I now* declare the first draft of my vampire story to be complete!
I wrote an ending** and I printed it out–20 pages, double-spaced. Very exciting! And then I had to reprint parts of it, because the printer ran out of ink and was printing too faintly. *sigh*
There’s a lot left to fix. There’s one scene that needs to be rewritten, because the wrong things happen in it, and I didn’t figure that out until after I wrote it. And all of the other scenes need things that I haven’t identified yet.
In fact, there are several things about this story that aren’t quite right, aside from basic prose. The main character is about as interesting as a cardboard box***, and I can’t figure out how to fix her. The situation is really interesting, but on some level it could be happening to anyone. So why her? The setting–a high-tech future hospital–is relevant and important, I know it. But I haven’t figured out how. Or rather, I haven’t figured out how to emphasize it.
So today at the gas station I had a thought–what if the MC is just in the wrong position? She’s flat and dull because she’s not where she needs to be… or maybe she’s just not the MC. I have an idea for someone in a better role to be the MC. But of course, that would mean rewriting quite a lot of it. Possibly all of it. If she ends up having a personality that would be a really good thing. But… rewriting the whole story, from a whole new perspective. :-/ That sounds more complicated than my last crazy idea.
I’m going to sleep on it, and see what I think tomorrow.
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* Ok, I actually declared it last weekend. I’m a little slow.
** I didn’t end up adding in the complications I was thinking of in my last post. They didn’t make sense after all, and I decided to simplify and just finish the damn thing. Also, I’m pretty certain it’s not the ending. But … it’s better than no ending.
*** A friend in my writing group described her first version of a main character as having the personality of a coffee table. Mine’s less solid than that.
