On fiction: Rendezvous with NECA: a peek beneath the waterlevel of rewrites
So I was writing part one of RwN, aiming to send it to that online course. There are several scenes in that part, between which I jump cut (more on that later).
In this one particular scene, I have my protag training on a treadmill; see, she's not an astronaut and a bit self conscious about that. Her husband comes in to be flirty, so that I establish these two characters care for each other, and I also use this chance to drop in why my protag is here at all. She's a biologist who's discovered some pretty weird, previously unknown/unrecognizable life on Earth; so, basically, she has more experience of xenobiology than anyone, and she has been to various hard to get to places like deep seas and caves; she's quite physically fit already. And also not the only non-astronaut on board the ship; the other is one doctor who worked to develop the suspended animation.
Maybe I should put the text (in its partial state, which is all it got) here, but I am a bit embarrassed to do so. There are reasons I decided, no, scratch this scene entirely.
See if this reminds you of anything: protag is way angsty, and other character shows up to tell protag how wonderful she actually is. Oh yes, protag is female. I can hear the Mary Sue klaxxons honking already, and though I think Mary Sue is meaningless these days, the scene as written made my protag look too ... desperate for validation? The nuance came out all wrong, especially since that validation is so lavishly provided soon after. Argh, no, no, thrice no.
The other thing is that it's pretty obvious my protag is based on Elizabeth Shaw, and her husband would have been based on Holloway. Problem is, looking a bit forward into the story, I found no place where this relationship would actually fit well. I mean, sure, I plan to kill Holloway off. Oh, spoilers. And that would make my Elizabeth expy very distressed, presumably. So, good, eh? Eventually though I decided that approach was too much trouble for its worth. Thing is, it needs more than one scene to actually let the relationship manifest itself to readers. All for a payoff that, in essence, can be obtained through simpler means, also less likely to raise questions about mission planning.
Elizabeth Shaw has, among other features, two traits in the film: she's religious, and she has some kind of relationship to Charles Holloway. Both features, in the film, are rather underused. In my plan, I have great use of Elizabeth's religiosity. It's central to how/why things get resolved. Her relation to Charles Holloway ended up looking like a distraction in comparison. Well, it did in my plans, anyway. So why bother with slavish imitation of the source material if the aim is an original fic anyway?
So my Elizabeth expy has no connection to a Holloway expy, and said Holloway expy is veering away from Holloway's character now.
Probably only the first of many instances of actual rewriting I'll do for this story. Oh, I do edits, of course. But whole-scale cutting out scenes and replacing approaches has so far been rare. At least in some respects, the course is useful. It shows, it forces one to confront, a wider spectrum of practice.
In this one particular scene, I have my protag training on a treadmill; see, she's not an astronaut and a bit self conscious about that. Her husband comes in to be flirty, so that I establish these two characters care for each other, and I also use this chance to drop in why my protag is here at all. She's a biologist who's discovered some pretty weird, previously unknown/unrecognizable life on Earth; so, basically, she has more experience of xenobiology than anyone, and she has been to various hard to get to places like deep seas and caves; she's quite physically fit already. And also not the only non-astronaut on board the ship; the other is one doctor who worked to develop the suspended animation.
Maybe I should put the text (in its partial state, which is all it got) here, but I am a bit embarrassed to do so. There are reasons I decided, no, scratch this scene entirely.
See if this reminds you of anything: protag is way angsty, and other character shows up to tell protag how wonderful she actually is. Oh yes, protag is female. I can hear the Mary Sue klaxxons honking already, and though I think Mary Sue is meaningless these days, the scene as written made my protag look too ... desperate for validation? The nuance came out all wrong, especially since that validation is so lavishly provided soon after. Argh, no, no, thrice no.
The other thing is that it's pretty obvious my protag is based on Elizabeth Shaw, and her husband would have been based on Holloway. Problem is, looking a bit forward into the story, I found no place where this relationship would actually fit well. I mean, sure, I plan to kill Holloway off. Oh, spoilers. And that would make my Elizabeth expy very distressed, presumably. So, good, eh? Eventually though I decided that approach was too much trouble for its worth. Thing is, it needs more than one scene to actually let the relationship manifest itself to readers. All for a payoff that, in essence, can be obtained through simpler means, also less likely to raise questions about mission planning.
Elizabeth Shaw has, among other features, two traits in the film: she's religious, and she has some kind of relationship to Charles Holloway. Both features, in the film, are rather underused. In my plan, I have great use of Elizabeth's religiosity. It's central to how/why things get resolved. Her relation to Charles Holloway ended up looking like a distraction in comparison. Well, it did in my plans, anyway. So why bother with slavish imitation of the source material if the aim is an original fic anyway?
So my Elizabeth expy has no connection to a Holloway expy, and said Holloway expy is veering away from Holloway's character now.
Probably only the first of many instances of actual rewriting I'll do for this story. Oh, I do edits, of course. But whole-scale cutting out scenes and replacing approaches has so far been rare. At least in some respects, the course is useful. It shows, it forces one to confront, a wider spectrum of practice.
Comments
Post a Comment