Happy Blog Day Everyone!
So while today is more talk about short story writing, it isn't about my current project, which I'm still working on. Instead I want to go on a tangent about a Brennan and Riz story that recently stalled...Before all that though, you know what it's time for...
The Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz
I had the third panel in mind ever since I realised I could do a Easter special early on when I started the Comic. What I didn't have was a storyline to go with it. I whacked my brain for two weeks to come up with what you see here. Was it worth it? Probably not.
Rewriting a Rewrite?
So I was working on my current writing project (a short story for those just joining us) when I came to the realisation that I was going to have to rewrite the beginning yet again. The cycle may be familiar to other authors. You start writing an idea you had, one that you absolutely love. Over time, things change, the direction of the story changes and you realise, maybe with horror, that the start of the story no longer even syncs up with the rest. What do you do in this case? Why, you rewrite it.
I've spoken in the past that I ended up rewriting my current project, and it will not surprise you that I've ended up doing yet more rewrites, though these are to less severe degree than the first few. You might think that this is the most reworked story I've ever done...Well you'd be wrong about that.
Before I started work on this story, I was in deep on a Brennan and Riz short, and that one, had been reworked a lot more...
Let me set the scene.
The story was to be the finishing touch in another volume of Brennan and Riz short stories. It was based off an idea that I wrote down in my initial batch of 60+ ideas, a list I wrote back in 2018. It was based off some folklore from Redcar, that the wind made a strange sound as it blew through a exposed shipwreck. That was all I wrote about it then, something small that I hoped I could expand into a 3,000 word story or so.
At one point I'd intended to write it alongside other seaside based tales, I'd plenty from Whitby and Saltburn to make it an attractive proposition, but other writing projects took precedent, such as A Boy and A Rat thus the idea slunk away, till it was needed again.
Cut to last year when after a lengthy rewrite of its own, A Boy and A Rat finally debuted, I turned my attention back to what was then going to be Volume 2 of the Brennan and Riz anthology. At the time, the word count had come to 55,000 or so, well under the word count of the first collection. Needing a couple more ideas, I returned to the list for inspiration, where Iocked eyes on the idea again.
The writing started well, opened the story in thr middle of the action to tease events before diving back in time, and things were progressing well. Then I had the idea to reference an earlier story that dealt with similar themes, first rewrite happened. Still, no big deal, I carried on writing.
I ended up taking a small break as I was feeling burned out on writing the pair, switching gears to other stories around this time (like the original draft for Ghost Duty) till earlier this year when I finally returned to it, revitalised by the news that the publisher had signed off on Volume 2 (abeit in a completely different fashion than what I was expecting). This is where the rest of the rewrites started to kick in.
When I returned to the draft, my thoughts turned to the antagonist of the piece and what they were doing it for. My original intention wasn't holding up (not to mention that the length had exceeded the limit of 3k words) so I'd decided to bite the bullet and upgrade it to Novella length, well, at least 10k. This, again, required a rewrite. Then, came perhaps the biggest problem, I progressed to the climax of the story, when for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to completely do a 180 on the antagonist, something not too dissimilar to what happened with the Wrym in the Abbey story. This, you guessed it, necessitated more rewrites as I needed to seed the character I'm early and come up with a completely new villain, to help set up a surprising new status quo at the end. At this point, the story was creaking under the strain of all the changes, old sections changing abruptly into new ones. Plot threads awkwardly ending or being introduced. Things happening to justify the plot...It became a tangled mess. Don't get me wrong, the new characters I created will still be used...this idea though probably won't be. Its a sad but needed trait to recognise when something isn't working and needs to be culled.
So what's next for this Brennan and Riz tale? It may have an ending but it certainly doesn't have a beginning or an middle. For now, I'll continue with this other short story and when that's finished...who knows? Maybe I can get the inspiration to start afresh, with a clear goal to work from in the beginning.
That's it for this week.
Till next time,
Keep writing,
Peter James Martin.
Quick Links
The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Volume 1
The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Book 1: A Boy and A Rat
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