My Epic horror masterpiece might actually be a better cozy

xtine · Mar 12, 2010

Middle of the fashionista/zombie book and quite stuck. About 50K words. I'll wriggle out of it. I always do.

Wake up this morning and realize, my world (Manhattan fashion district), my characters (twin sisters designing on opposite sides of the industry) their romantic problems (she pines for her boss, the other has a controlling boyfriend) can be picked up and transported into a lovely, tidy murder cozy that can be exploded into a series with two clicks of a mechanical pencil.

All right. maybe not a cozy cozy. But a mystery.

So what?

I have been toiling at writing for over 10 years. And the consistent industry response is that my work is not commercial enough. I agree with that, but I have been unable to fix it.

This fashion cozy sounds pretty freaking commercial to me. And I've been a designer/tech designer in NY and LA for 20 years (god I'm old) so it's a world I'm a little (too) familiar with.

The problem is that I'm not a big reader of mysteries. I get it. I know what they are and the mechanics of making them work (said the writer who had never done it before). But exciting? Not really to me.

The other problem? Is this just me wanting to get away from being stuck? I've never abandoned a book this late in the game before. It's scary.

You're going to wonder what I expect from you all. I have no idea. Tell me I'm crazy? No one wants a mystery series about the real workings of fashion. (fittings? patterns? sewing? gack!) I thought of this when I woke up an hour ago and have been unable to dismiss it as one of my early morning lightning bolts. But no. The commerciality of it won't let me go.

heyjude · Mar 12, 2010

xtine said:
You're going to wonder what I expect from you all. I have no idea. Tell me I'm crazy?

How about a hug? :Hug2:

I can honestly say that the thread name of this title made my eyebrows go up and hover someplace above my head for several minutes. That was fun.

If it doesn't appeal to you, don't do it. Really, would you want to be stuck doing something you don't enjoy?

OTOH, maybe give it a shot. Save your WIP in a safe place as is, then with another copy tear it up and make it into a cozy. Give yourself a timetable, say, two weeks. If you're not feeling it, go back to the original WIP.

Or, take a break and do something else for a while (I prefer eating jellybeans and reading a book, but no one ever lets me do that, haha).

I feel you on the abandoning-a-project problem. I can't do it either. I finish, even if it feels like it's going to kill me.

Good luck. You're in the right place for moral support, if not sanity or real answers.

kaitie · Mar 12, 2010

I'd go with give it a shot. Save an unchanged copy, then go play. You still have the old one if you decide after a bit that it doesn't work, and you can try something new. At the very least, you would learn from the experience and it would probably improve your plotting.

Good Word · Mar 12, 2010

Also, what if you try reading a bunch of different mysteries--don't spend $ on it---just go to the library for a few hours and see if there's anything that appeals to you in a new way. I say I don't like mysteries much, I'm more into thrillers, but once in a while I find something. Maybe some people here can recommend some.

<AND NOW TIME FOR THE 30-SECOND IMAGINATION ROAM>

What came to mind when you started talking about the fashion industry is a designer going to work in the morning. On the dummy her leather jacket prototype was on was a hand sticking out of the sleeve. She thought it was a gag her colleagues were playing on her, but when she touched the congealed blood...

<back to our regularly scheduled thread>

xtine · Mar 12, 2010

On the dummy her leather jacket prototype was on was a hand sticking out of the sleeve. She thought it was a gag her colleagues were playing on her said:
Oh dear! That is gruesome and quite good! It's not what I had in mind. I'd hate to plot out why a killer would do that and give him/her an opportunity to do so. I'm more into the relationships between people. But it was a very good imagination roam!

Love that.

jairey · Mar 16, 2010

One of the things a good director will do in a play to "shake up" an actor who isn't quite getting the direction is to have them go totally over the top and in another direction. Say, someone is playing a male lead but he's too "macho" and stiff. The director might have him make the character totally, flamboyantly gay. Then after a couple of times through it, have him go back to the original character. Given a reasonably competent actor, some of the flavor of the alternate portrayal will hang on, improving the performance. So why not do as others have suggested. Save what you've got and then take things in a different direction? If you can "make it work" (fashion industry reference

), let people read it and see what they think. At the very least, you would be expanding your skills if you do decide to return to your original WIP.

heyjude · Mar 16, 2010

jairey! Great post--loved the actor stuff. I never knew that.

My Epic horror masterpiece might actually be a better cozy

xtine

A hundred words at a time

heyjude

Making my own sunshine

kaitie

With great power comes

Good Word

still crazy after all these years

xtine

A hundred words at a time

jairey

heyjude

Making my own sunshine