Thursday, February 09, 2006

Pieces coming together

So I spent some time listening to Akira Ifukube's fine themes as I wrote. I quickly learned that thundering marches aren't the best listening when writing scenes of two people talking. Too much epic going on in the room. But once I turned it off for a little while, my writing went smoothly.

I now have about seven different pieces of this story in separate Notepad files. I think I need to write a little more before I try to bring them all together. It's almost a certainty now that I will try writing the story from a first person point of view when I get to my first rewrite. It will add a different perspective and might help me get the flow of the story right.

I read a great Ramsey Campbell ghost story in The Dark (for links, see at left under "What I'm reading"), "Feeling Remains." Structurally, it seems to be similar to what I'm working on, except done from the first person perspective. When I started writing, I thought stories like "Canavan's Backyard" by Joseph Payne Brennan and "The Black Gondolier" by Fritz Leiber had similar structures to what I was working on. Those two stories have something supernatural happening to a main character that is viewed from a distance by a second character. That's the way I approached writing this story.

Now, I think the first person perspective, like in Campbell's story, may help me get closer, more emotionally involved in the story. It certainly will bring the fear forward.

Of course, my story isn't going to be half as good as any of those. If you're in the mood for horror, by the way, all three of those stories are great.

But I'm still feeling good about the story and I don't have any urge to back out of it or throw it away. If I can at least continue to tolerate the story through a rewrite or two, I'll have achieved something.

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