Robynettely

There's a rule or guideline or suggestion I keep seeing: Kill your darlings. I hate that suggestion. Sometimes my darlings are the only good thing in these wretched little stories. It goes along with that other fear of mine: cutting these stories and editing them until they're little anorexic skin-and-bones things, with all the beauty excised. I won't do that.

First Draft “Useful Things to Know”. Turned into a fun little steampunk Dr. George story, which wasn’t expected. “The Last Flaw of Nandini Taylor.” Well, I had to start something, but I didn’t really know where I was going with it. “Meet my Mother, Miss Cegenation.” So I had read a piece in Toronto Life about the rise of mixed race kids, and I was thinking about a person I know who doesn’t know who her father is and hence may, I don’t know, obsess a bit on this topic. And selkies. I know they’re for losers, but I wanted to write one anyway. Editing   “Don’t Choose Astronaut”. The second draft was little better than the first, because it went from (mostly) 3 rd person past to 1 st person present. Also, once there was text there, I could decide where the tension belonged. I got this wrong in the first draft, so wound up having to fake tension. Once the fake tension was gone and their resolution was a proper climax, the end worked better. I’m on the fourth...