#WIPpet Wednesday – August 16, 2017

Hello and welcome to WIPpet Wednesday, a blog hop wherein writers share an excerpt from their current WIP that somehow relates to the date.  To join in, simply click the blue linky up there to the right.

So I had a thought on Sunday night that was both an epiphany and a complete and utter bother. I realised that with a different structure, Memories and Magic could be a much better story. What if Part 2, where Clara is living in a different country and doesn’t remember that she’s the heir to the throne of her native country, is actually Part 1, and the reader starts off not knowing this either? Or what if there are no “parts” and her freaking out over her magical abilities in a land where magic is outlawed is interspersed with memories of the time before as they slowly come back to her?

I think I will still be able to use a lot of the material I already have written, but it means introducing a lot of things in a different way. At least anything I’ve written previously can provide back story to how things went down if nothing else.  It also means I might have to get rid of Max’s POV entirely, since he already knows what’s going on, and that would substantially lessen the mystery. In the first draft-and-a-half, his POV was roughly half the book. So. Hmm. Anyway, that’s what I’m brainstorming this week. And by brainstorming, I mean I did a few dot-points then started writing it straight away because that’s how I do first drafts. And this is effectively a new first draft now.

It seems that every time I start getting close to “finished”, this WIP throws something at me which means going right back to the drawing board. In its first form, Operation: Sugarplum, this was a short story started in 2013. Then I abandoned it unfinished for 18 months, before finishing it and revising… then it turned into the first form of Memories and Magic, and now this! This is turning into a forever project, I see it now.

But for now, the WIPpet:

This is from the very newly written first chapter. The paragraph is seven lines long in my Scrivener document, and it’s the 16th (1+6=7). Clara works in a shop owned by an artisan who specialises in ceramics. She’s hoping to close a pretty decent sale before closing time (which is quite soon).

After a few minutes of examining the vases, the man turned to her. She could just see him over the shelves between them. He beckoned her over. She made sure she was smiling again and joined him. He was standing in front of a tall vase. The stem was painted in different shades of green, like vines creeping upward. The opening of the vase was wider and shaped like an opening flower. It was painted in different shades of pink, resembling the creepers that ran up the sides of so many buildings in Racharan, regardless of the quality of the soil or lack thereof. They were weeds, and yet Mr Ranpush wasn’t the only artist who used them for inspiration. They popped up on postcards, in photographs and in paintings all the time.

Now that I’m re-reading the first few lines of this, it feels very choppy, but that’s what first drafts are for, right?

That’s  all from me now. I will head off and catch you on your own WIPpets soon enough!

 

 

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