Rewrites and Revising the ‘Big Bad’

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 and explore other possibilities for a 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 I  found an internet site with .pdf scans of actual historical documents – papers presented to the Royal Society (in my case 1862).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!!!!

 

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