Writing Blog

20211214 changes

December 14, 2021, 9:15am

A quick one, again to show how the writing process works in my case.

I wrote a short story yesterday, a quick 3k words, just to set my mind somewhere else away from the big story, and because I had an idea.

It must have worked.

At 4:21 this morning (according to my clock) I woke up, and understood what I'd been doing wrong with the longer story. I wrote a few notes on the pad that always sits by my bed, but that wasn't enough. So, half an hour later, I got up, turned on the computer and made the changes. Took me a couple of hours.

What had I done wrong?

I'd fallen into a cliche. The main character, he is fine. But I made the female such a stereotype it was insane. It did not fit the psychology of a survivor like she had been, and did not fit in with her life situation. I had to change her. I'd gone for the high school cheerleader type (to use an Americanism) and that was completely implausible. She might have thanked the guy, sure, but they would never meet up.

I changed her appearance and her own mental well-being and, in the current Australia, I think it would make her be seen as something of an outsider, especially with her having had no schooling between the ages of seven and twenty. I need her to be the outsider as much as the MC. So she is now a more realistic 'cute' but not the sort of woman many guys would give a second glance to, sadly.

Does that seem shallow? Well, unfortunately, in the genre I write in, shallowness is often key. I apologise if this upsets anyone.

I do feel like I'm dealing with real characters now, and the story can move on.