If you've got nothing left say 'I don't want to be in love, I don't want to be in love'.

Mar 23, 2007 22:16

I've actually come to point where I need to drastically change my characters. Or, rather, they need to undergo serious personality surgery for this second book I'm itching to work with. I'd like to forge into some rough parts so that I can smooth out the ending of MBV to flow into the seconb book appropriately. I'm just all up in arms as to what I should do. I mean, I've been making storyboards in my sketchbook of scenes, ideas (see the crap with titles below) and I keep coming up with ideas that work but don't work.

I've got Dru force-feeding herself what she believes is a "normal" teenage life. I threw in a reference to Mack (the jack-of-all-trades guy from camp...he played guitar and keyboard and handled all of their technical aspects, like sound) and his invitation for Dru to join a band he wants to form because they find out they live relatively near each other (I think it's mentioned as an hour away). I have another reference with Dru saying that she's been writing music (drumming parts) for this pet project of his and that since her social life, which came to revolve around Alex, has disintegrated. She talks about finding a normal life for herself, so that's why I put in the references to Mack, because she sees that they could possibly be decent friends, given the chance. What I've been toying with is the idea of Dru forcing herself to date him, be his girlfriend and be happy about it because it's what she believes what would be happening in her life if she had never met Alex. At the same time she's trying her darndest to put Alex and the lot behind her, she's also very emotional and, thus, reactionary in a violent way. She feels...betrayed, I think, and regardless of what she says, she has really kept it with her. So I think she would scare Mack.

Part of that would have to be Alex's re-emergence as a character. He's been at college...for a while now...I'm not quite sure where I want to pick up, but I've been aiming for halfway through the school year with Dru as a senior. The timeframe for the book would be smaller and the events in it would be more precise and there would have to be actual emotion. Anyways, I kind of want Alex to be struggling with a few more demons, but of a different kind? He's never really been on his own, he's always had someone to cling to; Drake, then Kara, then Dru. At college, he is alone because Drake's dead, Kara's ditched him and Dru wants him dead. He should have a certain inability to start developing relationships on campus. I think it would be all the questions that he would be asked. I don't think he would want to share his past too much, or really anything. I've got him, currently, writing through the snail mail to Dru with playlists. Finding the right songs or lyrics is getting tricky, but it's been a little fun to have them exchanging letters like that. It's this barrage of emotion between them. Hopefully, this will open up the A/D ship that I originally intended to write two years ago (holy shit!) and the whole damn point of stretching this out over two books.

Still, I feel the need to keep them apart more. Dru needs to have a relationship with someone else first because it's just too perfect for them to just, well, you know, agreed? I also want to factor in her disgust and disdain of what the relationship is between Alex and Kara and the openess of the sexuality there and how hideous is seems to her. She needs to hate Alex, I think. She needs to date Mack...or someone, but I don't want to draw up anymore characters than needed. I've been trying to throw meaning behind the opening lyrics..."I'll wash my bloody hands and . . . start a new life" can symbolize Dru trying to put everything behind her by the confession that is MBV. Her summations at the end of the book are not part of the testimony, they are purely in her head and they are the first things that are. Hopefully, because she is not confessing to a courtroom, I can strive to make this second book more open with the themes I feel aren't highlighted in MBV as much as I had intended. The death of Drake will impact what Dru thinks of drug usage and Alex's, er, well, lusting over Kara to bring out Dru's all around fear of Alex in that small way. I know she's mentioned it in MBV, but I think that if she's in relationship where she feels that something like sex could be demanded of her, than that fear wowuld be intensified.

Ok, that's all of the plot wonderings for now.

I've been all in a tizzy trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do. __silent_wishes, I would be much obliged if you could get that A/D piece to me ASAP. It's just bit of external input that I'd like to have.

Back Then

Alex pushes around the cases in the used CD rack. He's looking, but not really looking. And he's been at this for a while. Music stores have been making him feel depressed lately. He's been to this one three times in the past week and he still hasn't bought anything. He thinks he's just waiting for the right disk to jump out of the bin and bite him on the nose. Hell, it would be easier that way.

He's been tempted to buy all the music he hates because he knows she likes it. She made him listen to it, it was their little ritual to give each other CDs loaded with music they knew they other would hate. He does hate it, really, but he's lusting after Avenged Sevenfold, UnderOath and Good Charlotte and it's just because it's from back then.

Letters

I picked up the letter my mother had left on the counter for me and I immediately frown at the return address. It was from Alex. I slitted the envelope open and dumped the contents out onto the marble. A CD rolled away and onto the floor, but the letter stayed in front of me and I just felt obligated to read it. And it's not really a letter...it's a playlist.

01. I Don't Wanna Stop
02. Remember the Name

-- Alex!

I clutched the letter, my hands shaking violently. I Don't Wanna Stop. No matter how he was trying to use my own once-loved bands against me, I still wanted to hate him. I did hate him. It was all I had at this point. I tore a clean sheet of paper from the notepad by the phone and penned quickly:

01. Mack the Knife

and hoped he would understand and leave me be.
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