Here I Go Again

Yesterday, I was not feeling good about the prospect of finishing my novel. I don't know how good I feel today, but at least I feel resolved.

As I detailed in my previous post, the beginning of the story reeks. Not only have I portrayed the main character completely wrong, but even worse, the story starts out boring as hell.

My characterization, looking back, is laughable. I honestly don't know what gets into me sometimes. The MC talks almost like a tough detective in a 1940's movie. And she's big on slang, when an actual proper word should have been used. My husband and I watched the film, "Catch Me If You Can" years ago, and knowing it was based on a true story, when I spied the book on my local library site, I borrowed it. I couldn't get past the first page. The author (on whom the film was based) began by referring to women as "dolls", and every other subsequent word was outdated slang. My opening isn't that bad, but perhaps in my quest to portray the MC as cynical, I went a little bit too far. 

Sadly, that's not the only problem with the opening, but I'm not going to rehash all that now. It's all detailed in my previous post.

Thinking about how I'm going to fix things, I came to the realization that I simply can't try to build on, or revise, the original opening. I need to start over.

The fact is, I know my MC now. I'm well acquainted with her personality, and I will need to rewrite the opening in her true voice. And instead of having her recount the facts of her present and past life as if she's giving an oral history, I certainly can throw a bit of emotion into it. I do need to provide some back story, but not the way I did it originally. I forgot my previous advice (to myself) to weave back story in where needed, and to keep it short.

Here's my biggest personal obstacle to overcome: I'm too attached to some of the passages I wrote. I think what I did when I first started writing it was, I just had fun. I didn't have a clue what the story would be or if it would even turn into a story. So I riffed. Two examples of why her band broke up are hilarious ~ really. I want to retain them, but they went on too long. And one of them, coming near the beginning, when a reader couldn't care less about the characters or what happens to them, was ill-placed. If I started reading that book, that's probably where I would give up. 

A couple of days ago when I dove into the revisions, I copied and pasted the original onto a new document and tried to fix it from there. Bad decision, in hindsight. I still had all its problems staring me in the face, and a tweak here and there couldn't make bad composition better. 

So, while I haven't had a true writing session for a few days, I did open another new document and typed a brand new opening line, one that shows the MC's personality. Essentially, she wants to quit the band, but she can't bring herself to say it; and she's worried about the effect quitting will have on her bandmates. (So, she's unassertive, self-sabotaging, and caring.) Don't worry; as the story progresses, she overcomes her hesitancy.

That's basically all I've accomplished, but it makes me feel better. My new approach is bound to be an improvement. 

This thing is somehow going to come together.