I had to kill one of my darlings yesterday. It was difficult, but I consoled myself with the knowledge that, in the future, I can add it to another story. “It’s not gone,” I told myself, “it’s just not here anymore.” However, it seems that murdering my darlings has been the course as of late. I will say that I do plot, to some extent. I usually write a few points about an important chapter, especially if there is a lot of action in it, so I can see a “blueprint” of what I am trying to do. I also have a skeletal idea of what the story is, and the progression of action, inside my head. I then (hopefully) will add onto that skeleton the many layers of character development and theme and what-not that makes it a good story.

But, lately, I’ve been noticing that sometimes when I hold on too hard to a plot idea, it actually drags at me and slows me down. Morgan is a good example, I have been grappling with this story for nearly a year now. It’s been basically all I’ve been working on (besides a few short stories), and yet I feel my progress has been dismal. However, I’ve slowly begun to let go of the plot ideas and the skeletal framework I had for Morgan since the beginning — and new venues have opened up to me! I was completely surprised at how fresh and new it looked when I just stopped thinking of the story points I had set up as things I had to do and just let the story continue more organically.

The recent, major reworking I did last Friday. I sat down and thought, “Where am I going with all of this? Because it ain’t getting there.” I realized that maybe if I broke up my ideas — putting some away for the second novel in the series, and maybe even cutting away an entire subplot or two — I created a much more dynamic and hopefully thrilling plot line.

This will probably only be of interest to my writing group, who’ve listened to me wrack my brain quite a few times. Thanks guys, by the way. Anyway, so the major difference is the subplot of acquiring the chip, which had been onboard a space station, has become the major plot line. The stuff about Gawl has been eradicated and are awaiting revival in book 2. Although Gawl is mentioned, and the reader learns about Morgan’s past (or enough to deduce most of it), no characters that are tied to Gawl will be introduced yet.

It seems to have worked…I’ve written about 5,000 words since making the change on Friday. I’m a little more sad about the darling I had to kill yesterday. I’m gonna miss that one, and it’ll be a while before I can find a place for it again.

2:22 pm | Category: Writing | |

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