The Perils of Constance

When last I blogged here, two months ago, I bemoaned the fact that my work-in-progress had gone off the rails and was hurtling down the embankment toward the river.

I’ve learned in life that if you whine and complain enough, people will help you, if only to shut you up. :-)

So I got a lot of good advice from many good writers: stuff that worked for them, or that they’d heard had worked for other writers (hey—beggars can’t be choosers).

Just to recap, the premise of the story was that an A’lle ship had crash-landed in what is now southern Quebec three hundred years ago. Society is growing accustomed to these aliens in their midst—they look very human-like, but are just different enough to be unsettling. Still, there is an ultra-religious faction that believes the A’lle have no souls and represent a serious threat to the souls of all God-fearing humans. In 1911, Constance is the first A’lle investigator, part of the constabulary of St. Vincent, and she is investigating the murder of another A’lle.

There I was, nearing the end of the story when I realized I was forcing myself to put words down and worse, I was bored. Not good. SO not good.

So with all that good advice in mind, I went back to the beginning and started rereading. Sure enough, I found the kink in the rail—and how appropriate was it that it happened to be *on* a train, while Constance was on her way to Montreal with her boss, the chief investigator? I suddenly realized that while she was off following a lead, the bad guy would be doing something, too: he would be trying to prevent her from doing her job.

Now I’ve picked up Constance’s story again and the push-pull of showing the antagonist’s needs and the actions he takes to resolve his needs is making all the difference.

So thanks, eh. Good advice, from good writers, and now Constance’s story is back on track, full speed ahead.

Okay, I’m done with the train metaphors.