Dreamer Easy

Back to working on the novel. Looking good until chapters four and five, which are a messy patchwork of bits from different drafts which don't fit together - people do things for reasons that no longer exist, that sort of thing. What a mess. I've already rewritten a chunk of exposition; I'm going to have to do the same with the actual action, writing out an outline, making it make sense and then rewriting from scratch. Gee it would have been nice if I'd done that IN THE FIRST PLACE. Oy

Oh, my gods.

Three days in a hotel room with nothing but the novel and iTunes for company. (iTunes library now suspiciously well-organised.) Part Three is complete; Part Four is well underway (which means I can now see lots of rewrites which will have to be on Part Three, argh). Well on track for finishing the book, including major re-working of certain bits, by the end of the year.

To commemorate my not being dead after three days in that gods-awful hotel chair, a few writing-related links:

On parasocial relationships with fictional characters. Similarly, Cory Doctorow writes that Stories Are a Fuggly Hack for making us empathise with non-existent people, before going on to those annoying artists who can get straight to the emotions without the suffering and punishment of generating narrative. (More Doctorow advice: Cheap Writing Tricks. Note the reappearance (so to speak) of his breakfast yoghurt.)

What makes bad writing bad? Oh, gods.

This morning I finished Chapter Eleven, and with it, Part Two of Strange Flesh. I think this is the hardest thing I have ever written. Or rather, rewritten, from a horribly half-thought-out and half-written draft. The relief is immense and physical. To paraphrase Indiana Jones, now I'm gonna sleep for a week.

... uh-oh, Chapter Ten looks like it's a mess.

Oh no, not ANOTHER draft chapter in which people stand around delivering exposition and agreeing with each other! Repeat after me: every scene must contain conflict, demonstrate character, advance the plot.

X_X

uuuggghhhhh

Rewriting the previous draft of Strange Flesh is a matter of taking the useable bits, generating some new bits, and gluing them all together in a way that makes sense. This time. I hope. I'm just finishing off Draft Zero of Chapter Three, including the deadly Chicken Soup Scene which gave me so much trouble.

I dance on your papery grave, you bastard.

ETA: I have just discovered that in chapter one I introduced a minor character as "the Garners' one-legged daughter" only to have the novel's narrator tell her a few lines later: "Now run!"