Progress report

I’ve made it to Chapter 3 in my rewrite of The Outerlands. The core of the story is the same–that is, most of the same events are occurring, in the same order. The way they’re told, on the other hand, is really drastically different. I’m using almost all new words. There’s very little from the previous version that can be reused. This is making it feel almost like a whole new story.

I’m working really hard on the following: (1) moving things forward faster; (2) eliminating any scenes in which no more new ground is broken; (3) eliminating excess wordage. Every word costs a dollar!

To explain (1) a little bit more: in the previous version of OL I had a tendency to have one thing happen in the first scene, then the ensuing event happen in the next scene, and so forth. Very slow and drawn out, and more like “real life”. This story, however, is not real life. I don’t need things to happen in “real time”. I don’t need to have the character reaching for the doorknob, turning it, opening the door, walking through the doorway, turning left into the hallway, and so forth. All I need is for her to materialize in the kitchen.

For now, I’m concentrating on the evolution of the relationships of my main character, Mercy, with the two most important secondary characters–her brother Keenan and her friend Violet (who becomes her lover). Along with the Mercy/Keenan relationship comes the evolution of Mercy’s world view. She starts off with an attitude of resignation towards the repressive society in which she lives, but ends up daring to dream of a better place. Along with the Mercy/Violet relationship comes the evolution of Mercy’s sense of self, especially her sexual identity. She goes from not knowing who she is and merely accepting the role she is given, to realizing she doesn’t fit in but trying to deny it, to finally accepting herself.

There are additional elements in the story that don’t fall strictly under either of these two relationships, but I feel like I need to write all the foundation scenes first.

If only I could have just gotten all this stuff figured out in advance, heh. Going back and fixing this existing story is proving to be a lot harder than writing a new story from scratch. What I’m doing now is almost like writing a brand-new story, except not.