It's a Trap - Evolution of a Story

22APR18

Spent a few hours this weekend editing a story. Rewrote the beginning with more specifics, eventually adding another three hundred words or so, bringing the total word count up to 10, 300. 

I do a weird thing when I edit. I always start at the beginning of the story and work my way through to the end, editing as I go. This lets me get immersed in the story, feel my way through. While this makes for stronger openings, it also makes for weaker endings, and right now I can see that in this story. I'll be working on it for a few more weeks before I release the story for sale. I'm thinking that it will be around 20,000 words by the time I'm done. I still love the midpoint action in this story! Every time I read it I am inspired anew to keep writing the stuff I like to read. Here's a snippet [not my favorite part in the story, but pretty close to it. Spoiler alert, someone dies, almost, well, maybe. Let's just say he gets better later. Mostly.]:

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Murg and Black Char fell back, aghast. Between them, Jagged Edge tried to scream, to get away, but he was stuck straight through from his shoulder to the seat of his pants. Blood turned pink as the light from the crystal sword shone through the spurts from his neck. 

Black Char kicked, trying to get away from the killer blade and Jagged Edge's flailing arms and legs. Murg sat back on his rump and watched from inches away as Jagged Edge twitched out his last seconds of life, impaled by the crystal sword they had come to find.

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When you go looking for power, be careful. You may find it!

So now I need to keep editing, working toward getting to the end without any more rewrites. I wrote in a mid-section piece which adds some more details to the story and gives it a good building feel to the action later. Right now the ending seems a little loose and unfocused. I'm going to tighten it up some, give a bigger role to one of the female secondary characters and make the ending more satisfying. She's due to have a story of her own in the future anyways.

Picture for today: The female secondary character in my story worships the Sun. She is of the People of the Sun. 

Of course, People of the Sun reminds me of something else as well...

People of the Sun


May your days be good and long upon this Earth.