Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Suckitis --> Aha Moment
Okay, so last night I was working on scene leading up to and the scene of the first kiss in my WIP. I probably wrote and erased for a good hour, only ending up with maybe 600 words.

I just came to an almost dead stop trying to write the first kiss scene. I wrote and rewrote, I fussed, I changed the order, I fussed. By my designated curfew time, I had probably written over 2000 words but only 600 remained for the day's quota.

And I still wasn't happy. I was unsure as to WHY so I send to snippet to my critique partner and even let C read it. C wasn't wild but didn't gag or tell me to go back to my day job.

Still unsatisfied and I wasn't sure why. This is getting OLD.

So off to work today, I got some Real Work done but also spent a while trying to figure out why I was unhappy. Was it merely a case of the much vaunted "suckitis" or was it more? Maybe it DID suck? I swear my mind was doing a very nice imitation of a tornado or a ferret on crack.

Finally got home and sent an additional copy to my Test Reader to see what she thought - dreading, of course, the "Lame" verdict. Thankfully she says it's not lame but was very sexy - though it needed a revamp on a line or two. (Thanks Erin!)

But the more I think about it, the more I think perhaps I'm in the wrong POV altogether and THAT's my issue. This is the first kiss. The heroine is already very weirded out by now and I'm in the hero's POV. Add to that the fact that most readers want to "be" the heroine.

The more I think about it, the more I am becoming convinced that's the root of my suckitis.

So I think I'm going to rewrite that section in the other POV and see if that removes my issues. Not being TOO dumb, I'll save the current version just in case i need to revert to it.

2 Comments

  1. It's not that it was a bad scene (although I think the idea of changing the POV is perhaps a pretty good one for making it better.

    But Hon, I'm a GUY.. first kiss scenes are nice and all, but they don't do it for me no matter how well written..

    But when you get to the oral sex, be sure to let me have a preview (read.. a preview READ woman... )


  2. I actually thought it was quite good in the hero's POV so it will be interesting to see what you've done with the heroine's POV.

    Just don't use velvety *g*


Post a Comment