A different approach
I have been penning a romance. Goodness knows why because I can't read the genre. The idea was the try something different.
Recently I had someone look it over for me. An impartial individual told me what I already knew. The characterizations are improbable and the plot overly melodramatic. I already knew that in the back of my head. It's just good to have have confirmation. Now I have to decide what to do with it. The options are to really work on it to tone down the melodrama and improve the characterizations or to just dump it.
I must admit I would truly love any excuse to consign this story to the trash heap. Unfortunately, my own bloody mindedness is jumping up to bite me in the backside. I would really like to whittle down the number of unfinished stories lurking on my hard drive, if only because they all return to haunt me whenever I try to write something new.
This romance started out as a writing exercie. I hate exercising, but I know it's good for me. So...I am inclined to try to fix things.
Either way, I need some distance between myself and the romance for awhile so I am going to work on the Curse of the Panmure Clan. It's an original story. I have the basic setting, the character names, a shadow of a plot and, most importantly for me, an ending.
This time I am going to concentrate on making it a character driven story rather than a plot driven one. The plot driven approach doesn't seem to work that well for me. I end up dragging the characters from scene to scene like puppets rather than letting them act according to their personalities.
I will try to firmly hold in check my unfortunate tendency to turn everything into a comedy, although I'm sure it will happen anyways. None of us gets out of life alive. I find it difficult to take it that seriously.
Recently I had someone look it over for me. An impartial individual told me what I already knew. The characterizations are improbable and the plot overly melodramatic. I already knew that in the back of my head. It's just good to have have confirmation. Now I have to decide what to do with it. The options are to really work on it to tone down the melodrama and improve the characterizations or to just dump it.
I must admit I would truly love any excuse to consign this story to the trash heap. Unfortunately, my own bloody mindedness is jumping up to bite me in the backside. I would really like to whittle down the number of unfinished stories lurking on my hard drive, if only because they all return to haunt me whenever I try to write something new.
This romance started out as a writing exercie. I hate exercising, but I know it's good for me. So...I am inclined to try to fix things.
Either way, I need some distance between myself and the romance for awhile so I am going to work on the Curse of the Panmure Clan. It's an original story. I have the basic setting, the character names, a shadow of a plot and, most importantly for me, an ending.
This time I am going to concentrate on making it a character driven story rather than a plot driven one. The plot driven approach doesn't seem to work that well for me. I end up dragging the characters from scene to scene like puppets rather than letting them act according to their personalities.
I will try to firmly hold in check my unfortunate tendency to turn everything into a comedy, although I'm sure it will happen anyways. None of us gets out of life alive. I find it difficult to take it that seriously.