Tag: Roshambo

Between a rock-paper-scissors and a hard place

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

It wasn’t that long ago that I wrote a story based on the timeless game of Rock-Paper-Scissors.  It was a cute little story, a commentary on organized religion.  It never became what I wanted it to be, so I shelved it.  (I do that a lot.)

Anyway, while watching a rerun of The Mentalist, Simon Baker’s display of R-P-S inspired me to pull the story back out.  It was an entertaining read but it still had that lacking.  What’s more, I’m not sure where the problem lies.  I suspect it’s too long for what it is (2400 words), but I see few places to cut.

That’s not true.  I know where the cuts would come.  But like Dan Brown, I don’t want to cut all my research out of my story just because it could survive without it.  I think the researched part (the possible origins of R-P-S) strengthen the story and make the two main characters sound intelligent and knowledgeable.  But, also like Dan Brown, maybe I should let the cuts strengthen the story.

I have decided to post it to OWW (once “Poison Inside the Walls” gets a couple reviews…it has one!) to see how others react to it.  While they peck at it, I’ll try to shave it down on my own to see if (a) my revision fixes their complaints, and (b) my revision maintains whatever strengths they perceive.    I should be able to whittle it down to 1500 words if I cut some content.  It’s an experiment I’ll conduct while I’m in Gatlinburg next week.  (Unless, of course, something else demands my attention.  Smoky Mountains have that effect on me sometimes.)

-Oso

writing overtime

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been working on a quaint little story the past few days (the Kree story is in time-out for bad behavior).  I won’t go into details on the plot, but I was trying to put the first draft to paper and kept getting stuck trying to finish it.  I knew I was close to an ending, but I just couldn’t find the angle of approach. I couldn’t even bear to look at it during my pergatory of a day at school.  I opened up my laptop tonight and realized…it was already done.

Don’t get me wrong (I say that a lot, don’t I), this is about as rough a rough draft as I’ve ever created.  The idea was still sketchy and my characters need better motivation and the setting is beige, but the essence of the story was complete.  It’s one of those stories without a satisfying ending; I knew that before I started writing it.  I just kept trying to trudge along into unnecessary summary.  Either the reader gets it (gets something out of it) or she doesn’t.

Fred (as Damon Knight called the subconscious) must have known when the story ended.  I just kept writing and deleting back to the exact same spot, the spot where one character walks out and the story ends.

Now the hard part: editing.  Writing can be tough, grueling, but it’s the creative side.  I made something out of nothing.  Now I need to make something good out of something raw.  This is the sculpting part, an art all its own.  It seems more satisfying when I edit.  I get the sense of doing something right, making something better.  It’s still tough.  Most things worth doing are.

This story, titled “Roshambo”,  comes in about 1800 words.  It may grow a little as I flesh out the setting, maybe put more character into the beats, but it’s still the shortest thing I’ve written (over drabble length) in quite a while.  I hope that’s a good thing.  We’ll see.