The last week I've spent writing. A bunch. I do many, many iterations and drafts. It's a strange process. Lots of brainstorming first to put down the ideas...some scenes and dialogue written out. Parts roughly put into place. But then I try to challenge myself a lot. It seems very easy to be formulaic. To instantly put the most obvious thing you thought of onto the page. Oh, there are 2 characters having a conversation? Put them in a diner. Nobody's ever done THAT before.
So I try to think differently and give the reader something they haven't seen before. They may not like it though...they may be wanting something they're not getting. It's a tricky dance.
The first issue of Farlaine I felt had a lot of stuff crammed in. Plot points, introductions, character, and feeling my way around. I wasn't perfectly happy with it, but I felt it did it's job well setting the stage. Hopefully when the whole story is complete it will make more sense to people. I'm already thinking of rewrites and redrawn panels I may want to do when the whole things is done to try to tighten up the loose ends.
The second issue I was much happier with, although even that I'm sure I'll look down upon in a few months when the dust has settled.
But they're very different stories so far, the first being mostly a long chase scene, whereas the second one was more of a meandering walk through a land. A very modest damsel in distress type tale.
Only two people have read the story yet, and the first one thought it was funny and the second one thought it was boring; not enough of a page turner, although its possible the first person found it boring as well, but just funny boring. So I'm somewhat disappointed in that, but at the same time I'm not sure if it was supposed to be a page turner? It was more of a very different twist on a plot point. An introduction that needed to happen and happened in a neat way.(at least I hope).
Back to the point of this post though, is that the third issue is mostly written, with a few pages to plug in and a final polish or two to do, but on the whole, I'm quite happy with it. I think the writing is decidedly better than the previous 2 stories and moving in the right direction. This one is certainly more of a page turner than the last, while still being a little weird and different and not formulaic in its plot and world. So we'll see. Maybe both readers will like it next time...
