Last night, I tried something a little different. I cleared my head, cleared the space around me, and decided to just start working on a story cold. Just sit down, pick a title, and write.
Two hours later, I’d knocked out several pages of work that I feel was pretty darned well written…and the story was complete garbage. I felt like I was on a roll in terms of telling it, but the story itself? It just didn’t work. It’s bad enough that I’m not sure there’s anything I can salvage. It’s sitting in the drafts folder, just daring me to delete it.
This being for Chuck Wendig’s flash fiction challenge this week, the title was the name of randomly selected song, and it was a good one, although maybe a little too leading. There was really only one place the story could go, and it was too obvious right from the beginning. (Can you tell I’m working through this as we speak?) Of the top of my head, I can think of two rescue strategies. I can either figure out a way to twist it, to make it take a unexpected fork, or I can go all Treasure of the Sierra Madre on it and make it about foreboding.
Or maybe just roll the ol’ random number generator again and see what it gives me. Like I said, I liked everything about the story but the story (which is a very significant “but”). I’d still deem the operation a success. Pity about the patient, though…
