Monday, March 24, 2014

Shifting Hurts: YABbootcamp Check in #3

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In case you couldn't tell, for me this past week has been full of questions and what ifs....

I found myself in what I felt was a moral dilemma. My original premise set my main protagonist being a 16-year-old girl...but this week, as I started editing - I mean really started editing the plot and events, I found that I wasn't completely comfortable with some of the situations I was putting her in.

This led me to wonder if the plot would still work if she was older, and since I knew I had a long way to go, after a lot of deliberation and I'm sure annoyance to my critique partner, I decided to give it a try.

And can I just say this shift - from 16 to 19 is not. easy...and one week later, I'm not 100% sure if it is the right thing to do. And one person that I trust with my words stated that she thought it read like a teenager in YA rather than NA...And I value her advice and criticism above just about evetrytyhing, so her feedback gave me pause. But I knew that if I didn't at least TRY I'd alwasy wonder and maybe never be completely comfortable with it all. 

Basically, this week was a lot of staring at the tracked changed in my word document and wondering if they were the right changes to make and therefore a lull in forward progress - but this happens from time to time.

Let me qualify this post by stating that I am fully aware that teen age girls can get caught in some very sticky situations, and that I loved the toughness of my 16 year old girl.... but in the long run, it is my hope that some of the character interactions and plot elements will work better with a little bit older individual.

SO bottom line -
I did make some progress towards goals #1 - a *cough* working draft.
I DID play with a few possible titles BUT would like to hang on to those until I've made a final decision
And it is my goal for this week to be able to send a bit to my CP of Awesome and see if the age shift actually is working - and if not, work though elements to either make it work at 19 or make it work at 16.


Guess I better get back to the words!
Until next time.

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