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Post by moonmomma on Mar 11, 2010 13:18:07 GMT -5
"The Rains of Urdaisunia" is the next thing in my pipeline - a novel I started and abandoned 18 years ago, waiting to be re-written and finished. It's been dancing around in my head while I finish the first major revision of "Starfire." Today, all of a sudden, the entire underlying concept of "Urdaisunia" totally changed!  Same characters, same basic plot, same pantheon of interfering gods, but the whole "WHY" has changed. Based just on a small coincidence in the plot and a fragment of dialogue I imagined the male main character saying. And now, finally, I feel like this story has a reason to live! I think it might need a new title now. Lesson learned here is if something isn't quite working out, if you let it stew for a while (like 18 years  ) the solution will fall into place. Have you ever had a project completely shift itself into something different? |
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Post by plasticat on May 7, 2010 23:09:36 GMT -5
Time Twist was originally supposed to be about a group of scientists using a time machine to build up an army of aliens and robots and skeletons. The secret agents had cool vehicles too, like a helicopter and a couple of James Bond-ish cars. Totally different now.
Population:200 was originally about a guy's best friend being killed by the lizard things and then the guy is forced to take some kid across the country. I had been trying to decide which ending to use when I lost the whole thing: Option 1.) Main character goes psycho and sets off a bomb, killing the remainder of the human race, or Option 2.) Main character goes psycho, gets bomb, and gets shot. Obviously, I went with neither...
Tuousrol-Voan started off as two groups of people, each with a spaceship, fighting in space. All because of the idea that the bad guys had robots, the idea changed to the bad guys being the robots, and the good guys being humans and Martians, then it got more complex, now the leader of the humans is the one who creates the evil robots, someone who was meant to start out as a bad guy and turn good won't, and the original main character isn't the main character anymore.
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Post by moonmomma on May 8, 2010 13:59:04 GMT -5
I've learned that when these kinds of things happen to your story, it's best to go with it. I really believe that our stories already exist somewhere Out There and if you really listen, they'll tell you how they're supposed to go. |
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Post by plasticat on May 13, 2010 20:21:03 GMT -5
I believe the same thing.
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Post by moonmomma on Jul 3, 2010 14:54:10 GMT -5
Someone at the Absolute Write forum (this is an old post, so I probably can't find it again) said it's like the Universe has a spot on the Cosmic Book Shelf for this one particular story, and it's assigned you to write it.
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Post by plasticat on Jul 5, 2010 22:19:54 GMT -5
I was thinking the other day that it's kind of like your story is happening/already has happened in some sort of alternate dimension and it's like one person somehow knows about it and puts it to words. Something sort of like that.
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Post by moonmomma on Jul 6, 2010 19:49:52 GMT -5
I was thinking the other day that it's kind of like your story is happening/already has happened in some sort of alternate dimension and it's like one person somehow knows about it and puts it to words. Something sort of like that. exactly! and then what happens to me is the characters come and move into my head and won't leave me alone until i get it written. |
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Same characters, same basic plot, same pantheon of interfering gods, but the whole "WHY" has changed. Based just on a small coincidence in the plot and a fragment of dialogue I imagined the male main character saying. And now, finally, I feel like this story has a reason to live!
) the solution will fall into place.