Sunday, January 10, 2016

Revising...again.

I hope you all survived the holidays. I've been having a very busy year (and yes, it's only 10 days in)!

So in November I mentioned the short story I was writing for fun. Well, I sat on it a week, then returned to it...and felt a little conflicted. One, it was sorta similar to Second Skin. Two, the conflict felt...unfocused. Like, the conflict was definitely there, but I was avoiding actually showing it. Three, there was just something wrong.

I spoke to my friend about it, just giving her the general outline, and she agreed it sounded similar (in summary) to Second Skin, but that it obviously wasn't in other ways. And then she offered some possible solutions, one of which was to make it more romantic comedy.

At which point I glared, because I don't DO romantic comedy. My humor is not like other people's and it's just not something I've done a lot of. At least not on purpose. But we talked a little, and I tucked the ideas in my hat and thought on it.

One, I realized if I wanted this to feel very different from SS, I needed to change POV (AGAIN). Two, I needed to actually have the conflict on screen (which is, like, no duh). Three, I think the only way I'd survive this conflict is if I aimed to make it more rom-com. Give myself the leeway to not be aiming to rip people's hearts out, but rather to make them smack their foreheads in frustration. I have NO IDEA how that's going to go, but that's the plan. I'm allowing myself to be a little goofy with descriptions, going more in depth in the sex (or the lead up), and just kind of playing with the scenes as I work them.

I have the plot written down in a notebook, so I don't need to focus on how I'm getting to the next plot point. I'm already over 6K, so this is probably going to break out of the short story length (theory: I've lost the ability to write really short stories). I'm okay with that, since the deadline for the prompt has passed. But I'm also excited to see where this story goes.




No comments:

Post a Comment