An Update on the Story from Inferno

[scribblemyname]

There's a reason I call this story that, this story being "Dowse and Bleed." It's more than 9600 words right now and I've still got more than 6000 that need total rewriting.

The story arrived in twisted snatches. I started with the third scene wrote through to middle, then started at the end and worked my way back until I figured out I needed to back up the beginning two scenes and then finished the middle. It's safe to say I had no outline. It's also safe to say I had no idea where the case was going or how I was going to get there.

Rachelle is the main character and, typical to what she does to everyone she encounters with the one exception of her "brother," she was holding out on me.

This incident is smack in the middle of a period where Rachelle is ticked off at Justus for falling in love with her (thus not speaking to him), her health is in a perhaps permanent downward spiral due to the genetic tampering by the Department that made her into a special in the first place, and Jarod is annoying because he's passively aggressively hoping to start a relationship with her, so she's being even harsher than usual with him to get him to back off. And I'm trying to pack this into a story in a genre I've never written (detective) around a plot-type I've never done with an original situation I still don't quite understand. The first draft had several problems with it:

1. I didn't figure out what was going on inside Rachelle until the last two scenes of the story and then, not much.
2. I didn't know why I was telling this story and I don't imagine a reader knew why it mattered either.
3. Rachelle only figured things out after I did, which made her look like she didn't know prep, the initial debriefing, or how to do her work very well.
4. The story turned from a find kidnappee to arrest kidnapper without any real addressing of why kidnapping in the first place.
5. My most important clue went completely unaddressed.
6. The ending came out of nowhere even though I knew it grew from all that stuff Rachelle was iceberging.

I'd love to say the rewrite just wrung itself out of me quickly the way the first draft did, but it's not doing that. It's slow going, stopping and mulling, reworking, and sliding back under Rachelle's skin every time she kicks me out. It's weird because her world is so integrated and I have to convey it all to the reader without going overboard. And frankly, this story shouldn't even be happening. Rachelle's not supposed to be working!

Ah, well. That's why this is the story from inferno. It changes its mind and doesn't like me trying to nail it down.

How's your writing?

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[pygmymuse.livejournal.com]

If a story was easy to pin down, would it be a story?

I rarely know where I'm going with a story, and I usually only know the general goals of my end, not the end itself. I don't always know who is behind the crime until I get to that revelation.

Writing on the fly can be fun, but it can be troublesome, too.

If rewrites were as easy as the first draft, everyone would love editing, though, right?

Eventually you'll pin it down. Making a mystery make sense generally takes a bit of thought and a lot of practice and that annoying question of why.

As for my writing... Yesterday I was on a bit of a high after completing my two big projects just under the wire and sending them off with my mother on her trip. I was having a hard time picking a new big project (I have so many to be working on) but then my mood ended up shifting for a couple reasons and now I don't think the stuff I've started should be continued or that I can edit (too close to the everything must be rewritten stage) so I seem a bit... stymied at the moment.

[scribblemyname]

If a story was easy to pin down, would it be a story?

Yes. My issue is it keeps changing its mind. It wants to be this, then that, then... I want it to figure out what it is so I can discover it. :shakes head at muse:

I don't always know where I'm going with a story, but I always know something. And this missing even a general goal wasn't working. Ah, well. It'll come.

I actually do love editing.

You finished them? Congrats! Might be a good time to just take a short break and read instead. :hugs:

[pygmymuse.livejournal.com]

Yes... I know that feeling. The mind changing... It was rather dismaying to get as far into my Untouchables AU tor realize that all I kept doing was building a foundation for something else, and I had no idea what that big story was, I just kept filling in the backstory. (Incidentally, I still don't know what that larger story is. :( )

Sometimes that's what a story demands, though. It wants to fill in the blanks first.

I enjoy rereading my stories and adding in my layers, but lately editing has become synonymous with other things, and that steals the joy from me. I was all set to reread and edit The Not-So-Super Superhero, but when I mentioned it, I was told I could do it no more good in editing it because I did not see the flawed logic in it. :/

*hugs back* Yeah, I did, thanks, and I'll have to see what my mom thinks of them. It's always like pulling teeth to get much out of her, even if she likes them.

Eh... reading. That's become a problem since I became so picky about what I was reading. Even the series I used to collec

t don't have the same sort of appeal as they used to. I should take the opportunity to clean instead, I suppose.

[scribblemyname]

You know. I'm not sure what, but it sounds like you actually need to get more betas out of the process and find something to rebuild your confidence. Your work is good. Really good. I fell in love with it before I got to know you. I've tried some betas that I immediately did not try again. I only keep the ones that get me, get my work, get the way I write, and are fine with helping me get the results I want from my story even if I've already told them my pet darling is their pet peeve and I'm not going to change that to suit them.

[scribblemyname]

Don't care about the hijack. Just let me say this. I think you should go all in. Get someone to proofread and that's it, then do what you did then. Edit yourself, get a quick grammar/spelling check, then ship the stories. They don't need anything else and it's killing your joy. You don't need that. At all. I quit writing for five years because of that and couldn't get it back until two years of trying hard.

[pygmymuse.livejournal.com]

I am going to put The Consultant and the Cat out as soon as I get the finalized cover (was supposed to be today, but something big got in the way.) I'm hoping to get more of the stuff together for the others, hopefully Nickel and Dime next, though the cover for Any Other Reality is further along. I need to do some summary work, but that's not something I do when I'm feeling upset. I'm trying to hold onto my momentum, though, so I'll continue my attempt to make my fic comm a bit easier to use.