I will finish this novel if it kills me. At the rate things are going, it just might.
Things are kind of tough for me right now. I desperately need a new job–the one I’ve got is slowly sucking away my soul without even paying enough to get by–and job rejections are way worse than rejections from publishers (I’ve been getting a lot of both, by the way. Not that I’m looking for pity, but yeah.).
As if that weren’t bad enough, my current novel, Worlds Away from Home, is turning out to be a train wreck. There are all sorts of problems with character motivations, improper foreshadowing and plot set up, etc etc. That makes it REALLY hard to get motivated to write each day. Yesterday, I wrote only 245 words (youch). Today, I did about 2.2k, but that’s still way less than I need to be doing.
The thing that worries me the most is the thought that the audience for this particular story may be slim to nonexistent. It’s solid space opera, but with a romantic element that challenges a lot of the mores of our modern, sex-saturated society, as well as many of the conventions of romance within science fiction.
The main female protagonist is something of a pushover–but she has to be, in order for her growth arc to have any umph. The main male protagonist is an orphan on a quest to discover his own origins, kind of like a cross between Mogli and Pip. His quest, combined with her parents’ manipulative attempts to get them physically intimate too soon, are the main things keeping them apart.
But in a genre where physical intimacy usually marks the romantic climax, how do you make it out to be the obstacle against that climax? Will science fiction readers go for that, or will they hurl my book across the room because of it?
Well, if they hurled my current draft, I wouldn’t blame them one single bit. So many plot holes and awkwardly written scenes–ugh. I’ve got to seriously rethink so much about this story. But a later draft? I don’t know–maybe it would work. It would probably need other hooks to keep them engaged, such as cool world building elements, but I think I could make those work.
Anyway, I suppose it’s nothing unusual. For every book I’ve written, I’ve come to a point in the rough draft where I thought the story was completely unworkable and should be scrapped. It’s a tortuous, masochistic process, but I suppose it’s normal. That’s some comfort, at least.
My goal is to finish this abomination by August 15th, then move on to polish Mercenary Savior and make it really shine.
Another goal is to get a decently paying job (at least $8/hr at +25 hours per week) in order to afford to go to DragonCon in September. Another goal is to reteach myself algebra and calculus through the math books my dad (who is a geometry teacher) is letting me borrow. Another goal is to actually get a social life. BLARG.
“But in a genre where physical intimacy usually marks the romantic climax, how do you make it out to be the obstacle against that climax?”
Depends on their reasons for not wanting to be physically intimate. Look at Brave New World and Warbreaker for examples. In Brave New World, the Savage has a different culture, hence does not wish to get involved intimately with casual acquaintances. In Warbreaker, Siri doesn’t feel like she’s married yet and is frustrated at being made to be in the position she’s in, so she doesn’t want to be intimate. You could also look at Twilight and how Bela and Edward talk about it (disclaimer, I haven’t read the entire quodrology, so I don’t know what reasons they give for waiting until marriage)
So, your characters will have to show that they want physical relations to be special, and that they aren’t yet at that place. I think you’ll find readers that will go for that if you make it believable.
I don’t think readers will have a problem with the way you approach romance as long as it’s handled well.
I think the characters are going to have to be very interesting though. From what I read here, they sound a little… par for the course? But I bet you’re doing new things with them.
Good luck writing. Don’t feel bad if you got to set it aside for a week or two so you can work things out in your head. (Sometimes I work on a short story or something when I’m stuck at a point in my novel, and then I get re-inspired for my novel and it’s smooth sailing again.)
“her parents’ manipulative attempts to get them physically intimate too soon”
That honestly sounds like a fascinating arc for throwing together and building your characters. What’s to be afraid of there? I’m one hundred percent behind shaking up the social mores. Less mores, that’s what we need. Heh.
Anyway, sounds cool. Good luck,
-bn
Good goals! And just for your reference, you can get a pretty cheap room for Dragon*Con at MetroFlats.com. It’s a vacation rental site. I used it to get my room…it’s totally free to use, and you also get 50% off membership admission to D*Con if you book through them. So that will save you money if you can eventually get enough money to go (good luck, btw!)
ugg. You are trying to relearn algerbra? So not fun! I remember getting job rejection after job rejection right after I gradutated from BYU. It was crappy. I think the low point was getting turned down for a crappy job at wal-mart. I had two BA degrees and even wal-mart wouldn’t hire me. It sucked.
Have you tried a temp agency yet? I went to SOS temporary staffing and they gave me a weekend job doing dishes, then two weeks doing landscaping (I really liked the landscaping job), and then I worked in the manufacturing line at Nuskin. It sucked, but they did pay $8 an hour, and we often worked overtime. After three months I wanted to flee boring factory work, but after christmas I got a temp assignment working in Quality Assurance at Nuskin, and I became Queen of the job that everyone hated. It wasn’t that bad really, and I got paid a dollar more an hour. So, go see if any temp agencies have some work.