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how to revive a story
Mar. 30th, 2012 09:03 pmGet struck by inspiration during physics class--to adapt an idea that, you remember vaguely, you tried out once before. Surreptitiously scribble notes amongst your equations. Treasure the idea's flavor in your mind. Move to your writing notebook; draft the first few paragraphs and pour out a few more thoughts.
Type up those paragraphs and those notes. Decide to dig through your old files and find the original version of the story, now that your new version is down in electrons. Not remembering any of the original names of the characters makes this more difficult, especially because younger-you usually named files after the main character. Find a file from a couple of years ago saying "there was that idea I had a while ago, I should write it again better!" about the same idea. The other file must be in there somewhere--
Dig further. Eventually become reduced to searching your documents folder for bland key words such as "lake" and "forest". Realize that one of the things you skimmed earlier actually was the original story in question, almost utterly unrecognizable. The file name says "v2".
Go dig up the first version. Read it. Ponder the fact that the new story idea is almost completely different than the original one, down to focusing on a different character entirely with different magical powers, but they are still the same story. In some weird way.
Carry on with your new idea. It may be the same one, but it's all shiny and fresh and it sparkles when you hold it into the light.
(This may become three linked novellas. Not completely sure, but it may. There are three sisters, and they each distinctly have their own story--although at the moment the one that's caught hold of my brain is the youngest's story. The earlier version was about the middle sister, and if I ever get that far that story may stay vaguely the same, but we'll see.)
Type up those paragraphs and those notes. Decide to dig through your old files and find the original version of the story, now that your new version is down in electrons. Not remembering any of the original names of the characters makes this more difficult, especially because younger-you usually named files after the main character. Find a file from a couple of years ago saying "there was that idea I had a while ago, I should write it again better!" about the same idea. The other file must be in there somewhere--
Dig further. Eventually become reduced to searching your documents folder for bland key words such as "lake" and "forest". Realize that one of the things you skimmed earlier actually was the original story in question, almost utterly unrecognizable. The file name says "v2".
Go dig up the first version. Read it. Ponder the fact that the new story idea is almost completely different than the original one, down to focusing on a different character entirely with different magical powers, but they are still the same story. In some weird way.
Carry on with your new idea. It may be the same one, but it's all shiny and fresh and it sparkles when you hold it into the light.
(This may become three linked novellas. Not completely sure, but it may. There are three sisters, and they each distinctly have their own story--although at the moment the one that's caught hold of my brain is the youngest's story. The earlier version was about the middle sister, and if I ever get that far that story may stay vaguely the same, but we'll see.)
