A Passive-Aggressive Parent

Updating my word count, though this is more of a two-day update than just today. But still, not too bad! Rewriting some of these sections, I’m really getting an understanding for how simplistic I made them from the beginning. It’s interesting how rewriting this is really giving me more of a sense for how I can insert new characters, and even add more drama to catch the reader’s attention. The story is meshing together far better than it did in my initial draft. I’m looking forward to having this ready soon!

I was talking with mistress_kabuki earlier today about our writing progress (it’s kind of a weekly thing we try to do), and it made me realize all over again how complex and multi-threaded Book 2 is going to be in November. I’ll definitely need to have some sort of outline on hand for it, or at least some written out listing of where I plan each character to go in the story, and what events I plan for them to have. That book is 25k in and I’ve only now hit the plot point that starts the rest of the gears turning. And let me see, there’s… maybe four plot threads that need to be woven together? I’ve got my work cut out for me! But for now, I’ll wet my teeth on this piece for a while, and see if I can’t spruce it up for an official ready-to-be-passed-around draft soon!

Oh and I finally got around to migrating this story into Scrivener. Thank goodness! I don’t think I would have been able to organize very well in Word, especially since I’m slowly taking out particular parts and moving things around. Scrivener is kind of beautiful for that, even though I’m using the Beta Windows version. =)

Summary: A ten-year-old girl named Suzie has her small, close-knit world fall apart around her. Her family just moved to the town of Leekston at the beginning of summer, and she and a boy named Fred struck up a friendship almost immediately. But something watches them from the woods, waiting to strike. As Suzie’s life falls apart around her, can she solve the mystery of what’s really going on in this strange rural town?

Project: Suzie’s Nightmare – Draft 3
Deadline: 9/30/2011
New words written: 4,614
Present total word count: 78,859
Total Word Count for 2011: 99,172

Suzie just met the girl, and already she’s getting in trouble about Kate Gilliman. The girl has already caused an argument between Suzie and her mom, and since her mother is also passive-aggressive, it’s very difficult to tell when the fight’s over with. They don’t exactly fight with yelling matches and insults. Instead they fight by not doing something like refusing to look at someone, or simply not speaking to them directly. In my experience that’s way more damaging than a slur can be. Either way, Suzie will have to come to terms with the issue, because her mother is still her mother. And Kate isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Don’t you feel like you’re just torturing your characters sometimes? xD