too bad "saturnalia" is such a pretentious title
I finished a first draft of the "Insert Scene Here" scene, hereby known as the "Corbeau Sequence," where Dreamless takes Ed with him on a "thing" (my nod to 1000 Pieces). This "thing" turns out to be blackmailing an aeronautics geek named Corbeau. Despite the fact that I only finished twenty minutes before it started, we read it at Writing Group. It needed work. It got some.
So now Writing Group is over, and I just finished rewriting it fairly heavily, and feel a lot better about it. It's still not there, it needs something, but it's closer. Ed's "becoming Henry" moment isn't strong enough, but it's there, a little. Dreamless is less a pussy and now a little more bloodthirsty (I think). To be honest, Corbeau still waffles between cowed victim and ridiculously casual dude. I kind of want a little of that in there. Corbeau is sort of just a dude, almost more of Ed's world than Henry's (and therefore a perfect victim for these small time crooks). I'm not sure I even like him pulling the gun out. It might undermine something in Dreamless and Ed/Henry's relationship. I haven't decided.
Now I've just got to build some more space into the story before Ed "gets" Ally. Right now the sex scene comes on pages 45/46, and that seems okay, but it doesn't build to it right. Ed needs to want her a lot more first, before he gets her. Stealing his doppelganger's girlfriend should be a bigger moment than it is right now (though the scene itself I'm pretty happy with).
It's weird. This story needs so much work to get where it needs to go, but at the same time it feels like it's coming along pretty well. Still, I'm all of 53 pages into it. It's got a long way to go.
Sorry about the post where nobody knows what I'm talking about, or cares, but seriously: don't you sort of expect those from me these days?
P.S. I'm on stolen wifi at the studio. And I still managed to focus and write!
So now Writing Group is over, and I just finished rewriting it fairly heavily, and feel a lot better about it. It's still not there, it needs something, but it's closer. Ed's "becoming Henry" moment isn't strong enough, but it's there, a little. Dreamless is less a pussy and now a little more bloodthirsty (I think). To be honest, Corbeau still waffles between cowed victim and ridiculously casual dude. I kind of want a little of that in there. Corbeau is sort of just a dude, almost more of Ed's world than Henry's (and therefore a perfect victim for these small time crooks). I'm not sure I even like him pulling the gun out. It might undermine something in Dreamless and Ed/Henry's relationship. I haven't decided.
Now I've just got to build some more space into the story before Ed "gets" Ally. Right now the sex scene comes on pages 45/46, and that seems okay, but it doesn't build to it right. Ed needs to want her a lot more first, before he gets her. Stealing his doppelganger's girlfriend should be a bigger moment than it is right now (though the scene itself I'm pretty happy with).
It's weird. This story needs so much work to get where it needs to go, but at the same time it feels like it's coming along pretty well. Still, I'm all of 53 pages into it. It's got a long way to go.
Sorry about the post where nobody knows what I'm talking about, or cares, but seriously: don't you sort of expect those from me these days?
P.S. I'm on stolen wifi at the studio. And I still managed to focus and write!