Editing... Errr... Brainstorming?

Yep. I've made a promise to myself to sit down and put Blink through it's next round of edits this weekend. It still has a couple sticking points I need to work through - things in the plot that would bother me if I was a reader. For instance, if the new city is so technologically advanced, why haven't they kicked the crap out of the old city yet? (You'd have to know what the hell is going on to even get that, but as a reader, by the time the MC got to the new city, you'd understand.)

If you've read my old blog posts, you know about a bit about Blink (and if you have ignore this bit - it's for the new readers). Blink is set in the distant future. Think Fahrenheit 451 meets Anthem and then wonder what would happen if the MCs fought back. Wonder what would happen if after leaving his home and finding the human 'books', Montag went back and fought for his home. Or rather imagine if it were Montag's progeny, fighting for a world slowly slipping toward the world in Anthem.

Actually the original title for this book was Prologue, because I got the idea that it would be written as a sort of pre-Anthem. What would have to happen to the world for it to slip to the state of Anthem, and then what would happen if the people of the world decided to fight against its decay? Tada.

But I still have problems. I knew this one wasn't going to be as easy as Caldera (which wasn't easy, except by comparison to Blink). Trying to create a world of the future isn't just taking some people and slapping them down in some city hundreds of years from now. Things change over time.

And I didn't want the futuristic elements of the story to take over the story. They are a backdrop, not a crucial plot element. I didn't want Blink leaning more heavily toward SF, when it's so obviously not. I mean they do have some interesting gadgets, but since the city is in decline, not many gadgets still work.

So, when I send my MC out from this union-controlled city into the rest of the world, she eventually finds another city out beyond the wastelands and the mountains. This new city has all sorts of nifty gadgets, and they're fairly free. And herein lies the rub. If they're so damned spiffy, why haven't they kicked the crap out of the union? They have the technology, they have motive, but so far the only reason I've given them is fear the union will wipe them out. Something the union is no longer capable of, but they don't know that. I think I have to take their technological advances away from them. Maybe make them a pre-industrial society - which means I have to change a lot of things in the second part of the book. I've always had problems with that middle part, and I thought I fixed them during the last edit, but I can see now I haven't... Arrgghh.

So anyway, I just realized that I've turned this post into what I usually do with my notebook and pen - a brainstorming session written down. Hope you liked seeing the process. Now, back to my morning blog reading, and then... TO WORK!

(Or maybe to more brainstorming. We'll see how it goes.)