Thursday, August 16, 2007

Codename: Edgy

So I have this story. It evolved from a not-quite-vanilla flavored short story--maybe cinnamon flavored--into something rather more gritty. Something which I don't think could be likened to any sort of food. Something much larger, which if you tried to eat it, you'd get lacerations up and down your throat.

It evolved from being one short story, to two short stories, to a series of short stories, to a short story cycle. And now it's meant to be a sort of novel. Except I've been having the dickens of a time making it longer than about forty or fifty or sixty pages, because I couldn't figure out the plot. I had, for a while, a plot which I liked because I thought it original, unexpected, and altogether interesting. It would not, however, have worked real good in the story, simply because...uh, it wouldn't have. To pull it off, I would have needed to rearrange the beginning a good deal, and have some infodump passages, and some random conversations. All bad stuff.

But I figured it out! Like two days ago. I figured a plot which is a few steps down in oddballness, sadly. But a whole plot. A whole plot, and it fits in with the stuff that I don't want to change, and it fits in with my good ideas. And, what's more, the plot I liked from before could be put in as a sub-plot in this new plot, and I think it would be more powerful as such.

So this is a story which, taken all together, I have written perhaps four hundred pages of. Thats including old drafts, removed/replaced sections, and the hundred some odd pages in the main manuscript probably won't end up in the finished piece. So all taken, I'm only like forty pages into it...

But hey, I have huge hopes right now. Watch for updates on "Edgy."

4 comments:

Jenny Maloney said...

Hey, I'll take edgy over vanilla--though that is the national favorite flavor. If edgy were a flavor...??

The One and Only John said...

Just remember to make sure it doesn't turn into an after school special :P

Ali said...

You know, if you sprinkle some cinnamon over top vanilla ice cream, the results are surprisingly tasty.

Of course, now that you've mentioned hitting your Eureka! and finding what's going to work for the whole plot, you do realize that means you owe me pages now. Right?

Get to typing, my excitable friend.

The One and Only John said...

Holy Crap, I thought I was on my blog for a second there...weird.