Griping and a signal boost

[anthimeria]

Yesterday I got home from work and with great determination sat down to work on Skywatch.  It's been a while, I'd finished the rd for the steampunk short story, I had no more excuses.

So I went and strolled back through chapters 4 and 5 (previously edited while infected with the mutant cold) and hit chapter 6, as well.  40-ish pages and 4 hours later, I sat back and considered.  Then I swore, loudly and creatively.
 

The thing is, one of the biggest problems I noticed in the first read-through was that my characters didn't really come to life until chapter 7.  It was like I'd waved a magic wand or something--boring, boring, boring, Chapter 7--hey, I care about these people!  It's abrupt and odd.  And also the first 6 chapters are the first third of the bloody book.  In this first round of editing, I had solid critiques and good ideas about how to fix the first three chapters (yay for the WisCon writer's workshop!).  So I'm okay with draft II of chapters 1-3.

After last night's session and some serious consideration, I have concluded that chapters 4-6 need to be chapters 4-5, possibly 4-halfway through 5.  Condensing is the name of the game.  And I have no idea how.

Methinks it is going to have to wait till a later draft, when I have a better idea of the overall story.  And I'm probably going to need some help.  It's just frustrating to know what needs to be done without having a clue how to accomplish it.
 

My signal-boost for today is a blog post by Elena, concerning the Alpha SF/F/Horror workshop for young writers.  Check out her post, and if you know any teen spec fic writers, let them know about this.  I never did, and I wish I had.

Comments

[elenagleason.com]

Thanks for the signal boost!

And I can empathize with your revision woes. "Stars in Manhattan" is on its fourth ending, and it's still not working. Everything is either too perfect, too sad, or negates the agency of the protagonist. It's driving me nuts. I've been working on this story for two years now, and I just want it to be over. *whimper*

...Hopefully Skywatch goes better than that.

[anthimeria]

You're welcome! I always wish I'd known about Alpha when I was young enough to go.

Eep, Stars in Manhattan. Good luck? I've had stories like that. Two years is a while, though, especially for you.

Skywatch is . . . going. If all else fails, I'll figure out what those chapters do, erase them, and re-write from scratch. I don't want to, but I can if I have to.

Y'know, five drafts from now. Maybe.