You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May, 2008.
This is a seriously fly-by posting — the day gig has erupted, madness abounds, and I feel like I haven’t got two brain cells to rub together. Well, I do, but they’re all focused on orchestrating a 90+ person move, with all the attendant issues, not to mention all the craziness of a couple of construction projects. So it’s kind of hard to be coherent about writing.
Not that there’s much to report. I’m waiting for feedback on the first three chapters of Dragonfly before I send it on its merry requested way, and I’m trying to figure out how to rescue a whole section. Reading it, I realized it needs to be more, but I’m having a hard time figuring out how to get that onto the page.
What happens? How do I ratchet up the tension of Ilsabet’s kidnapping and her desire to be released without having a series of repetitious arguments? I think I’m suffering from my usual complaint, which is A Fear of Going Too Far, which usually leads to Not Going Far Enough. I think that’s the problem with that section of the story — it doesn’t go Far Enough. Knowing the problem is the first step…but fixing it is something else altogether.
I think I need help.
But that will have to wait until the move is done…
Well, let’s see: the entry in the PASIC contest is long gone, off to its coordinator. The big upside to that is it’s given me a synopsis I really like. It’s a bit on the long side, but I don’t think I can make it shorter without cutting the heart out of it, so I’m leaving it as is.
Right now, I’m working on revising the second and third chapters so I have a proposal ready to go — the first chapter has already been spiffed up for the contest. I think I’ll go through the rest of the book once chapters two and three are gleaming; things are shifting just a little bit and I need to align what I have.
Other than that, I’ve been thinking about the story and trying to figure out the events of the second half, the stuff that actually happens that tells the outward part of the story. The inward, character journey part I know. It’s just figuring out how that happens in the characters’ day-to-day lives that needs doing.
I think I’ve said before that I can’t not read, so of course I’ve been reading. I just haven’t been reporting on it. And I’m probably not going to report tonight — I’m pretty beat. But I wanted to say I’m still here, and should report more fully by the end of the week…
Since my last post, progress on writing the synopsis has been slow but steady. The slowness comes from having to boil what happens down to its clearest essence, while retaining the heart and spirit of the story. I have to think hard about what’s truly important and what relates most to the central storyline. And this is only a draft – I may finish and realize that I’ve been too ruthless in paring things down.
One thing I’ve realized is that a synopsis is inevitably a distorted version of the complete, full story. It has to be. In condensing a novel in all its complexity to a narrative that’s as short as it can be, a lot of stuff has to be jettisoned, and that changes the shape of what remains. Read the rest of this entry »
