actual snip!
Mar. 15th, 2005 01:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kleenexwomanLately, I've been trying to work on original stories as well as my fanfiction. This has proved to be difficult, as I've only had one feasible idea for an original short story in the past semester. Most of my creative energy is going towards fanfic. While this is good for my fanfic, it's probably not the optimal condition for someone who really wants to be published.
The idea I've had is, of course, "From the Gods." The concept is simple: A middle-aged man, probably an ex-hippie, believes his teenage son to be an alien. The problem here is that I only have the concept, and no plot or story map. I've had the ENTIRE SEMESTER to work on this. I've even gotten a deadline from the Fiction Collective for a rough draft, and I still didn't make it.
The change, when it came, was both subtle and sudden. He had been prepared for the obvious little things, empty rebellious gestures that had made so much sense (indeed, that he had almost been compelled to perform) when he was That Age. Door-slamming, glowering looks, spontaneous declarations of disgust for the obsolete beings that were his parents. Unsuitable friends displayed like trophies during dinner or in the small hours of the morning, invaders timidly tolerated by the confused and frightened adults he so despised.
He had been so certain then that the changes within his whirling mind and aching body mirrored the violent metamorphosis taking place in society, a perfect microcosm of the upheaval that characterized every aspect of waking life. External forces, a cultural maelstrom transforming everything it touched into an agent of its own propagation. It would have been presumptuous to think that the meek and dutiful adolescent he had been before was in any way a catalyst that was the province of the defiant superhuman rebels he strove to emulate. He was but one tiny cell of the nebulous revolution, a grateful and devoted agent of change, a mundane middle-class animal exalting in the freedom he had believed to be conferred upon him by the spirit of the times.
When I brought it in to Fic Collective, the first suggestion was that I just start writing from inside the character's head. It doesn't seem to have worked within the context of the story so far; I don't know how to get from "old hippie reminisces" to "son is alien" (and I don't even know if it actually sounds like an old hippie or not), and the wording seems waaaaaay too pretentious to be actually coming from inside the character's head. I thought I might use scene cuts to get to action and dialogue, but I really have no idea as to how I'm going to construct the story, whether I'm going to be able to keep the elevated tone up throughout the story, or whether such an elevated tone is really necessary. And I'm still really waffling about the character of the father.
(Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
diraskyria for insights)
Should I scrap it and start over, or try to keep going?
Wordsmiths, I ask for suggestions.
The idea I've had is, of course, "From the Gods." The concept is simple: A middle-aged man, probably an ex-hippie, believes his teenage son to be an alien. The problem here is that I only have the concept, and no plot or story map. I've had the ENTIRE SEMESTER to work on this. I've even gotten a deadline from the Fiction Collective for a rough draft, and I still didn't make it.
The change, when it came, was both subtle and sudden. He had been prepared for the obvious little things, empty rebellious gestures that had made so much sense (indeed, that he had almost been compelled to perform) when he was That Age. Door-slamming, glowering looks, spontaneous declarations of disgust for the obsolete beings that were his parents. Unsuitable friends displayed like trophies during dinner or in the small hours of the morning, invaders timidly tolerated by the confused and frightened adults he so despised.
He had been so certain then that the changes within his whirling mind and aching body mirrored the violent metamorphosis taking place in society, a perfect microcosm of the upheaval that characterized every aspect of waking life. External forces, a cultural maelstrom transforming everything it touched into an agent of its own propagation. It would have been presumptuous to think that the meek and dutiful adolescent he had been before was in any way a catalyst that was the province of the defiant superhuman rebels he strove to emulate. He was but one tiny cell of the nebulous revolution, a grateful and devoted agent of change, a mundane middle-class animal exalting in the freedom he had believed to be conferred upon him by the spirit of the times.
When I brought it in to Fic Collective, the first suggestion was that I just start writing from inside the character's head. It doesn't seem to have worked within the context of the story so far; I don't know how to get from "old hippie reminisces" to "son is alien" (and I don't even know if it actually sounds like an old hippie or not), and the wording seems waaaaaay too pretentious to be actually coming from inside the character's head. I thought I might use scene cuts to get to action and dialogue, but I really have no idea as to how I'm going to construct the story, whether I'm going to be able to keep the elevated tone up throughout the story, or whether such an elevated tone is really necessary. And I'm still really waffling about the character of the father.
(Thanks to
diraskyria for insights) Should I scrap it and start over, or try to keep going?
Wordsmiths, I ask for suggestions.
