Tuesday, October 05, 2010

With an Excerpt, a Comparision, and a Possible New Feature

26 days until National Novel Writing Month

I managed to get unstuck and finished Chapter Four! This means the rest of the month is free for all the NaNo planning I could hope for. And trust me, I desperately need to plan. I think I have about three or four characters and only one of them has a name and none of them has any real depth yet. I have about four events and I do not think that's going to get me through 50,000 words. Plus, I desperately need a title. If I somehow manage to get all this planned out, I'm thinking I may write 'drabbles'. Which from what I understand from reading some examples from this blog, drabbles are little pieces of writing that relate to your novel but aren't really a part of it. I may have an idea for one, but it might also work in the actual novel so I'm hesitant to write it.

But this post isn't about my NaNo (that's what the posts for the next month and a half are for XD) it's about me finishing Chapter Four, about me getting one step closer to that first ledge. This chapter was hard for me to write, I'm not sure if the writing quality is as good as in the previous chapters. It's possible that this is because the main scene is of a type that I'm not all too comfortable writing. I'm going to go ahead and post it here and see if I get any comments on it. I would love some tips. This are also curse words in the chapter (though not in this excerpt) which I usually don't include in my writing.

The bang of the stool’s legs hitting the floor drowned out the ringing in her ears. He stood up, still laughing under his breath. She straightened her spine, trying to give an impression of tallness, but Redstone was a good three inches taller than her. “I’ll ask around, see if anyone’s looking for any new clients,” his eyes swept her slowly from her black covered head to her scuffed boots, “Though, I don’t know if much can be done for your looks, love.”

Cassie snapped open the bag hanging from her shoulder, “It’s not for me. How much?”

He took a step towards her, “Then who exactly is it for? You don’t seem like the type to swing that way, if you know what I mean.”

“How much?” her voice was stiff. She was never coming here again, no matter how desperate she was.

Another step. “Guess I was wrong, you do.”

She kept her eyes firmly on his face, “I don’t. Now if you want payment, tell me. How much?”

“Just one should do,” Redstone took one last step-he was right in her face now-and grabbed her arms. His mouth closed over hers, his tongue pushing against the resistance of her lips.

I normally don't do good with this type of scene, the kind with uncomfortable subjects such as homosexuality (which, by the way, I do not believe is a bad thing just kind of awkward to talk about in this way) and the forced kiss. Though, I do have to admit, it's not as bad as some of the other scenes I've tried with those types of subjects in them. With the completion of this chapter, my rewrite stands at 4,659 words. I'm just trucking along.

What strikes me about my rewrite is how much better it is than the original. I know I wrote the original in a month and it was for NaNo, it's not supposed to be great, but I still can't help the feeling that I should've been doing this good, or fairly close, the first time around. I've also been writing it in a slightly different order. Look at these two lists:
  • Chapter One: Gone
  • Chapter Two: Vision
  • Chapter Three: Be Very Careful
  • Chapter Four: The Boy
This first list is the list of the four chapters that are in my rewrite.
  • Prologue
  • the beginning of Chapter One: Hiding
  • the beginning of Chapter Two: Richard
  • the beginning of Chapter Nine: Redstone's Offer
This list is the pieces of the original novel (of course, completely rewritten) that are currently contained within the rewrite. There's some very profound hopping around. I think I kind of like it, though it may make it harder to continue with the rewrite in the future, but I'm sure I'll figure it out if it happens that way. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, as they say.

To wrap up this blog post, I would like to present an idea I've had for a new feature, though I may not be able to start it for a while due to NaNo. On one day in every week (I haven't decided which yet), I will post a new poem of mine. The point is to write a poem each week. This is partly in honor of the closing of my poetry site on Neo (I decided this blog was better). This new feature will probably start sometime in December or January. I'm going to call it Poetry Peak.

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