tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8213823657588992919.post7140726282535018763..comments2024-03-03T23:19:47.896-08:00Comments on Writing in the Woods - A.M. Guynes/Annikka Woods: Why can't I make it work - in other words, how many first drafts do I need?A.M. Guynes/Annikka Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07614418902810540467noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8213823657588992919.post-31528131819929199262014-04-03T09:08:29.250-07:002014-04-03T09:08:29.250-07:00Let's see... how many versions of Mysticor hav...Let's see... how many versions of Mysticor have I had? The original when I was 13, that got the beginning re-written before it was even finished! A full re-write. At LEAST 4 versions of an opening. Characters dumped and characters added. Scenes deleted, and many scenes added. Total change to who the main character is! World built, and modified, and recently horrifically upheaved- literally, I just ripped the island, now named Erindythe instead of Mysticor, away from the main continent!<br />I think I've finally settled on a starting point for the story (again!), I just nixed a previously major character, been struggling with who's doing what, when, and why are they doing it. Just last night I was seriously considering reordering events, and just as quickly ditched it, and instead moved some locations, and then realized i didn't even need to necessarily do that, if I just moved the location of one Amorphous Bob character. And promptly killed him.<br />And all of this is coming from a story that was a pants story, I was just writing for the sake of writing, and as I grew and matured, i realized the story still had merit, I just had to remove the angsty 13 year old from it! So now we're in outline mode (again, actually... having decided to pretty much completely scrap the 2nd total overhaul in favor of this third)<br />So... Um... yeah. I think I had a point... at some point...<br />I guess maybe this is normal?<br />How does it work? I'm going with "We just keep letting it evolve and change and form and grow until it at least makes a cohesive whole. Then we dump it on beta readers and see what they think!" And then we start all over again... because they hated it...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com