Tuesday 22 May 2012

Work Progress.

Left to my own devices I prefer to write something with a definite 'voice'.  I sometimes wonder whether that's an attempt to hide my own idiosyncrasies and worries behind that of the character. Text or story doesn't work for you? Then I can blame it on the mannered narrative. Easy. On the other hand it is just a joy, a lot of the books I love, first person crime of James Lee Burke being the biggest, use that narrative device. the characters own failings blind them to the story it allows for a certain amount of flexibility in the logic of the plot.

I also like to play games to hide layers of meaning, in 'Felt's Theorem' the central premise of the book repeats on different levels and, if it gets published, and if what I want to do is possible, it'll hopefully work on yet another level. I think again, this wheels within wheels thing is a thing for me to hide behind.

So why have I abandoned all this for 'The Worlds Within'?

I have no idea. I am definitely not comfortable with it and I suppose that's part of it. I have another idea in bits which appeals more to me personally but I started Worlds Within and I want to finish it. There is a lot in it I like. Ideas about FTL travel and how it feels, about how aliens may feel about each other and Alien biology in general. It has lost it's focus a little but this is a first draft so that's to be expected. The prose is also (as you'll see from the excerpt in the previous post) workmanlike at best. But I have a central character I like, a twist that I think works well and a way of there being plenty of action without it having a sort of gung-ho 'WAR IS ACE! feel to it which is important to me.

So another twenty thousand words and I will have a finished version then I can go back, re-focus it and pretty up the text, hopefully quite a bit.

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