I've decided what I'm doing is really a step-outline of "Place of Safety", geared at giving me space to breathe and rearrange the structure of the story even as I finish building it. I've reached about the 1/4 mark in the second section, the part set in Houston, and this is the least complete portion of the story. But new characters have been introduced and Brendan is on a new (and yet old) direction.
I don't know why I didn't do this years ago. I guess I'm just dense when it comes to my writing and ways to make it easier. I wonder if Tolstoy worked in a similar way with "War and Peace" -- outlining it then adding in the historical details as he filled in his characters? Because that is a richly detailed work.
But then...so was "Anna Karenina" and that wasn't set in an historical period...well, for him. It's funny, but I was so affected by that book's elegant characterizations, it's influenced how I approach all my writing. It's why HTRASG has so much character to it, and PM and RIHC6 and especially BC. I can't imagine populating anything I write with shadows.
But it's the same for my scripts. I don't write cyphers. I can't. I've tried and they bore me, so details start popping in that make the story more interesting for me and most of the people who read my work, but that drive readers crazy because they can't just scan my scripts and understand them. And I'm not just saying this -- I've read some of the coverage on them and, invariably, the errors in it were so glaring and preposterous, no wonder they hurt my chances.
Case in point -- "Blood Angel," my erotic-horror-romance of a vampire script. I got two copies of coverage back on it, one from a contest and one from a production company trying to convince me to rewrite the script so it would better fit into their idea of what a vampire script should be. One of them (I don't remember which) had Tristan's mother committing suicide, which she didn't; it's mentioned 3-4 times in the script that he and his family think she died in Katrina. The other one said I ought to make Tristan the center of the story. He is. And those were just the most glaring errors. And don't get me started on the nonsense about making Tristan female and Gabrielle male; that was just insipid.
There were others like that. So now I write books and people expect them to be as dense as I want them to be. And that's what's happening with Brendan and those surrounding him...and I like it.
Another good thing is, I'm no longer thinking this needs to be a 3 volume work. That might be too much and besides, nobody'll read it. But I can't make a simple pronouncement, yet. Not till I'm done with the outline. It could still change.
But that's me -- Mr. 47 Directions At Once.
I don't know why I didn't do this years ago. I guess I'm just dense when it comes to my writing and ways to make it easier. I wonder if Tolstoy worked in a similar way with "War and Peace" -- outlining it then adding in the historical details as he filled in his characters? Because that is a richly detailed work.
But then...so was "Anna Karenina" and that wasn't set in an historical period...well, for him. It's funny, but I was so affected by that book's elegant characterizations, it's influenced how I approach all my writing. It's why HTRASG has so much character to it, and PM and RIHC6 and especially BC. I can't imagine populating anything I write with shadows.
But it's the same for my scripts. I don't write cyphers. I can't. I've tried and they bore me, so details start popping in that make the story more interesting for me and most of the people who read my work, but that drive readers crazy because they can't just scan my scripts and understand them. And I'm not just saying this -- I've read some of the coverage on them and, invariably, the errors in it were so glaring and preposterous, no wonder they hurt my chances.
Case in point -- "Blood Angel," my erotic-horror-romance of a vampire script. I got two copies of coverage back on it, one from a contest and one from a production company trying to convince me to rewrite the script so it would better fit into their idea of what a vampire script should be. One of them (I don't remember which) had Tristan's mother committing suicide, which she didn't; it's mentioned 3-4 times in the script that he and his family think she died in Katrina. The other one said I ought to make Tristan the center of the story. He is. And those were just the most glaring errors. And don't get me started on the nonsense about making Tristan female and Gabrielle male; that was just insipid.
There were others like that. So now I write books and people expect them to be as dense as I want them to be. And that's what's happening with Brendan and those surrounding him...and I like it.
Another good thing is, I'm no longer thinking this needs to be a 3 volume work. That might be too much and besides, nobody'll read it. But I can't make a simple pronouncement, yet. Not till I'm done with the outline. It could still change.
But that's me -- Mr. 47 Directions At Once.
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