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Jun. 17th, 2012 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cblj_backupThis book is gonna end me, I swear.
I'm actually almost through with the rewrite of Dead Isle; I have to fix two major things and do a read-through for minor-but-pervasive problems (description, always description) and then this rewrite will be done, though I'm running it past one final check with specific people before it goes to typesetting.
I also have a decision to make about Clare's name change.
I wanted to change Clare's name to give her a more solid identification with the Koori, and specifically with the Wiradjuri, both for her own sake and to show what a consummately manipulative statesman William Libris can be -- his persona is based, in part, on John Kumalo from Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country, though fashioned in a more positive light. But it has also always gone against my grain, introducing a name-change so late in the book. One of the first lessons I ever learned about playwriting was "No new characters after ten o'clock" -- very few playwrights can introduce a change like that so late in the play, though George Bernard Shaw managed it once in a while. Also, it confused people.
I mean in all honesty, it would be a relief to take the change out. And it's a little funky, William changing her name for her without asking -- it's meant to be slightly shady but it's slightly more shady than I intended. I could go through and try to add the change earlier, but there's honestly no place for it and it becomes a weird footnote rather than an escalation of an emotionally charged moment.
I keep thinking, yes, I'll do it, I'm gonna go in right now and do it, and then pausing and banging my head on the laptop for a while.
But Dead Isle has abided for what, four years now. It'll wait one more week for me to figure myself the hell out.
I do find it a little eerie that I wrote this book in the midst of a huge family upheaval involving my brother immigrating illegally to Australia, and now that I'm nearly done, we're in the middle of a huge family upheaval over him coming back for a visit. It's an appropriate parallel, I suppose. I'm mostly glad the whole mess never poisoned the book for me, and that while it may end me I still love it.
I'm actually almost through with the rewrite of Dead Isle; I have to fix two major things and do a read-through for minor-but-pervasive problems (description, always description) and then this rewrite will be done, though I'm running it past one final check with specific people before it goes to typesetting.
I also have a decision to make about Clare's name change.
I wanted to change Clare's name to give her a more solid identification with the Koori, and specifically with the Wiradjuri, both for her own sake and to show what a consummately manipulative statesman William Libris can be -- his persona is based, in part, on John Kumalo from Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country, though fashioned in a more positive light. But it has also always gone against my grain, introducing a name-change so late in the book. One of the first lessons I ever learned about playwriting was "No new characters after ten o'clock" -- very few playwrights can introduce a change like that so late in the play, though George Bernard Shaw managed it once in a while. Also, it confused people.
I mean in all honesty, it would be a relief to take the change out. And it's a little funky, William changing her name for her without asking -- it's meant to be slightly shady but it's slightly more shady than I intended. I could go through and try to add the change earlier, but there's honestly no place for it and it becomes a weird footnote rather than an escalation of an emotionally charged moment.
I keep thinking, yes, I'll do it, I'm gonna go in right now and do it, and then pausing and banging my head on the laptop for a while.
But Dead Isle has abided for what, four years now. It'll wait one more week for me to figure myself the hell out.
I do find it a little eerie that I wrote this book in the midst of a huge family upheaval involving my brother immigrating illegally to Australia, and now that I'm nearly done, we're in the middle of a huge family upheaval over him coming back for a visit. It's an appropriate parallel, I suppose. I'm mostly glad the whole mess never poisoned the book for me, and that while it may end me I still love it.
