Over the past six or seven weeks, I've been working on a new novel. This one is YA Dystopia—sort of. It's a story that I've had wandering around in my head for years. It's one of my oldest, novel ideas in fact.
I used the story as my Nanowrimo in 2009 I think it was. And you know what, when they say you shouldn't use your baby for Nano . . . they're totally right. I got through it, but stopped at 50,001 words because the story wasn't going at all the way I wanted it to. There is action, intrigue, memory loss, awesome sparring matches, jokes and a little love thrown in for good measure.
About 30,000 words into the Nano month I found that the story had moved away from the action and had delved into the emotional, love story.
Ack!
Don't get me wrong, the love story is a big part of the plot. These two characters grow together through hell and back, so it's not like I wasn't expecting some gaggy blah, blah. But it got totally out of control. What was she thinking about him? Was he thinking about her? Would the other guy understand? Who was going to sacrifice themselves for who first?
Ugh. What happened to my very fun romp? The bad guys are scary! The good guys are cool (most of them). How did this hapless love take over my story?
It took me quite a while to pull it out and look at it. Yes, they fall in love, but there are other things going on as well. I think I've said that. Sorry. Anyway, so I pulled it out and read it about eight weeks ago. Messed with the plot, tried to coordinate all those things that are supposed to go into a story and started to write. Type. Whatever.
Type, type, type . . . things are going well. I did have the non-action scene fit right after World Con, but that's gone away, and I got some good emotion out of it. Not me, the characters. I'm still typing like crazy, up to almost 75k at the moment, and the story takes a seriously scary turn to the dark side.
Like, I can't believe that came out of my brain and onto the computer screen for a YA novel kind of dark side.
First love sick story and then the “it may no longer be okay for YA” bit. I mentioned this last week, but that was only the beginning. Since then the story has continued to move in the dark direction.
I'm a little scared. I'll keep going, and who knows where it will lead, but sheesh. What's this all about?
1 comment:
Yah! I'm looking forward to reading it.
I was a little surprised when someone thought my content was beyond YA (I still think 'I Am Not A Serial Killer' is YA), especially when there is much worse on the market LABELED as YA.
Does this mean you're going to have to join the Romance Writers of American now?
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