Now that Some Say in Ice has been posted, I can talk about some of the issues I had while writing it. I've never done a short story before and it presented some unique challenges for me. Spoilers below, so if you haven't read the story yet ...what's holding you up? Go read it!
The first part of the story was rough, and I think it's probably the weakest part of the tale. I had to do an "info dump", which is always something that an author should avoid, but I was so clumsy in this medium that I couldn't work my way around it. Perhaps with practice, I could get better. With longer stories, I'm able to weave the background into the narrative and make it feel more natural, and perhaps had the length been unlimited, I could have done it better, but in this case, I simply couldn't see a way around it. One of my readers said she didn't realize it was a short story and was curious about all of the information in the first section of the story. It stuck out.
Secondly, this is my first non-HEA story. Note that it's not listed in the Romance category as are all of my other tales. An important distinction, in my mind, though most people probably won't even notice the category. (I'm very anxious as to the reaction my readers will have, though so far, it's been positive.) The story couldn't have had any other ending. It's the end of the world, so it's also the end of Edward and Bella. My True Love was allowed to read this story (the first of my work I've permitted him to see) and he said he thought it was very romantic, how Edward gave her a beautiful last evening and then made sure that her end was quick and painless.
I had a PM from a reader questioning it and perhaps I didn't make one aspect clear enough: Bella knows it's the end from the moment Edward returns from Ration Day and tells her the army is pulling out. There's no way they can survive, so from that moment, it's simply a count-down. They continue to try, but there's simply nothing they can do. For her, the hunger and cold and watching the end approach is worse than the end itself. That's why she doesn't question the last, wonderful night he gives her. If she thought that they were going to continue the struggle, she would have questioned his "waste" of the firewood and the "large" meal they have, using up all of their supplies and the valuables from the cache. The brooding expressions that Edward wears now and then during their last couple of weeks was his struggle to come to terms with what he had to do, whether it was "time" or if they should continue to try. Even during that last evening, as Bella gets dressed, he sits on the bed and contemplates it one last time, searching for any shred of hope in that "desert of ice."
Thanks for coming along on this journey with me and I hope that you all enjoyed this tale as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope that when voting opens, you'll consider voting for it.
Yes, I left a review, albeit, its just words like shocked, speechless..LOl...Please let us know when voting is open.
ReplyDeleteHmmm ...
ReplyDeleteDoes it matter how you go into reading a o/s whether you see details differently or not? I guess I always look at the status of stories now, or take some sort of heads up with me before reading anymore. I've been burned on too many WIPs in the last 5 years to go on blind.
I find the prospect of having to survive in that way to be very disturbing and not something I'd be any good at, even of I had a store of food and water. Maybe without the meteor strike and all that snow, but I think I'm a wuss.
Did I miss it in the timeline, Lissa? How long had it been since the Strike when we start the story? The stores were running out of food *before* the Strike? Yuck!
Anyway, thanks to your muse for a tearjerker of a tale. You done good!
I would imagine expectations are a bit different when it comes to a short story. If the tale is set up well, it will contain just as much information as the reader needs, but not be cluttered with superfluous facts or dialog.
DeleteAs to how long it had been since the Strike, it was never exactly outlined in the story, so you didn't miss any information. When the story opens, it had been at least a year since the asteroid hit (they had burned through all of the wood in the garage and the three and a half long rows).
In my first draft, there was a line in there about Bella not having had her period in six months because of the starvation, but I deleted it.
They had some warning before the asteroid hit, which was why all of the stores were bare, either bought out like the grocery store, or looted like Newton's. The government tried to keep order as long as it could and set up the rationing system - that's why the stores weren't restocked.
A year. Like that? No, thank you. And they've checked out before it really goes to shit after no hand outs. SMH... Imagining all those forests gone from the fires and turned into firewood.
DeleteSo, I'm curious, what was your True Loves contribution? I've seen no reason for you to have freaked out from him reading it. I think I'm going to have my hubby read it tonight. He might die before he admits to reading FF, but I'm sure he'll survive.
He was extremely helpful, actually.
DeleteI cried like a baby while he was reading it. I've never let him read anything of mine. It was months before I finally confessed what I was doing over here at the computer, typing away.
He was the model of constructive criticism. He showed me a few sentences where he thought the wording could be smoothed out, pointed out a couple of places that I might want to alter slightly to clarify a point, that sort of thing. The "info dump" at the beginning was much improved by his input.
I'm still painfully shy about my work. I'm going to have to confess once my book comes out because my family/friends will be wounded that I kept it from them, but it's going to be very, very difficult for me.