We Meet Draconi

Tonight, Phineas and Draconi have come face-to-face during intermission at the opera house. Both Phineas and Cindy know that he’s bad news, but Phineas hasn’t learned that it was Draconi he was talking to before telling him that he thinks being able to remove things off your heart might be something people should be able to do. That’s a dangerous thing to tell someone who’s favoured by the status quo.

Meanwhile, Malcolm, who’s stayed home, has had an important encounter of his own. Virgil has wandered out of Blackstone into the south Narrows, where Malcolm lives, and has starting ranting and raving out on the streets. His mental health is obviously deteriorating, but Malcolm was able to placate Virgil’s aimless yelling because he recognized him as the guy that helped him out in the tavern some nights ago. He feels alright about showing Malcolm why he’s gone mad, and he’s quite shocked by the reason. You regular viewers already know what it is, but with any luck, it’s still surprising.

One thing about this passage is the description of a play within the novel. Initially, my description of it was considerably more explicit, but I was finding it distracting and overstuffed, so it was severely condensed. I kept the old passage in a new Scrivener folder in my binder called “Scraps”; I doubt I’ll get much more use out of that folder or that passage, but who knows? I’m meeting my daily quotas, though, so I can afford to clip out fluff at this point. I don’t need any word count bolstering at the expense of my story just yet.

Though I’m looking to exceed 50,000 words and totally finish the story before the month is over. I need to get ahead; perhaps get two or three days ahead, or even try and get to the halfway point of 25,000 before the halfway point of the month, or even 30,000! But let’s not drive our Ferraris before we have a driver’s license, eh?

I’ve also thought of a more interesting role for Dirk as the story reaches its rising action; I’m just mentioning it now for my personal posterity.

As well, none of you are commenting on my excerpts. A lot of people are praising me for the concept and insist I should find a publisher, but if the writing can’t pull off the high concept, what’s the point? I think I’m doing okay, but I’m ultimately not sure the whole idea is coming through, but it’s not the sort of idea that constantly permeates the plot; it’s more like an undercurrent that the story’s elements have to be aware of. It’s certainly not meant to be a laundry list of why I think it’s interesting, but I also don’t want it to seem like a weak aside, either. Hopefully I’ve struck a good balance.

So am I doing alright? Let me know!