Blood Ties @ 52,180
Plural of Love @ 12,172
Something weird has happened.
First, I made a big change to Plural of Love. I started writing in present tense. And-- WOW!-- I like it sooo much better. Huge, huge, huge improvement. I have yet to go back and change the early chapters from past to present tense, but that's not what NaNo is about, so I'll hold off on that until revisions.
I never would have guessed that such a little tweak-- changing tenses-- could make such a big difference. I should know better, really. Blood Ties started out in third person past tense. I wrote about one chapter, then discarded it because it was crap. A couple months later I was free writing in my notebook and I re-wrote a possible beginning to the story. In first person present tense. It was soooo much better. So I took it from there, and a month later, the story is almost complete.
Except... Now I'm falling out of love with the story.
I thought it was soooo good. I loved it. But now I've written in a HUGE twist, and I'm not sure I like what's happening to the story. I'm not sure what's going on with my characters. Why are they being such brats? Up until now, the written words and the story ideal floating around in my head matched. They flowed together. But now the written story is transforming into something ugly and it doesn't match the beautiful story idea in my head. And I can't help but feel like I'm messing it all up. GRRRR!!!!!!
It's not the twist itself. The twist was the whole basis for the story. And really, I don't know which direction to take my characters in without this twist. There is no story without this event. This event makes the book. So I must be doing something wrong. But what? How do I fix this???
Perhaps I only have enough story-love for one WiP at a time. Maybe that's my problem.
Either way, I'm going to keep writing both. I have to. I have to push through the horrible writing, the lines I hate, the characters doing things I don't want them to do.
Because I can change something they say. I can re-write their actions. I can tweak, and re-arrange the story once it's all down.
But I can't do anything if they don't do anything.
So they have to keep doing things that make me cringe.
And I have to keep putting words on that page.
So I will.
Well I'm sure you can do it, I have to do the same painful thing, but I'm sure we'll be fine. You can do it! I know you can!
ReplyDeleteDon't you hate it when they don't behave? Same thing happened with my current MC. I wanted Lola to be strong-willed and opinionated. She's not. Turns out she's a bit shallow and weak. Sigh. I should cut her some slack. She is only 15.
ReplyDeleteKeep at it. It's all you can do.
The last few sentences of this post gave me shivers.
ReplyDeleteKeep moving forward. It's all we can do.