I wrote in my last post that I have stopped working on Everlasting Tunes for the time being. At this time I don’t know whether I’ll ever pick it back up. I wasn’t hooked into the story. I loved the idea, I still do, but the execution of the idea wasn’t grabbing me and I felt like I just didn’t have any sort of connection or even a real thread to cling to as I continued to write it.
Another part of it is something that John Shea brought up a few weeks ago. I sent the first three chapters of Everlasting Tunes out to a few alpha readers to get feedback and the one thing that John said that really stuck with me is that he was worried that a bard wouldn’t be able to function as a lead character.
When you see a bard in a story, he is usually an observer, a recorder of facts and stories, or a student of history or culture. However dynamic he may be as an individual, his role is not usually an active one. I see now (especially after spending almost 20,000 words trying to get it done) how hard it is for a story to center around a bard–watch him go play a song over there! Look! He’s learning a story! Ooo! It’s ok for an occasional viewpoint or a short or as background noise or as a supporting role, but not to carry the narrative of a long-form story. So, Myron’s tale is in the trunk, I think, unless I short it out at some point.
NaNoWriMo begins November 1. That will kick off my next project. What will that be? My first instinct was, since I was trunking Everlasting Tunes, to try and come up with another Myron-centric adventure thing, but I kept coming back to the whole “bard in a lead role == FAIL” argument. So that was right out. All the long stories I have written have taken place in the same world, so I thought about coming up with, you know, something new (I know!). A new world, a new setting, new characters, maybe even trying to write science fiction instead of fantasy, maybe even getting out of genre fiction altogether and writing something “mainstream” (mainstream, of course, is relative in a world where Brandon Sanderson is on the NYT best seller list). But. I can’t think of anything “new” that I want to do. So, what to do?
What I’ve come up with sounds like a copout, but it’s the only real idea I have so far so it’s NOT a copout. Really. No, I’m not going to rewrite Silvershield again. I might, though, rewrite Mother’s Daughter. Mother’s Daughter was the first real long-form story I wrote, back in spring 2008. A lot of the material came (literally word for word, in most cases) out of a cycle of stories I wrote during the 1990′s called The Fallen Ring and is really…well, it’s raw. That’s being charitable, in my opinion. The Fallen Ring stuff it’s based on is pretty awful, though, so it never really had a chance as written. It was also the first time I wrote something set in my world of Sov, and Sov has changed quite a bit since I wrote it, so reading back through it now, it seems a little dated and cliched.
I want to go back and rewrite it. I’ve done a lot of writing (and reading) since I finished it the first time. I’ve grown as a writer. My skills have improved, and I have developed Sov into what I think is a much more vibrant, organized setting. I’ve also been immersed in the Wheel of Time for the last few months, so I have a better sense of descriptive writing and what it means to make a story more complex by interweaving multiple viewpoints and subplots. I know I can make Mother’s Daughter better than it was. It will be nothing like the version that I finished in 2008–I will rewrite it completely from scratch to make sure it’s better.
I can make the story longer and more complex. When I was working on it the first time I had some nascent ideas for a sequel. The original Mother’s Daughter ended on a really cheesy cliffhanger. I can get rid of that and combine the sequel ideas with what has already been written to make a more complete story. it was also a very linear story–I have ideas for multiple storylines that will flesh out the story and add some depth to the events that don’t immediately surround Elaine’s story.
Myron made a background appearance in a couple of scenes in the original version but I want to involve him a lot more heavily in the rewrite. I can also weave in some ideas from Silvershield (I know!). Silvershield is based on a piece of the backstory I put together for Mother’s Daughter and takes place several hundred years before. Still, with a bard in the book, those old “stories and legends” can find their way into the current day and find relevance to the advancement of the plot. If I can figure out how to do it.
That’s the rub as far as that goes. I don’t have a real clear sense yet of what Myron’s role would be or how that old stuff will factor in. I do want it in there somehow. That’s what I need to brainstorm. I don’t want this to be the same story I wrote in 2008. I want it to be richer and have more of a sense of place. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone else, but I know what I mean. I want it to be a multi-layered story, you know? It’s more than just one girl finding out who she really is–there’s got to be more to it than that. I’m not going to force it, though. If I can’t suss out how to work it all in, then it won’t happen. It’s that simple.
If I do decide to rewrite Mother’s Daughter, I have no idea what to call it, not that it really matters at this point. The original title seems too limiting for my new vision of the story. So far, since it brings together pretty much everything I’ve ever written (Myron, Silvershield, Mother’s Daughter, even The Fallen Ring) under one title, I’ve been calling it Überstory. That will change eventually, though. Probably. Heh?
I might not even write this story at all. If I come up with something I like better before November 1 I might still change my mind. I don’t know. It’s all so confusing right now. I have a lot on my mind these days that doesn’t involve writing stories at all, so my mind isn’t really in a “writing” place lately anyway, and that makes it harder to think about this. I want to try to write some more shorts too (I’ve only been saying that since February. Bleah). At least one short before NaNoWriMo begins would be good. And submit it. And resubmit “Derelicts” somewhere. Like I said, though, with the funk I’m in I haven’t got even a glimmer of a new idea for a NaNovel (hence the repurposing of everything I’ve ever written), much less a short. Sigh.
I need to write. It’s therapeutic. It helps me get my mind off of other things and helps keep my head clear. Hopefully I can come up with something new and exciting and be ready for NaNoWriMo. If not, then I’ll start working on Überstory on November 1. I’ll keep posting brainstorm updates here as the month goes by, to try keep you informed as to what is going on. Wish me luck, and please, support your local headcase. Er, novelist.
Oh sure, blame me for this. Just kidding. Just remember the most important part of NaNoWriMo. Write every day. Even if you write crap, write all the time. Something good will come of it. I’ve noticed that TV writers, when asked about writer’s block, all have the same answer. They don’t have time for writer’s block. Their schedule is such a grind that they just always sit down and write something, anything. It becomes a habit and then they just don’t deal with getting stuck. The process for getting unstuck is to simply never stop writing.
That said, I’m seriously thinking of trying NaNoWriMo this year. I’d like to try something different from screenwriting and this seems like a good excuse.
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