things happen in it, and I didn’t figure that out until after I wrote it.  And all of the other scenes need things that I haven’t identified yet.

In fact, there are several things about this story that aren’t quite right, aside from basic prose.  The main character is about as interesting as a cardboard box***, and I can’t figure out how to fix her.  The situation is really interesting, but on some level it could be happening to anyone.  So why her?  The setting–a high-tech future hospital–is relevant and important, I know it.  But I haven’t figured out how.  Or rather, I haven’t figured out how to emphasize it.

So today at the gas station I had a thought–what if the MC is just in the wrong position?  She’s flat and dull because she’s not where she needs to be… or maybe she’s just not the MC.  I have an idea for someone in a better role to be the MC.  But of course, that would mean rewriting quite a lot of it.  Possibly all of it.  If she ends up having a personality that would be a really good thing.  But… rewriting the whole story, from a whole new perspective. :-/  That sounds more complicated than my last crazy idea.

I’m going to sleep on it, and see what I think tomorrow.

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* Ok, I actually declared it last weekend.  I’m a little slow.

** I didn’t end up adding in the complications I was thinking of in my last post.  They didn’t make sense after all, and I decided to simplify and just finish the damn thing.  Also, I’m pretty certain it’s not the ending.  But … it’s better than no ending.

*** A friend in my writing group described her first version of a main character as having the personality of a coffee table.  Mine’s less solid than that.

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Aug 01 2010

Do I overcomplicate things?

in writing

Ok, my last post said half a scene from the end, and that’s true.  But I haven’t been able to write it.  I’m not convinced, somehow, and I can’t commit to picking an ending.  I’ve been struggling with the technology in my story.  It’s set in the future (sci-fi horror, you see), but the high-tech doesn’t feel like a crucial aspect of the plot.  If I could just as easily set it in the here-and-now, then there’s no point in setting it in the future.  But I’m convinced that setting it in the future is important to the story.  Therefore, my plot has been missing something, some element that could only happen in this time and place and none other.

Today I figured out how to do that, but it requires adding in a whole nother character, probably 2 more scenes, and reworking several of the others.  (But see, since I haven’t “finished” it yet, I haven’t rewritten those scenes yet, and they were going to need work anyway.  So, it wouldn’t exactly be a waste.)  But I’ve gotten rather attached to the parts of the ending that I’ve already written, and I’m afraid it wouldn’t happen quite this way with this extra plot point.  Which would mean that this great scene I wrote, that I totally love, may not make as much sense.  I might have to kill my darling*. *sniffle*

But would this plot addition overcomplicate things?  Can I accomplish the same thing–or something better–in a simpler way?  I’m also concerned that if I do add this plot point, it could change the tone pretty drastically, and by adding another character it would shift the balance of the story.

And furthermore, then I’d have to write two more scenes, and do the work to integrate that into the whole rest of the story–which isn’t very long.  This is major surgery, on a story this short.  Is it really worth it?

Maybe I’ll sleep on it, and come up with something even better tomorrow.  (“Speedy” hasn’t exactly been my name so far.  Have you noticed that it’s August already?)

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* Good explanation of the phrase here: http://wendypalmer.com.au/2008/09/25/writing-rules-misapplied-kill-your-darlings/

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