We left off in An Example of the Experiments – Fains I with a rewrite of the first paragraph, which was much better craftwise than the original and still sucked.
It was better than the original because of the solid POV, the protagonist’s situation was clearly stated, the setting and tone were much stronger, more character roles were defined, …
And still it sucked, and I knew it sucked, hence I wrote “Still needs work, though.” at the end of the post.
The real problem was I didn’t know how to fix it because I wasn’t sure of the specifics of what wasn’t working.
Much of the answer came while I worked on An Experiment in Writing – Part 8: Worthy Antagonists when I talked about developing a character’s backstory, about why the character behaves, thinks, responds, interacts, does as they do.
Let me give you a caveat at this point: Give the reader only as much character background as necessary for them to understand the story.
Empty Sky’s Earl Pangiosi, The Inheritors’s Seth Van Gelder, look at any of the main and primary characters in my work and you’ll find lots of their background woven into the story.
It seems I do this weaving well because readers constantly comment on how real and vivid my characters are.
Back to Fains I (or “Eye.” I’m still deciding).
Continue reading “An Example of the Experiments, 2 – Fains I“
