my story this month feels like a bit of a letdown

when we decided upon the topic for this month, an idea popped right into my head.  i felt it could be an interesting take on an old tale (the sword in the stone) and set out from there.  at least three times this month i scrapped what i had (including two days before our turn in) and started from scratch.

the first version, the main character, tavi, was just an awfully annoying person.  he whined about everything.  he didn’t want to do anything.  and when it came time for his role int he story to take shape, it just felt wrong.

the second version of the story, i realized i had written grandpa simpson into the story.  this crazy old fella named jasper would tell stories that would go absolutely nowhere.  while they were mildly amusing, the whole reason i wrote him into the story was to be the history teller.  since he was one of the oldest people anyone knew, he had to be the one to relay the information of the past to everyone in the resent.  it’s really tough to do that when he kept going on about soldiers throwing beehives (which actually did happen) to pygg jars (which is where the term ‘piggy bank’ came from) to any number of other obscure middle ages things.  so that had to go.

the third version i was just unhappy with how a lot of things were getting accomplished.  it just felt … wrong.  how did i fix it?  well, there’s where version four comes in.

i decided to make tavi the narrator of the story.  as i cleaned up what i had and converted the point of view (of which i am almost positive i didn’t do completely) the story really fell into place.  when it was finished, i still wasn’t really all too happy with it.

i really, really like the story, it’s just how i put it onto the paper that i’m real iffy on.  derek and i are doing our monthly meetup to review the stories later tonight, so maybe i’m completely off base with my feelings.  on the other hand, if they are founded in reality, i’m pretty sure derek will be able to point me in the right direction for when i clean up the story into its final version.

after all the good stuff i did last month, it just really seems like i took about 15 steps backwards.  (i’ll comment about derek’s story after we go over them.  i just don’t want him to see what i think before we have a chance to talk.)

 

2000 Original Words later

My my, it’s interesting writing comedy in period speech. While being given a story that takes place around the turn of the 20th century, I happened to be reading H.G. Wells The Invisible Man, which takes place in London around that same time. Perfect! So instead of modernizing what Aaron gave me (he didn’t actually give a year, only a style), I decided to keep it in that time period for the challenge of writing that way.

Well, let me say right now that to make a very silly story while keeping this slightly heightened style of speech is pretty farkin’ ridiculous. I think it’s doing two things simultaneously: I’m not able to put as much silly narration as I would otherwise. My novel Same Old, Same Old features the narrator himself having fun telling the story, much like the narrator in Hitchhiker’s Guide. Well, that’s harder to achieve when I’m chained to an archaic pattern of speech. However, at the same time it’s also making the story seem that much sillier, because they’re all speaking in Bringlish. Seriously, Aaron used barmy?!? Well, I countered that with:

“Then we must needs coax it out and cast it off.”

and

“We would have scored verily had Twinkletoes not been so overly concerned with besmirching his frock.”

Yeah, I went there. This is becoming the most fun story to actually write. I wonder if it will read that way, because I’m having a blast writing it.

 

 

Edit: I’m also calling out our fans. We heard NO feedback on May, which was my favorite month so far. For shame, few people who follow this, for shame!