Breakfast this moring was a cinnamon melt and hashbrown from McDonalds, washed down with coffee from home. I made the coffee myself. It has flavored creamer in it. You know, that kind they sell by the milk that comes in about as many flavors as Starbucks at Christmas, but costs less for a bottle than a single cup of Starbucks coffee.
*yawn*
Did that put anyone else to sleep? I’m doing something different in my current WIP. Something I’ve never done before, and it’s driving me nuts. Normally when I write a story, I leave out a lot of information in the first draft. Not just detail, but things like backstory, delving into character thoughts, etc. I like to ‘imply’ it. And by imply I mean it’s in my head and no one else knows what it means unless they spin the ‘what was Lori thinking?’ wheel and get lucky.
This time I’m trying to do it differently. I figure I’m going to have to edit this when it’s done. After last year, I know that no ammount of preparation prevents me from having to edit a novel after the first draft. Go figure, huh? So I’m putting in everything I can think of surrounding back story and character motivation. The entire thing is filled with exposition.
You might think this is so I have it all written down somewhere and know what to keep and what to toss later. It’s not. It’s 110% to pad my word count because I’m flailing like that.
But the exposition is driving me nuts. I don’t know if you know this, but the third Harry Potter
But a lot of times my stories run in the opposite direction. I’m so adverse to it, that I don’t have any at all, and then my readers are like “Why are Michael and Lucifer sitting in a corporate office talking about Nintendo DS’s? That’s not dogmatic.” And I’m all like, does it have to be? And they’re all like “Well no, but if it’s not you have to tell us why. Or at least indicate that you thought about it.”
So even though right now I’m doing it to pad word count, maybe it will actually pay off down the road. Maybe fewer people will be asking on the first read-through why Metatron is a sexy little brunette in a satin gown sent to destroy Ba’al and looks nothing like Alan Rickman.
And…from the middle of my current WIP – ‘Apathy’s Hero’ (the novel, not the short story…I should make that the real title :-P)
Kali’s breath caught in her throat, gaze locked on the man in front of her. Actaeon’s face hovered inches from hers, his slight frame pressing her against the wall with a force that contradicted his size. He stared back, blinking but not saying anything. The silence stretched between them. She didn’t know why this time was different. Why everything had stopped around them. Why the intense passion she felt toward him was hovering so close to the surface.
“Ma’am.” Aurael’s crystal voice rang through the house, shattering the air around them and pulling them back to the present. “Someone’s here to see you.”
“Fuck.” Actaeon’s grip on her shoulders tightened, a frown crossing his face. A low growl, more felt than heard, rumbled through his chest and he stepped away from her.
Kali struggled to regain her focus and place herself back in reality. The air around her suddenly felt very cold without him standing close. As her senses returned, she realized it wasn’t his absence causing the chill. “Hades?”
Do you suffer from too much or not enough information dump in your own writing?