You should have seen me! I told you I would read on and practise my writing. I breezed through the pages like a tornado, stopping only to think about what I had just read, what I had just written, what it meant and what I still don’t see. I feel like a new human. A new creator. I can basically go back and read all books I have ever read before again, this time checking for theme(s), implications and other invisible armatures.
My prediction about my old writing turned out to be true, too. Most of it does not pass a simple theme test, few characters don’t even pass a transformation test when they are meant to go through their personal hell and transform into a better version of themselves. The more I wrote and looked into things, the more I destroyed, as I unveiled the flawed concepts for what they were. And the most miraculous thing about it was that it didn’t even make me sad or upset. I was just thinking good that I realized it now and not even later. I owe it to my creations that I make them the best I can. I will still create them flawed, because I’m human and I have limitations, but maybe it’s not going to be as flawed as before and much more interesting to experience as a viewer and reader. Also, I’m sure I will find ways to use and reuse a lot of my old material or parts of it. So it’s not lost, it’s transforming.
SPREY is only moderately broken. It just lacks a theme so far. I’m almost sure I will rather cut things from it that were interesting but are not compatible under one theme than having to come up with new things.
I was relieved and amused to find that my main characters have pretty standard arcs. Relieved because it can’t be too hard to craft them well when they are so well known and rich with examples. Rich can’t let go off the past and thereby endangers his present and future. Also, he is not a team player and guess what he has to do to survive. Willard has a typical “an honest cop” arc where he seemingly has nothing but disadvantages first for sticking to his principles and then finds himself on the criminal side. The last thing he would want to do.
But before I talk too much about it, a character arc makes no theme. That one is still missing, but I’m working on it!
See you next blog post!
