Progress Report, in which I try to make things harder

Another fifty pages or so down on the Petra rewrite.  I had hoped to maybe do a little better, but I’m glad to continue on schedule. 

As I near the end of the second act, I’m starting to give some thought to what will happen when I finish this draft.  Part of me is concerned that I haven’t worked hard enough on it.  It just seems a little too easy at times–and that makes me nervous.  I fear that those who read the new draft–whoever those unfortunates may be–will simply hate it, that I’ve basically wasted the last couple of months.

I counter this by reminding myself that the bulk of the serious revisions happened at the beginning of the novel, which included inserting a new scene and cutting a large chunk of infodump, along with all the attendant touching up.  So there’s that.

I’ve also been nagged, as I believe I’ve mentioned, by some vagueness in my protagonist’s characterization.  I haven’t been sure how to address the problem (or if it’s even really that much of a problem), so I’ve been removing the bits about him people haven’t liked, in the hope that what remains will work.  Just today, I got an idea about him that might be what I’ve been missing all this time.  I’m not sure about it yet, but at the moment, it seems to feel right.  And it will necessitate some additional work, which should alleviate my fears about this draft being too easy.  So there’s that, too.

Write Club update:  Jetse at Interzone bounced “The Multiplicity Has Arrived.”  He’d gotten a story in the previous email reading period using the same premise (!).  He also felt the story had too much of a “wish fulfillment factor.”  Yeah, I suppose I can see that.  To this day, I’m not sure if this story is SF or fantasy.  I had originally conceived it as the former, but lately I’m thinking it’s the latter.  Response time, about a month and half.

‘Til next time . . .

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.