Rewriting for me is where I find the center of a story, the little nugget that makes it sing. But this story, "Fractured Memories", didn't feel quite right when I got done putting the polish on it. So, what do you do when you know it's not quite right but can't see what the problem is?
Yep, get someone else to read it. For me, I subbed it to my online flash group and got two crits back. One gentleman said, "You've got comic, sentimental, tragic and sexual. You left out Western, space alien, whodunit and horror, otherwise you could have captured just about every group of readers. I wonder if it would work better if you cubby-holed it into just one or maybe two genres."
Uh-huh. Rereading the story through his eyes, I realized he was right. I was trying to cram too much into the story, trying for shocks and twists instead of just going with the heart.
The other gentleman pretty much agreed with the first but added that he didn't care for the ending. Now, it was the ending that felt wrong to me, but I was so caught up in the shock value that I couldn't see how to finish it. By using the two crits together, I finally saw how to make this story work and its so much smoother now and 1300 words long. Yeah, rewrites always make my stories longer unless I'm writing flash with a tight word count.
"Fractured Memories" still can't be pigeon-holed into any genre, except maybe non-crime noir, so finding a market for it will still be tricky, but the story is publishable with a good solid flow and a satisfying ending.
How do you work through your stories when you come up against that something's-not-quite-right wall? Do you find another reader or just submit and hope the editor comes up with a better idea to fix your story? And you do know that it's not the editor's job to write your story, don't you?
And a link for you today. Over at Murderati, Allison Brennan has a great post entitled "Is Marketability More Important than Story?" check it out here http://www.murderati.com/blog/2009/4/26/is-marketability-more-important-than-the-story.html
2 comments:
My method is to show my wife the rough draft that she kindly edits. And then if I'm still not sure I pass it by another writer friend who usually gives me a slant I missed. If it's still not working than it's set aside for several months. If it's working, I polish it like crazy and sit on it for several weeks and then take a final fresh look. Then send it out to be rejected. :)
Ah, but the rejections are a learning process, too. I've gotten some great feedback from editors when they reject a story. And other times while I'm waiting for the rejection I play around with the story, rewriting and thinking of ways to improve it so I can send it back out when it's rejected.
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