I Hate This Book I Love

I've got this idea for a book. It's a good idea and I really like it.

Which must be why I've started and restarted it five times, each from a different perspective or starting at a different point in the story.

Now I think I've got it figured out. The story, I've realized, should be about the villain of the other attempts, and her rise and possibly fall as the leader of an outlaw gang of dinosaur bandits.

For the record - or my own amusement - this is as far as I got in my last attempt:

The first rays of morning peeked over the craggy mountaintops, flooding the valley with a golden light that ushered the chill from the air. Yellow grasses still sparkling with dew swayed in a breeze that smelled of flowers. A creature bellowed somewhere in the distance but didn't break the tranquility of the wilderness.

Carmen [surname] sat in the long shadow of a sprawling acacia, one only a few trees in the area, shaking and pulling her knees to her chin.

Yeah, not my best, and I really had no idea where I was going.

Ode to Deleted Characters

In editing my novella, I've realized the irrelevancy of several subplots, deleting two of which has eliminated the need for three characters.

The road trip taken by my main character's mother and stepfather was mildly amusing at best, but without it - and the scenes of her mother berating Lieutenant Bates (kind of funny; imagine Beverley from The Goldbergs screaming at the police if one of her kids disappeared) - their sudden appearance at the denoument is just bizarre and unexplained. (My favorite teacher's "a student just used the word 'denoment'" senses are tingling. She was the first person who ever believed in me; hope I make her proud someday)

But with the exception of the first and last chapters, everything that happens in the story is told from their daughter's point of view. So out they go.

Lieutenant Bates got demoted from "occasional investigating scene guy" to "shows up in one chapter to kick off the plot guy", and his coworker whose name he could never remember (though he thought she looked like a Donna) was written out entirely.

This is new for me, erasing entire chunks of work I strained so hard to make perfect. Maybe a reminder not to stress too much on the first draft?

Ode to Awesome Dialogue Cut

In editing a sci-fi novella, I have had to cut out a great many lines which I love, despite my attempts to rework the scenes to keep them in. This, unfortunately, is one such exchange.

Moses wasted no time in issuing his offer. "Yours is a dolorous life spent exploiting those infelicitous enough to be your kindreds, and though I am a man not inclined to emotional extortion under the guise of-"
"English, please."
Moses glared at the arrogant man and spoke with a decorum which belied his seething impatience. "That was English."
"Then modern English, please."
"I have made a pilgrimage to save the human race, and you are doing nothing to help!"

I actually laughed when I discovered this in my first draft. For all you people under 40 (says the 25 year old who happens to have really outdated tastes in music), Modern English was a band, and their song "Melt with You" contained the line "I've made a pilgrimage to save the human race."
Maybe I was channeling too much of the kind of 80s reference humor that I loved about Psych, and maybe it didn't fit with the tone of the work, but I love this conversation and it would have stayed if I didn't have to cut the entire scene.