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More rewrites
Finished rough-typing my final chapter of "In Regret Always", which comes out at 5,500 words; that makes the whole thing twenty-one and a half thousand, definitely one of my longer efforts. Unfortunately I wasn't particularly happy with Gustave's big flashback speech in this chapter: the actual scene is fine plotwise, the details of what happens are fine, but I'm not sure his wording is getting it across as vividly as I can see it in my mind's eye. I remember having a lot of trouble in writing that bit in the first place; I wasn't particularly happy with the outcome at the time, and sadly it hasn't improved with being away from it.
I've now spent the day rewriting and copying out three pages of the chapter in a sort of jigsaw fashion -- I decided the main problem was that I'd got Gustave reverting to a childish level of vocabulary when describing the scene from his childhood, so I've rewritten most of the relevant parts of his account in a more 'adult' register. Given that his supposed talent with words gets remarked upon immediately after this section, it really needs to be a bit more in evidence here!
And I see-sawed back and forwards for some time over whether I was going for hints of horror as a lead-up or for rose-tinted nostalgia; I started off by writing an intro assuming a shift to the former, found myself diverging off into the latter, crossed it out, attempted to introduce some more ominous notes, and finally decided to alter the intro instead and reinstate the abandoned section :-)
My main concern now is that the additional material may have unbalanced the pacing of the chapter, since this whole interpolated account is supposed to have been prompted by a single injudicious comment, and to lead back to a rebuttal of it. But I'll have to see it inserted back in context to judge that.
(That makes the *fourth* extended rewrite I've had to do in as many chapters, when I rarely have to do even one -- I just don't know why I've had so much trouble with this story.)
I'm not entirely happy about the ending either, which is awkward when dealing with these sorts of fraught emotions. It's got to be sufficiently clear what's actually going on (not sure it is). It's got to be credibly 'shaded' from one contradictory emotion to another. It has to make sense overall and tie up the story. I'd thought I'd nailed it, and now I'm not sure it's all right :-(
I've now spent the day rewriting and copying out three pages of the chapter in a sort of jigsaw fashion -- I decided the main problem was that I'd got Gustave reverting to a childish level of vocabulary when describing the scene from his childhood, so I've rewritten most of the relevant parts of his account in a more 'adult' register. Given that his supposed talent with words gets remarked upon immediately after this section, it really needs to be a bit more in evidence here!
And I see-sawed back and forwards for some time over whether I was going for hints of horror as a lead-up or for rose-tinted nostalgia; I started off by writing an intro assuming a shift to the former, found myself diverging off into the latter, crossed it out, attempted to introduce some more ominous notes, and finally decided to alter the intro instead and reinstate the abandoned section :-)
My main concern now is that the additional material may have unbalanced the pacing of the chapter, since this whole interpolated account is supposed to have been prompted by a single injudicious comment, and to lead back to a rebuttal of it. But I'll have to see it inserted back in context to judge that.
(That makes the *fourth* extended rewrite I've had to do in as many chapters, when I rarely have to do even one -- I just don't know why I've had so much trouble with this story.)
I'm not entirely happy about the ending either, which is awkward when dealing with these sorts of fraught emotions. It's got to be sufficiently clear what's actually going on (not sure it is). It's got to be credibly 'shaded' from one contradictory emotion to another. It has to make sense overall and tie up the story. I'd thought I'd nailed it, and now I'm not sure it's all right :-(