After much struggling with my character, Harmony, I’ve decided that she needs to be remade. I’ve been working on her off and on for about 4 years and she gets weaker and weaker each time I try to write her in.
So I dug out my original manuscripts from 2004 and started over. As I was reading I realized I haven’t actually handled these chunks of chapter in four years – I’d simply written newer versions over time and never gone back to the start. The second shock was that as a character she is entirely believable in the beginning and that by doing newer stuff later on I’d lost the essence of what she was originally meant to be.
I had her right the first time.
However, Liam is a cardboard character in the start, and I’d complete dropped a third character that added a lot to the scenes. Now, 4 years later, Liam is my most fleshed out creature, solid and strong and visible while everyone else is faded and unreal.
Damnit!
I also glanced at a stack of files for other works from 10 years ago and laughed. Some of my early attempts at world building are – well – tragically funny. I can see now what I was trying to do, but I was so far from hitting the mark. I didn’t have help from anyone and at the time I floundered a lot by adding mundane details and redundant explanations of physical limitations or locomotion is scenes.
I smiled, even as I hoped to god no one will ever see these early attempts, but they are somewhat endearing to me that I struggled through – continued to push and flounder until 10-15 years later, things make sense.
Evidently, 10-15 years from now, my floundering with Harmony will be resolved and easily understandable and I’ll laugh about how hard I struggled.
Back to the basics with this set of books. These stories need to be pushed out because others are coming in and I need more internal room. Time to birth Liam and Harmony into the world and make a ripple.
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