Something I began wondering about, today, was if one of the problems I'm having with A Place of Safety is that it's not very interesting, at the beginning. Not exciting or even trying to grab you to make you want to read it. I find it interesting, telling Brendan's story from the age of 10 to 16...but I halfway think his first couple years are too deliberately typical. A boy and his mates, some rambunctious, some not, hinting at the ways they would go...a story told a thousand times before.
There's a reason for that -- showing how their lives were just like ours till history intruded -- but maybe I need to enter their world from a different direction. Something to make it fresh and alive and happening while still real. The civil rights turmoil doesn't really begin to boil until Brendan's 12, so the first chapters are...I dunno...safe. Easy. Build slowly. I know what needs to be there but the way I'm working it right now is coming across as plain oatmeal instead of a 5-course champagne brunch. His story's better than that.
That could be part of it issue I'm having with it -- not so much that I'm afraid to tell the story (I am still pretty nervous about it), but that it seems pointless at the moment unless you know there's something more intense going to happen later...and I'm relying on people knowing The Troubles are coming to take the place of good solid writing. Which is lazy on my part. And sloppy.
There's a lot going on in the story, even in the beginning, however it now strikes me as busy work, not real development. This book needs a better way to be told than simple and straight, like I was doing...at least in the beginning...maybe the whole first section.
Except...it sort of falls into doing that in the Houston section, as well, after Brendan recovers from what he saw in Derry. That starts out really well. I'm already happy with it up to the point where he begins working in his uncle's bar, illegally. Then it sort of settles into a monotone until he falls in love with a girl who's Cajun and black.
As anyone who's read my dark books knows, I despise monotone...
There's a reason for that -- showing how their lives were just like ours till history intruded -- but maybe I need to enter their world from a different direction. Something to make it fresh and alive and happening while still real. The civil rights turmoil doesn't really begin to boil until Brendan's 12, so the first chapters are...I dunno...safe. Easy. Build slowly. I know what needs to be there but the way I'm working it right now is coming across as plain oatmeal instead of a 5-course champagne brunch. His story's better than that.
That could be part of it issue I'm having with it -- not so much that I'm afraid to tell the story (I am still pretty nervous about it), but that it seems pointless at the moment unless you know there's something more intense going to happen later...and I'm relying on people knowing The Troubles are coming to take the place of good solid writing. Which is lazy on my part. And sloppy.
There's a lot going on in the story, even in the beginning, however it now strikes me as busy work, not real development. This book needs a better way to be told than simple and straight, like I was doing...at least in the beginning...maybe the whole first section.
Except...it sort of falls into doing that in the Houston section, as well, after Brendan recovers from what he saw in Derry. That starts out really well. I'm already happy with it up to the point where he begins working in his uncle's bar, illegally. Then it sort of settles into a monotone until he falls in love with a girl who's Cajun and black.
As anyone who's read my dark books knows, I despise monotone...
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