Two failed attempts
24 November 2025 06:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeHave I ever mentioned that I really, really dislike writing with no idea where I'm supposed to be going? :-(
It manages to throw me off balance every time, and it's ridiculous, given how much I conversely enjoy discovering all the extra unexpected bits that develop themselves while I'm in the process of writing the story. But I absolutely need a distant beacon in mind towards which I can navigate -- I was fine while I had Athos' and d'Artagnan's conversation up ahead of me, with the various topics I'd already heard them mention and which needed to be worked in, but as soon as that was over, and I found myself in the situation of "this story needs to have something more written on it in order to create an ending, but I don't know what", I was instantly floundering in deep water and making very heavy weather of it :-(
I have been struggling for a week to come up with a concise and applicable epilogue that can bring Venya back into the picture and make the character feel less pointless, and I keep writing bits with enormous labour and then giving up on the whole idea because it doesn't feel right for the characters or for what I'm trying to do with the chapter (i.e. finish it off as quickly as possible!)
But on my venture down a third Leg of the Trousers of Time (exactly what sort of personage is wearing them?) I think I've finally got an ending in a suitable tone, after a little bickering between Venya and Raoul in which Venya's lack of language isn't a disadvantage. (The fact that he can barely *talk* beyond toddler-level doesn't mean that he can only understand at that level, let alone that he functions mentally at that level; with hindsight I have definitely been inflicting my own recent experience upon the poor boy! Whereas Raoul's attitude towards *teaching* language, conversely, is also my own; chatter randomly and as much as possible on the assumption that your auditor will probably pick up a lot more than you might think, and switch to consciously simple explanation at points where it becomes important to communicate something that it is clear he *hasn't* understood...)
Trying to find a suitable follow-up to their little bout of fisticuffs, however, proved an awful lot more difficult than it should have done :-(
Raoul, scrambling to his feet with a grin, shook the hair from his eyes and swept him a neat bow.
"I surrender, monsieur -- and withdraw the word."Then, with matters of honour satisfied, he burst out: "Venya, that was terrific! You'll have to show me how to do it. The next time Philippe makes a joke about my mother..."
"Monsieur le comte will like?" Venya questioned, a little doubtfully, and Raoul's face fell.
"Monsieur le comte doesn't have to know," he promised, and after a moment Venya returned the grin.
(Raoul wouldn't do anything that Athos considered dishonourable, and even if Auguste-Philippe-Gérard du Chaligret de Fouilgieux is in the habit of questioning Raoul's dubious parentage, after the fashion of the unlamented de Wardes at Versailles, that's an additional complication that we really don't want to bring into a 'winding-down' section: this development abandoned. Also, we seem to have acquired another Raoul and Philippe who are confusingly unrelated to "The Phantom of the Opera" -- possibly this aristocratic Philippe should become an Henri, if one is to go by Valois kings... or just a Gérard?)
Second attempt, after much crossing-out:
Then, with matters of honour satisfied, he burst out: "Venya, that was terrific. I'd like to see any Spaniard get the better of you!"
Venya, whose life had encompassed many taunts but never a formal apology, received this effusion with understandable wariness. But Raoul was so transparently well-meaning that after a minute the other boy couldn't help but grin back.
(Ouch, I can't believe how *short* the finalised version of that one was, after all that effort... Abandoned because it was still too clumsy and wordy, and because the fight is supposed to bring them closer together, not provide further potential miscommunication. And we need to bear in mind that Raoul is speaking French, therefore misleading idioms in English (it occurred to me that, literally, he has just said that he would *like* Venya to lose a fight to a Spaniard) should be avoided.)
Third and preferably final attempt at working out where this scene was going next:
"I surrender, monsieur -- and withdraw the word." He tossed the blanket back. "But you'd still better get dressed, or you'll freeze -- and monsieur le comte won't like that!"
This being a threat far more effective than the Spanish, the two boys presently went down to breakfast together in their full finery, and in perfect harmony with one another. Only Venya bore his head a little higher than before.
