"Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it--wholeheartedly--and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings."
- Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Okay, well this is awkward...this whole thing has gone through a lot of phases since I posted my first "remixed" chapter. The thing is when I posted that snippet, I didn't mean to post chapter one, so in this post you will see the post that was supposed to go with chapter one and some new stuff. I have to admit, I wasn't sure I was ready to even do this again, but what can I say...I'm keeping up with LiLe again now. So here goes. (;
Something....So, one of the things that really bothers me about chapter 1 being put up is I didn't get to use the playlist. The only song I really think you need to listen to is "Something" by The Beatles. It's the song that plays when Allison and Alan are dancing outside of the party. I'll embed a YouTube link to it, since the original song is hard to find. As for the other songs...I'll probably keep them and use them at a different time.
Everybody Hates a Remix (old post)So, the more I think about it, the more I realize it might be kind of strange that I am re-mixing one of my serials and I want to explain how I got to this point. It's actually two things that brought me here.
Do any of you remember
En Moritas ?
I hope not. It was a series of flash fiction I was writing about how all the characters died. Some of the deaths were metaphorical and many of them actually took place several years into the characters life. I was going to name each short after a painting (one was called
The Persistence of Time) and it was going fine. I actually went back to one several times.
Anyway while struggling to write one, all I could think about was how much I didn't like
Veritas. I'm okay with Hidden and I'm partial to Mimic, but I didn't like Veritas because it got so out of control
So, I decided to re-write. Also, out of the En Moritas stories, I started thinking of more plot points. So many new plot points.
The second thing that happened was a little thing called
On Higher Ground. I hit a big brick wall
hard with that one. It just didn't give me the same excitement Veritas had given me. So, with all this in mind I went back.
In other news, working on the reboot has actually re-sparked United Light for me. But don't count on a reboot because I recently read through the
whole thing and I wouldn't even know how to being to distill that story.
How To Write A Remix ? (This is new !)I have to admit, learning how to remix was a task for me. I wanted to try something different. As many of you may know...I'm a pantser. A huge one and it has worked for me, like Rhett's role in UL came out of nowehere. Heck, Rhett came out of nowhere. But with this remix I actually outlined a bit and wrote mini character bios.
Then I decided to take another Lile-esque approach. I made a list of scenes I'd like to see and I
intended to write them, but I only got around to one. Still it helped me orient the story. Then I started experimenting some as well, I'd pick random songs of my playlist and write a scene to them.
And of course research. I've been reading some cyberpunk short stories from the 80's. I've been focusing a lot on cyberpunk writer Michael Swanwick (as opposed to the more well known William Gibson), because he writes in first person like I've been doing. He is a lot more sci-fi-ish and does a lot of thing with time travel, which is amazing, but not something I see myself doing.
Speaking of POV, one of the first things I did to this story was put it in present tense. My first instinct to make it in past tense, like Alan was relaying the story and then have it catch back up, but I liked the immediacy of present and changed it. I wanted everything to be "realtime" I even considered taking out 'said' but decided against it. Hopefully I caught all the "-ed" but if I didn't bear with me.
As you can see It's been a process and I believe I can successfully remix this story, I just don't know how long it will take, but it will be one word at a time.
Pinterest Oh, here is that Pinterest I mentioned. I don't have much on it now, it is mostly things I found that go with the chapters. Mostly character inspirations and their clothing. Hopefully I can make it more robust later.
CHAPTER TWO....In the process of this remix , I changed chapters 1-3 about four times. I'd have an idea and then I'd have to re-align previous chapters to go with this new concept. With that in mind I wanted to be atleast 5 chapters ahead of my posts, so I wouldn't write into a corner, but what can I say....I'm ready to post early.
A lot of this chapter is the same, but also has a few more significant changes to backstory and dialogue. The further we go along, I think you'll see this is not the same story. Like AT ALL.
CHAPTER TWO The Playlist:
