"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."
My Boog Pages
Monday, January 17
Finito, Part 1
Just finished up the Philadelphia story, the first of two that I have to have finished by next week. As I sat there typeing away, the only person awake in the house, I started to smell something. It got stronger and stronger, to the point where I got up and took a look around. I couldn't seem to find the source, though, so I came back to the keyboard.
And, looking at the screen, I realized: my story is shit.
This isn't just writer's remorse, either, that feeling of dejection I usually get when I finish a story. Execution never lives up to conception, so that's easily explained. Unfortunately, this time the story itself stinks. And there's not much I can do about it.
The plot is pretty simple, maybe too simple, and as a result the pacing suffers. Many of the scenes are static as well, leading to lots of description and not much dialog at all. In addition, it's in the third person, so I don't have a narrative voice to comment on what's going on. To remedy this, I've tried using a style that's a bit more florid than my usual. For instance, I cut "He dropped the grin" and replaced it with, "Babjak erased the smile from his face with the same care he would use to erase his signature from a letter he'd decided was better left unsent."
And the story is still on 2,000 words. Worst of all, I still kind of like the idea, so I've got to put some Pledge on this turd and see if I can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
The other deadline next week means I get to try the best fix for a bad story: write a better one!
New Tunes: Local H, "Bound For The Floor". Robert Palmer, "Bad Case Of Loving You". Motley Crue, "Looks That Kill". (Sorry, I don't do umlauts.)
