The Write Life

Last night wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be! My critique group gave me lots to think about and some very constructive  and much needed criticism.  Here’s the list of things  that I need to work on (mostly for my benefit) in my Grim Aspects piece:

• Voice – I need to find a consistent voice for Gabrielle’s character.
  • To accomplish this, I’m going to fill out about a number of different character sheets that I’ve found. I think this will help me find and ask Gabrielle the different questions that will establish her voice.
  • I want her voice to be naive, and very youthful, and maybe a little spiteful to her overbearing mother.
  • I’m also thinking about creating a number of journal entries that show Gabrielle’s dissatisfaction with her mother, and records the events up to her running away.
• Emotion – I need to add more emotion to the characters.
  • Gabrielle- I think this will be accomplished mostly when I find her voice.
  • Gabrielle/Adrian – More sexual tension between them
  • Adrian – Show more of his Emotions in general.  Show his attraction to Gabrielle sooner.
• Miruna’s Character – She needs to stand out a little more.
  • The girls in my group had some great suggestions that I’m totally going to use:
    • She’s going to be more stoic
    • She’s going to be a smoker – I already know a great way to add this to the restaurant scene
    • She’s going to think regular humans are expendable; easy to manipulate to get what she wants.
    • She’ll be loyal to Adrian’s family only.
• Clues- I know what I mean!
• The NEW Beginning – I’m going to move the beginning to further along in the story, to where some of my group suggested it should start. I like the idea of it beginning there and mystery it brings to the story of  “well, why the hell is she out there in the first place?” Don’t worry, I’ll save all that pretty imagery to reuse later in the work…well, at least I’ll try to fit it in. :)
• Choppy/Crappy Descriptions – will need to be fixed and re-worded.
  • I plan to work on what’s left of these after I complete the above. I think that most of these will be corrected as I go.

I may add to this list as I work on it, but so far this is what I want to start with.