Thread: Biting off more than I can chew again...

Has anyone else had a problem with writing something a bit too ambitious?



I'm having something of a crisis with the Forbidden People. Damn me but I'm biting off more than I can chew (as usual).

Here's a brief history with the problem:


Three books in, the MC Omi is suffering postpartum depression and... well, she's nearly unwriteable. I can't get into her head and write at the same time because she's so difficult to motivate and my brain feels sludgy after a few minutes. Keep in mind, I'm depressed myself so it's just not what I'm needing right now.

So, I skip around in the timeline and write some letters and archaeological articles ... (drumroll, please!) from the future!

Not just any future, but one well after the MC's entire people die, after a good apocalypse or two as the survivors struggle to piece together the truth from the myths and buried history. The MC is two different unconnected people in the mythos--the metaphorical innocent Princess Omi of a people that were either hopelessly broken with reality or exercising a lot of artistic license in their artistic self-representations,

and

She Who Destroyed the World, the Queen Whose Eyes Are the Sky, a creature who detonated her life's work just to destroy her military mastermind lover and her daughter-like nubile apprentice, who had fallen in love--partially because of the Queen's neglect.

Needless to say, I've got my work cut out for me. Not only do I have to figure out how and why Omi turned evil, but also how these archaeologists are going to bridge that difference of character realistically since Omi the innocent was considered a fictional character for a long time even before the blasts that rocked the world. Plus, I've got to figure out the puzzle in the order they would do it--thwarting new religions and other people who find the notion of a non-standard race offensive (I think everyone from this /future/ is human, but they could be fooling me and might even be a mongrel race of several peoples from Omi's original time--and thus might find the idea of either parent race offensive as well).

Originally, I was writing the story chronologically as Omi gradually succumbs to the needs of the world, losing her shiny nature and replacing it with a deadly pragmatism. Eventually, she was going to suffer military losses, crises of history and national identity both as she discovers the less than glorious past of her forebears (x2 and what a doozy!) and also as encroaching human nations rewrite history and forget her people.

Don't know now.

I am thinking of putting a foreword (by a translating archaeologist) onto Omi's first diary, maybe with a few other letters and translation notes. Her diary is the beginning of the story and, while it's usually good to begin there, I've been told it's too dry and think I might be better off starting with the notion of her as the bad guy.

Break it down into main components.

Protagonist - Omi. But which version of Omi? Choose one and start there.

Antagonist - ??

Setting - ....

Critical Conflicts- ??

I think the problem is simply a lack of organization. You have a wealth of ideas, now all you need to do is take some time, sit down without distractions, and identify the story you want to tell. It might even help if you just write down a summary individual scenes, or chapters. Keep the summary very loose and general to leave alot of room for your muse to express itself.

You've got so many ideas there that everything you posted here could be spread across many books if you wished. But right now it is all flying around in the air.

I posted all of what I'd thought was going to be the first book in Writer's Workshop months if not a year ago. Went on to do another book and part of the third.

I got a few complaints from readers about the monotony of using only Omi's journal. Hardly anybody read it and nobody read the whole thing. People wanted other viewpoints. And I can't write it as I'd intended--particularly because no one's reading it, and partially because Omi's uncooperative.

What I'm thinking of doing, is starting where the 'modern' exploration of the myth started--how 'modern' scientists rediscovered the myth of She Who Destroyed the World, how the scientist persued those links and found numerous other historical texts to translate (aided or hindered by the immortal creatures who wrote them or with whom they're concerned). I think starting with the explosion is the natural 'beginning' for a post-apocalyptic society.