(no subject)

[katallison]

OK, the dS Match reveals are now up, and on Monday I'll post on my website a copy of my story, hopefully with the goddamned typos fixed (apologies to all readers for not leaving myself enough time to get the frickin' thing beta'd). Just to reiterate the prefatory note, this story is a present for pearl_o, with big love and admiration. She'd requested it over a year ago, and when the Team Angst opportunity I came up, I knew that that was the perfect occasion for getting myself to finish and post this upbeat, heartwarming little bit o' fluff. (*g*)

When I'd finished the story, I put up a rather overwrought LJ post about how unhappy I was with it; in the fullness of time, I've gotten a better grip on what my distress was all about, and though I don't think any of this is necessarily of general interest, I thought I'd type up a few thoughts.

The first is kind of a technical/mechanical thing: here, more even than in past stories, I hit the wall with my ability to COPE WITH having to write in all the fiddly business that is necessary to break up dialogue stretches. You know, all the Fraser-picked-up-his-cup and Ray-paced-around-the-room and Kowalski-scooped-up-another-pile-of-dogshit stuff. The issue was sharper in this story because it was another one of those goddamned ones to which I am apparently fatally drawn in which nothing whatsoever happens except lots of conversations and the having of emotions. So unless I was going to do the damn thing in screenplay format (which believe me, was an idea that had its appeal) I felt the need to keep interpolating stuff of this nature, to keep the prose balanced and the narrative ball rolling. (It is borne in upon me that I need to spend some time studying writers who manage to write fiction that has lots of long dialogue blocks with minimal business-tags or longwinded emotional exposition.) (The problem here is that this one was from Vecchio POV and Vecchio is not exactly a Raymond Carver kind of guy. Whatever.)

The second issue goes back to something the ever-wonderful flambeau posted quite a while ago about how her writing has evolved over time; she said, in effect, that her earlier stories had "worn their hearts on their sleeves" and that she'd been working to make the emotional stories in her fiction more subtle, less overt. This is something I wish to god I could attain; I tend to wildly overwrite the emotional stuff in early drafts, and then, given enough time, energy and brainpower, try to go back and edit a lot of it out, but I didn't have a lot of t., e., or b.p. in this case. Now on the one hand this isn't entirely a bad thing, in the context of this challenge, since the point was to BRING THE ANGST, and from reader comments I gather the story succeeded at that. But ... the thing is, I really dislike emotional manipulation. Don't like experiencing it, don't like doing it, and yet I felt like that was what I was up to in this story--I was sort of telling readers how OMG painful! the whole situation was, rather than just sketching in the situation, in a low-key way, and letting readers figure it out for themselves.

Then the third issue--and this is the biggest one for me--is that there are really three stories going on in this thing. There's Fraser's story, which is about a man contemplating his impending death, trying to come to terms with it, trying to deal with the grief and pain this is causing people who love him. There's Vecchio's story, which is about a guy who went through some dark places and found his happy ending, who's living the good life, and who's bushwhacked by this sudden piece of very bad news that reconnects him with someone he'd basically considered part of his past but who turns out to be very much a part of his present--reconnects with him just in time to lose him again. And then there's Kowalski's story, which is about the guy who's moved on from his own past, re-made himself, built a whole new life, and now is finding one of the foundation stones of that new life crumbling away underneath him.

I have--believe me--miles and miles of stuff written in my head for each of these stories, and yet, in a sub-10,000-word piece, I was only able to touch glancingly on each of them. Given such constraints, every scene, every conversation, every description and bit of business, needs to carry a lot of freight and should (ideally) be chosen so as to do the best possible job of illuminating each of those sub-stories. Let me just say that I don't feel like I accomplished this throughout, and by far the biggest part of my dissatisfaction with the story is that I just didn't have the time or energy to do more with, oh, Kowalski's relationship with the dogs, and Vecchio's relationship with Stella, and how Fraser is dealing with the concept of leaving Kowalski alone in a fairly unfriendly community, and so many many other things. I *wanted* to get those in, just -- couldn't fit them, and so when I read over what did get written, I feel their absence. Acutely.

It was very comforting to hear from readers that the story did succeed in its primary task of conveying a convincing emotional state, and I'm profoundly grateful to everyone who left comments (which I will get replies to, promise!). And as for all the things I feel like I wasn't able to pull off here -- well, that's why one keeps on writing, eh?

And many, many bows of admiration and gratitude to the fabulous organizers, china_shop and sageness; to nos4a2no9, our indefatigable Team Angst captain; and to all the writers for both teams. *Wow,* did this challenge produce some fantastic stories, which I now need to go comment on.

Comments

[reginagiraffe]

All I have to say is, that looking-at-the-ceiling thing? Doesn't work for shit.

I can see where you're coming from with the whole emotional manipulation thing, but I think your Fraser is the saving grace. He's the rock on which the other two break.