Why This Story Won't Die

Different authors have different ideas about what constitutes a draft of a particular tale.  Some count drafts by number of rewrites.  Others are not so exact.  Broadly speaking I think most authors would say they work in three drafts.  And it works out like this:

DRAFT 1:  Figuring out what you have and this constitutes everything from whatever is planned to the actual writing of the pages.

DRAFT 2:  Making it the best draft possible based on whatever discoveries were made in that work of draft 1.

DRAFT 3:  Bringing it before an audience and finding out if the story works for anyone else but the author.

To use film terminology, Draft 1 is the screenplay, Draft 2 is the footage shot, and Draft 3 is the final edited cut.

I'd like to show you how I grew as a writer taking a tale from Draft 1 to Draft 3.  I'll call this STORY X.  Mostly because it took approximately ten years.

DRAFT 1 came about because in two previous stories that didn't work I met two characters that I thought would make interesting friends.   I liked the spirit of one of the girls and the other fascinated me because I couldn't figure out her past.  Eventually I found a way to have them meet and put them up in a kind of modern samurai/ninja epic.  The supernatural aspect of the story was kind of wonky but I ran with it thinking it could make sense later.

DRAFT 2 was the polishing portion of it.  I tried my best to make it work by making the writing sing and making sure the dialogue was polished and it all made logical sense.  I still didn't have a sense of one of the girl's past but I kept working at it.  This story skewed young but the adults kept taking over and that's when people noticed how slow the story was moving by that point.  I didn't disagree.   It's the old adage if two or people tell you you're drunk maybe it's best to lie down.

DRAFT 3 was the toughest in that I was trying to make the world building aspect of the story make sense.  I thought I finally had this cracked in that some of the myths I was playing with got better details and I was doing my best to make sure the rules I'd set up weren't being broken.  I thought I stripped out most of the boring parts.  Then I passed the draft to a trusted reader.

And that last draft solved a lot of problems.  But my friend's reaction to that last draft made me rethink the central relationship of the story.  She could figure out why one of the girls was fascinated by her.  But she couldn't quite understand why the other one would switch sides the way she did.  Again she wasn't wrong.  Curiously she didn't have much to say about her reaction to the world and rules I'd set up.  This also forced me to take a closer look at that execution.

Now we were in the stage where we discover whether or not this story is worth saving at this point.  One point of clarification about this story taking ten years.  I have been living with these two central characters as they are now conceived for about ten years.  The actual act of writing this particular plot  was closer to 8.  And while I wrestled with other things I was writing for either assignments or my own pleasure these two characters never really left me.  And they still haven't.

There were two major things I changed based on my friend's reaction to Draft 3.  Since I wanted the focus to be mostly on these two girls I had to eliminate one character.  I also conceived of a backstory for the girl who switches sides.  Her switching sides finally made sense with the building of her past.  The supernatural agents causing the chaos in this story recruited her when she'd died.  But the era in which she lived fascinated me.  I put that on the back burner while I attempted to see where the story went when I eliminated one of the characters (made Girl 1 an only child instead of a sibling) and just ran with the friendship as part of the plot.

While I liked what I had something about the entire enterprise was bothering me.  And this went back to the world I created for this story.  There is a very real act of evil that kicks off the story but the reason for that evil are the agents that Girl 2 works for.  And this bothered me.  It took the agency off the characters when it came to taking responsibility for their own actions.  And taking responsibility for what you could do and not do to prevent these actions drives the plot of the story.

It took a long time but the world I'd set up was flawed from the start and I couldn't make this work.  This wasn't a waste of time except for maybe a few hours lost from my very patient first readers.  The characters worked.  The world didn't.  And all of this effort showed me something that made all of this effort worth it.

I am not very good at world building.  Those writers who conceive whole worlds I greatly admire and love reading them but I can't do it.  I am more fascinated by character.  This is why this particular story hasn't yet died.  I am still convinced I can use these characters in the future.

In fact, Girl 2's backstory provided a window of something I'm going to try.  It's set in 16th century Japan and if I really still want to do a samurai/ninja epic, well why not go to the source.  And the era in which the girl was alive provides a fascinating time in history in which a very real act of evil occurred.  Their response to it would drive a book's plot.  And there's no supernatural crutches to diminish the horror of it.

I figure if I can't build a world, I can simply steal it.  This will require research for the details and I think I can stick with that.

In the meantime I'd like to work on something as a kind of test.  If I really feel that character building is stronger than my world building, I have an old plot in my files that will fit this.  It's a ghost story that will have to succeed on character and atmosphere.  A slightly different challenge but I think I'm up for it.

Thanks for sticking with this post.  I'll leave you all with this caveat for any writers, published or not.  Don't ever stop.   Any time spent before a keyboard or pen/paper gets you better.
 

The Perils of Remaking Classics

I have wondered now and again when a story doesn't connect with an audience is it because of the idea behind it or in the execution of the idea.  I tend to side with the way it is executed.

Case in point is three versions of that sci fi classic The Day The Earth Stood Still.  I say three versions because the original story that inspired both film versions has a connection with the theme that all three versions share despite being separated by generations.

This theme is our reaction to being made aware of proof of the existence of extra terrestrial life and how we are judged as a species by that life.  Ultimately our response to that encounter helps us grow or, in other versions of this kind of tale, destroys us.

To start with the tale that inspired these works we have to look at Harry Bates' original tale "Farewell to the Master".  This short story involves a reporter dealing with the aftermath of an arrival of an alien ambassador protected by a robotic machine who'd been accidentally killed when first arriving.  The robot never moves while it stands sentry over the tomb put up to commemorate the event.  The reporter suspects that this robot can move and is up to something.  The story details what he finds.

Robert Wise's version of The Day The Earth Stood Still takes the broad plot of the story and tailored it to the politics of the day of Soviet era Cold War Red Scare and McCarthyism.  Scott Derrickson's version takes the same broad strokes in the plot and builds a convincing first contact scenario.  But in that scenario the reasons for the contact are about environmental destruction.

In both of these versions the ambassador is there to deliver an ultimatum to the planet.  The ambassador has an experience with a cross section of humanity and both beings are changed by that experience.  The short story is most different in that there is a sense of loss with this first contact scenario.  There isn't an ultimatum delivered.  Both films invented one for the eras in which they were made. The reporter mourns about what they could have learned from this ambassador.  I won't spoil it here but what the reporter discovers gives us hope for all.

Your mileage will vary but I think both movie versions are successful in selling their ideas.  The reasons for the ultimatum change due to changing times of course but neither lose sight of the opportunity to learn.  Missteps happen but that's what drives the plot. They are working from a scenario which is a hard sell to begin with.  You have been measured and found wanting.  Fix your problems or face the consequences.  I think both versions fail in one regard for both their messages in that they have to expressly spell out the message with speeches and then also respond with speeches.  It is very much "on the nose" as writing instructors would say.

For the evil version of this scenario check out The New Twilight Zone episode "A Small Talent For War."

In some ways I think the original story sold the idea the best by leaving out the ultimatum.  Simply mourning the loss of an opportunity to learn from another species is the greatest missed opportunity.