Open Thread: Oracle Hotline

[mithen]

--Were there any alternate versions of these current WiPs?

Huh! I... don't think I really write alternate versions, even in my head. Or if I do, I mentally delete the alternate once I choose a new path, if that makes sense. Like a retcon, it's always been this way.

I'm struggling this week because the climax of my story seems...anti-climactic. There's a lot of talking and a button gets pushed, whooo. It's a big deal, but very little HAPPENS in a visual way. I guess one just has to find the emotional beats and push them a little harder. How about you? Any emotional takes, and how goes the writing?

Comments

[me_ya_ri]

No, I can't say that I do have alternate versions. I mean, I'm too busy getting the current version out to think about alternates. Maybe in a decade or so but I doubt it. I never seem to run out of ideas to write.

This week has been a hard one for me, too, mostly because work was horrifically busy all week (still is, darn it) and it's sapping my energy. I got about 20K written last week and only 7K so far this week. It's kind of driving me nuts.

Also, I had a novel that I started before the workshop that I set aside. I'd planned on getting some short stories done but nope, nothing I started would go more than a few hundred words because the novel kept hauling at my mind. So I started writing it again today and wonder of wonders got lots more words written. *grin* I should know better than to fight the muses by now.

Good luck on your climax. Push the emotional beats harder and it should help. It might just be that you're reaching the end, you know? It doesn't feel as powerful to you but you do need the resolution and calming down phase, too. Either way, I hope you get it figured out!

[mithen]

I think if I have an alternate version, it tends to get turned into the next story, if that makes sense!

Ugh, sorry to hear about work tanking you. I've got a conference this week and a presentation, and oh boy, that is sapping my energy. But yeah, don't fight the muses! The most valuable lesson! (And one I always forget, or... I don't realize I'm fighting, I think I'm just making a Very Reasonable Decision).

Thanks for the support on the resolution! I worked on it this morning and it got a little more...resolved-feeling. Come on, a big scene where Bruce basically reveals his secret identity to everyone? That's got to have some wham in it! I'm starting to find the emotional point of the scene more, I think...

[prince0froses]

I feel like all I write is alternate versions. To the exclusion of actually working on the story. I've wondered at times if that points to a level of larger dissatisfaction with the story, if it means I'm not satisfied with what I've made and thus feel the need to rework it constantly, or if it's just that I get bored and like to play around with it. And that I find said playing easier than plotting.

If it's the story I think it is, I admit as a reader I feared it might be a little anticlimactic. It's weird that I should feel 'too soon' for an ending so many chapters in but that's how it's felt! I trust you to find a way to make it meaningful.

[mithen]

I think in your case it is more that the playing is so much fun! You know how the basics are going to go, so adding lots of embroidery and exploring the edges and alternate takes is a good way to refresh yourself in hard times.

And yeah, over time I've found some real systemic flaws in Heroes that I would have to go back and fix if I were to try to turn it into a published work or something: the key conflict being something eventually resolved by esoteric, ungrammatical business practices; the fact that Bruce-Lex has ended up the conflict point rather than Clark-Lex; an overall difficulty with tightening things up. How do you even plot, I guess!