(I desperately needed to get Venya out of his nightshirt -- earlier plot point; he had jumped out of bed to rush to the window, and was shuffling around from foot to foot because the floor was cold -- and was repeatedly failing to do so in both of the previous attempts, despite efforts in that direction. Now at least we have got the two of them brought concisely together and the scene rounded off without further plot digressions, with an appropriate attitude to Athos thrown into the mix... and a reasonably decent (albeit not terribly good) line on which to close the fic. Not one of my best last lines, but it will do for a fic that basically doesn't have a storyline, the message being that Venya arrives as a 'waif and stray' and has now carved out a foreseeable place for himself in future at Bragelonne.)
It manages to throw me off balance every time, and it's ridiculous, given how much I conversely enjoy discovering all the extra unexpected bits that develop themselves while I'm in the process of writing the story. But I absolutely need a distant beacon in mind towards which I can navigate -- I was fine while I had Athos' and d'Artagnan's conversation up ahead of me, with the various topics I'd already heard them mention and which needed to be worked in, but as soon as that was over, and I found myself in the situation of "this story needs to have something more written on it in order to create an ending, but I don't know what", I was instantly floundering in deep water and making very heavy weather of it :-(
I have been struggling for a week to come up with a concise and applicable epilogue that can bring Venya back into the picture and make the character feel less pointless, and I keep writing bits with enormous labour and then giving up on the whole idea because it doesn't feel right for the characters or for what I'm trying to do with the chapter (i.e. finish it off as quickly as possible!)
But on my venture down a third Leg of the Trousers of Time (exactly what sort of personage is wearing them?) I think I've finally got an ending in a suitable tone, after a little bickering between Venya and Raoul in which Venya's lack of language isn't a disadvantage. (The fact that he can barely *talk* beyond toddler-level doesn't mean that he can only understand at that level, let alone that he functions mentally at that level; with hindsight I have definitely been inflicting my own recent experience upon the poor boy! Whereas Raoul's attitude towards *teaching* language, conversely, is also my own; chatter randomly and as much as possible on the assumption that your auditor will probably pick up a lot more than you might think, and switch to consciously simple explanation at points where it becomes important to communicate something that it is clear he *hasn't* understood...)
Trying to find a suitable follow-up to their little bout of fisticuffs, however, proved an awful lot more difficult than it should have done :-(
Raoul, scrambling to his feet with a grin, shook the hair from his eyes and swept him a neat bow.
"I surrender, monsieur -- and withdraw the word."
(Raoul wouldn't do anything that Athos considered dishonourable, and even if Auguste-Philippe-Gérard du Chaligret de Fouilgieux is in the habit of questioning Raoul's dubious parentage, after the fashion of the unlamented de Wardes at Versailles, that's an additional complication that we really don't want to bring into a 'winding-down' section: this development abandoned. Also, we seem to have acquired another Raoul and Philippe who are confusingly unrelated to "The Phantom of the Opera" -- possibly this aristocratic Philippe should become an Henri, if one is to go by Valois kings... or just a Gérard?)
Second attempt, after much crossing-out:
(Ouch, I can't believe how *short* the finalised version of that one was, after all that effort... Abandoned because it was still too clumsy and wordy, and because the fight is supposed to bring them closer together, not provide further potential miscommunication. And we need to bear in mind that Raoul is speaking French, therefore misleading idioms in English (it occurred to me that, literally, he has just said that he would *like* Venya to lose a fight to a Spaniard) should be avoided.)
Third and preferably final attempt at working out where this scene was going next:
"I surrender, monsieur -- and withdraw the word." He tossed the blanket back. "But you'd still better get dressed, or you'll freeze -- and monsieur le comte won't like that!"
This being a threat far more effective than the Spanish, the two boys presently went down to breakfast together in their full finery, and in perfect harmony with one another. Only Venya bore his head a little higher than before.
(I desperately needed to get Venya out of his nightshirt -- earlier plot point; he had jumped out of bed to rush to the window, and was shuffling around from foot to foot because the floor was cold -- and was repeatedly failing to do so in both of the previous attempts, despite efforts in that direction. Now at least we have got the two of them brought concisely together and the scene rounded off without further plot digressions, with an appropriate attitude to Athos thrown into the mix... and a reasonably decent (albeit not terribly good) line on which to close the fic. Not one of my best last lines, but it will do for a fic that basically doesn't have a storyline, the message being that Venya arrives as a 'waif and stray' and has now carved out a foreseeable place for himself in future at Bragelonne.)