I picked away a little more at Project #6. Last time, I ended with a stunningly cynical view of Jay's private school, and his classmates.
You'd think, with all the crap going on in my personal life right now, that writing Jay would be easy. But he's not.
I'm not good at writing angry characters, because I don't get angry. Sure, I'll have momentary bursts of frustration, but holding onto bad things, letting them fester into grudges & bitterness... I'm just not that type. I think anger is self-destructive and inefficient. It never makes a bad situation better, it merely inflates it.
It's too exhausting to bother with.
So Jay is hard for me to write. Probably the hardest character type I've tried so far. There's not as much personality/voice in this section as I'd like, but that's a problem to be fixed at a later time.
Also,
BUT, the bit about the cat scratches... based on a true story :) My scars are on my stomach though ;)
Anyways, here ya go. Proof that I actually am being somewhat productive. EDIT: finished the chapter.
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I like the afterthought. That was kind of funny after the tense air of that snippet.
ReplyDeleteWell done. I'm not a huge fan of present-tense, but that doesn't retract much from the prose. I'm kind of interested where this is going.
I like experimenting with present/past, and all three POV's. I think there are advantages for each one, depending on the kind of style you're going for.
DeleteI'm also a fan of dark humour ;)
Hah. I've been having the same problem with the Rites of Exorcism stuff; I realized it only works in the first book if the MC is angry pretty much all the time. I don't get angry like that -- I've never been able to sustain anger, for good or ill -- so the story kept falling apart at certain points. Knowing that does make it a bit easier to work on the next draft, when I can work myself up to doing that ...
ReplyDeleteGlad I'm not the only one who struggles with that :p
Delete...but then again, if I think about it, I don't really read books with angry characters either. Perhaps if I had more/better examples to go on, I would find it easier :)