new story ii

I’ve been calling it “Fanged Frog” (for no particular reason), and I’ve been having some trouble with it, and it depresses me to notice it’s been nearly a month that I’ve been working on it.  I’ve wanted most of all to step away from the sorts of stories I usually write and the types of characters I usually involve, which is to say, not wimps, not geeks, not intellectuals, not scientists, not librarians, and most of all, not me.  This much I’ve accomplished.  I’ve actually got written what I think is a nice sketch of the main characters.  It’s the main narrative that’s lacking.  I know it will certain around a crime, a murder.  At one point, I’d considered it to be the blending of the “true crime” genre and “literary fiction” genre.  However, when I thought about it, I realized the only real difference between the two genres are a) the quality and, well, I intend to write it as well as I can, and besides some true crime is extremely well-written (a book like In Cold Blood comes to mind) and b) interiority, which fiction can have and non-fiction cannot have. I considered a version–and actually had to get out of bed to scribble notes for it–in which the dichotomy between an official story and the secret truth.  But I’ve done that.  That was one of the main themes of Hwy X–not to say I did it perfectly but I did write something new.

I have one more character sketch to do, that of the Mayor, the main perpetrator.  Once I finish him, I’ll start again from the top.