Monday, March 11, 2013

Eva and I did it!

We walked all the way around the Stanley Park portion of the Seawall, which we've been building up to.

Well, we actually walked farther because I missed the path from English Bay that cuts around Lost Lagoon and meets up at the off-leash dog park.

So, probably closer to 15-15.5 km, plus several stops on the beach, and two ball-throwing sessions at the dog park. We went out at 9:30am and got back just before 2:00pm.

Eva has been crashed on the sofa ever since. Poor little pooped pup.

I'll make sure walk #2 (in about half an hour) will be on the short side ;)


Oh, I've also been working a little on editing (the recently re-titled) "The Rules of Riding Shotgun".

The biggest problem with the MS, at this point, is the likability (or lack there of) of the two main characters. Well, Triss, mostly.

Which is very tricky editing.

The hardest thing about writing an unreliable narrator is showing what the other characters are *truly* like, despite being seen through the MC's warped lens.

...and while Triss' bravado is mostly just that, there seems to be a very fine line between what the MC believes is true, and what the reader believes is true.

Because there should be a difference.

One of the main components of the MC's growth is recognizing that s/he is viewing Triss through a warped lens, but the reader should clue into that much earlier than the MC.

So, I'm taking it piece by piece, scene by scene, and trying to create a little more dimension/wiggle-room.

...and I suppose I won't even know if I've succeeded until I pass it along to readers :)

This is one of those times where I curse my own brain for making me write something unnecessarily complicated... but at the same time, I know that if I actually manage to succeed, that I'm going to be so damn proud that I was able to pull this off.

7 comments:

  1. Congratulations on the walk! Quite an achievement for both of you :)

    Never let complicated storylines/mechanics make you shy away from writing awesome stories. I can't wait to see this once it's all done. I think it'll be amazing.

    One of the tricks, I think, in writing that sort of unreliable narrator is to have other characters interact with the other person in a way that undermines what the narrator is saying. It also helps to have your narrator get caught in a lie -- a "Ok, so when I said X earlier, I may not have told you the whole truth."

    Sometimes just one or two glimpses at the chinks in the metal are enough to get the reader to start questioning things.

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    1. Between you and Alcar, I have some GREAT new ideas... and launched right back into my MS instead of replying to your comments (until now).

      THANK YOU!!!

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  2. that's so awesome! Go you! And good luck with edits, I'm sure you'll find a solution to the issues.

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    1. Thanks, prerna!

      I think just deleting/re-writign an entire scene is way easier than finicky edits like this :p

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  3. The poor dog :)

    Story wise: the narrator does try to blend into the background, so more scenes between 'other' people is definitely a good way to go, as noted above. Obviously, our narrator is going to only see what s/he wants to anyway so it is an interesting balancing act.

    I really liked how N. pointed out that Triss didn't have that instinct for sensing incoming violence [or didn't give a shit enough to develop it]: some comparison on how she views her parents to how the narrator does could fit. She sees them (esp. mom) as OMG! Sucky! in the spoilt kid sense whereas the narrator has seen really shitty parenting. That can be one point where the narrator and Triss diverge a fair bit, even if the narrator tries to make excuses for it.

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    1. You're telling me... I actually couldn't get her off the sofa for a second walk... and normally she's super alert around 6:00pm (dinner time), and instead, she slept until almost 7:00pm!

      ...for a greedy-beagle, that's insanely out of character!

      Thanks to you & TL Bodine, I hopped right back into the story this morning and already made 3 small "insertions" which (I think) will tilt the reader's opinion just enough... and, it gave me a chance to slip in a couple small details of the MC's backstory -> very soon after that line you mentioned about "oncoming violence".

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  4. congrats - I've been out of touch this week and will be til sunday - skating here in London and really important. Watching the men's now and a friend and I went to the pactice yesterday

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Type me out a line of Shakespeare or a line of nonsense. Dumb-blonde-jokes & Irish jokes will make me laugh myself silly :)