16 - Development Rewrite        Mon, 08/17/09 - Scott

Having an intestinal bug for over a month is really a slow down - I recommend it to everyone who wants to kick back and do nothing. I persevered and wrote a little.

I try to leave very little open to "What a mistake - that's totally incorrect," so every day has had as much additional research as actual writing.

My first rewrite task was to get better integration between one subplot (the theme: the mystery disease symptom) and the main character, Martin. The first thing I tried was ~6 strategically placed pieces of dialogue that made it look like the protagonist (the good guy) was doing the driving. Ehhh, not so effective. Easy tricks like this usually don't work.

The protagonist usually drives the story (especially the plot or major conflict) to its resolution, and is a proactive part in making things happen. Even subplots can be affected by the protagonist. The protagonist doesn't just react to the antagonists (the bad guys), he takes control and tries to get the upper hand (unless he is the reluctant hero who gets dragged to the end where he has to perform magic). He solves the mystery as well as defeating the bad guys. (Had I spent more time and created a treatment, that may have been taken care of, making rewriting easier. But I had wisely decided to take a short cut.) So each sequence had to be rewritten. Of course the entire story got longer. Argh! More to cut.

Next: Development Cutting

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