Wednesday, 15 July 2009

Conflicts

I'm thinking about writing my synopsis before (re)starting on editing my story (I know, I keep going back and forwards); partly because I'm now considering doing a really massive overhaul on the story.

At the moment it's divided into two "books".

Book One: MC is captured by evil ruler. MC spends most of Book One trying to escape from evil ruler. MC escapes at end of Book One.

Book Two: A second conflict, much bigger than MC's initial issue, arises. MC goes on quest to resolve this second conflict. Conflict is resolved.

Book Two is much shorter than Book One, and most of the stuff I really like is in Book One. It seems to me that I need to focus more on what the really big issue is. There needs to be one plot in a book — not two. Either that, or I need to cut Book Two out altogether or have it as a "sequel" to Book One.

The plots combine in the MC finding what she really wants in life; but the physical action of the two plots are complete opposites.

Book One and Two are connected. Bits of Book Two's conflict are introduced in Book One; and as Book One progresses we slowly find that what the MC thinks she wants may not be what she actually wants — so when she achieves it, it's a bittersweet victory rather than a resolution.

Not that I have any problems ending a book on a bittersweet note, but I'm just... thinking aloud, as it were.

I'm even thinking of scrapping the whole middle of the story and merging the two Books, but that would ruin the theme of the story.

This is why I need a synopsis: I need focus. Until I know exactly how I want my rewritten story to be, there's no point in starting to rewrite it.

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