The Bonzi Method

     One of the best pieces of writing advice I have ever received came from someone who hadn't written anything since highschool. We were talking about art, and the conversation turned towards her current project. She had made this great piece, something she was really proud of, but she was having trouble connecting it with the others of the set. That's when her mentor told her to kill it. "Kill your darlings."
     At first, like I was when she told me this story, shocked at the suggestion. She had worked hard to make something beautiful and now she was supposed to kill it? Crazy talk. But the more she thought about it, the more sense it made.
     Sometimes, in order to improve in life, you have to destroy what you create. Even if you had wrote the most beautiful paragraph the world has ever read; full of vibrant imagery and colorful characterization,  if it does not fit with the story you have to be willing to kill it. Much like pruning a bonzi tree into the desired shape you have to prune your story, even if that means cutting a few leaves.
     ....And that was a very weird and slightly odd segue into me telling you that have scrapped Rain (Working Title). At least, in it's current form. There were a lot of really nice pieces there, but there was quite a bit of unnecessary structure clogging it as well. I could have tried to re-work what was there, removing parts and adding others, but it just would not have turned out well. So instead I am starting over.
     Not completely from scratch mind you. The story should still be the same (mostly) but it will be much more streamlined, and therefor hopefully much better. I put to many ideas into one story for to work, but after that trial run, now I know what parts I need to make a coherent tale.
     In other good news, due to the massive overhaul of the story, while it is extremely similar to the old story, it also is nothing like it. What that means for you, Dear Reader, is that I can show you the original short story version of Rain that I wrote. I know I just said that I scrapped Rain (Working Title)  for being over complicated and not pretty, but that was the novelization attempt. The short story version does not have those problems. It has it's own, unique, set of issues. I like to think of them as "character traits" myself.
     Either way, look to this space in the coming days for the opening of Rain- A Detective Story. It'l be a grand time.

-Me