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Monday, August 17, 2009

Fixing my mistake

I had hoped to have another installment of Curse/Or out by now, but there is a slight problem with that:

I completely fucked the dramatic tension in the last installment. Camel recovers from her gunshot way too quickly.

Sure, it seems all right to you guys, because you read it in a serialized fashion and therefore time passed between installments. But when I read the entire chapter in one sitting, she just gets up too damn fast. In movie terms, she'd be down for like, 30 seconds tops.

I need to stretch the dramatic narrative out thusly:
  • Camel is shot. Readers go, "Oh shit. Did the protagonist just get shot dead in chapter 3?"
  • Focus then shifts to something else for what would be 5 minutes of screen time -- enough to make you forget about Camel and worry about something else.
  • Then, and ONLY then, do I have her do her "cancer resurrection" schtick.
Because as it reads now, it's not a dramatic "Oh crap" moment. It's a speedbump wherein Camel falls down and then immediately gets better. Ugh.

Okay, now that I've actually admitted to this, I have no choice but to sit in this bookstore and fix the damn scene.

2 comments:

  1. OK, you're right. There is a drastic timing issue when reading it all at once compared to reading it in serial release.

    Also, thought you'd appreciate this, based on past posts (Z kit and such):

    BBC News: Science ponders "zombie attack"

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  2. At least you caught it chica. Your literary powers are growing.

    ReplyDelete