Howdy,
It wasn’t that long ago I said I had officially started my new WIP. Well, there’s some good news bad news on that. I had started on it, and this week, I have formally abandoned it. The bad news, obviously, is that I’m setting the project aside. The good news, I think the project I’m replacing it with is better, at least, at this point in development. Right now, on my new project, even at the concept phase, I can envision the entire story from start to finish, including, more or less, the emotional arc of the protagonist. This is a big deal for me, at least. I usually struggle with the emotional arc stuff.
Ultimately, what killed the previous new WIP, my YA sci-fi, is that even in the outline phase, I don’t really have a good sense for how to end the story satisfactorily. I know the climax of the action, but I don’t know how to resolve everything. Now, on this new WIP, a YA urban fantasy, I’ve got that figured out right out the chute. AWESOME!
How did I determine this? Well, for one thing, it was obvious I was struggling to come up with an ending for the YA sci-fi. Then this idea popped into my head for the urban fantasy thing. It was quickly apparent that I had the entire story arc. What I did next was stage a death-match of concepts. I read both concepts (about a one-page bare-bones description of the story from beginning to end) to my writing group, asking among other things which concept represented the more compelling novel idea. It wasn’t unanimous by any means, but the urban fantasy was the clear winner. One piece of advice I received is to read Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (never heard of it before) just to make sure I’m not doing a retread. I’ve already started listening to it on Libby, and so far I think I’m okay. My story is different enough from Seraphina (a good story so far) to continue with the project.
Anyway, I’m pumped about my new WIP. Updates to come.