Over the past week I have been working, on and off, on a short story that is due in just over a week. Originally, I had planned it as more of a gaslight/ gaslamp (steampunk with supernateral elements) genred story. However, I could not get a handle on the motive behind the original undead Big Bad (BB) for my story. I had the what and the how, and tentatively the who, but was struggling on pinpointing the why. The story was going nowhere. Fast.
Finally, I decided that the supernatural BB had to go. I realised that if I made the BB a scientist, I could still use my planned plot device. I traded gaslamp for “straight” steampunk and voila! Suddenly everything fell into place – the new who, the what, the where and finally… the why! Motive, means and opportunity!
Unfortunately this meant I needed to research three different main things/ideas before I could write (and have facts correct). Ugh. Three hours of research later, and I was writing up a storm. The only thing that has slowed me down, over the past two days, is the feeling that I am fighting a virus or sinus infection. I now just have the final two scenes to write and then comes the editing and polishing.
So the moral of the story is that, even when something is planned, I should be flexible to change as it may just get me out of my funk and provide inspiration and more fun!
oh! During my research, my steampunk scientist craving for Victorian knowledge was satisfied. I found an internet site with .pdf scans of actual historical documents – papers presented to the Royal Society (in my case 1862). There is so much information I can now use to start off so many mad scientist hokey research stuff… oh bliss!
The abstracts and research articles are catalogued by year.
http://rspl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/by/year
Have fun!!!!
Rewrites and Revising the 'Big Bad'
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