In the Hall of Rusted Widows is dead.

It happens sometimes – a story I think is going to be great just doesn’t quite work. Sometimes it’s because I don’t really have a story, I just have an idea. Sometimes it’s because I’ve wandered too far off track, and I need to regroup and take another run at the story. Sometimes, frankly, I’m just not a good enough writer to pull off the story in my head. Of course, no story is ever as good as it started out in my head, but sometimes I just can’t find enough of the imagery to get anything close to the story I’m envisaging.

In the case of Rusted Widows, it’s kind of a combination of all three. The 4,200 words I have now tell a different story to the one I outlined, there’s too much concept and not enough story, and I can’t really find the right words to get the emotional resonance I’d need for this story. At least not in its current form.

So, In the Hall of Rusted Widows is going in the abandoned folder. I like the overall idea though, and I’ve got a feeling that part of the problem is that the story I outlined is at least a novella, and there’s a nugget of a full length novel there. So, I’m going to let the idea percolate for a while and see what Ethel can come up with.

In the meantime, I need to finish the final final revisions on Leah and the first draft of Reg vs The Martians (and the Glitch revisions, and revise The Haunting of Danny Braithwaite).

In other news, I ordered a new laptop today, a Lenovo Yoga 2. Not 100% sure I’m going to keep it but it deserves a proper trial.

[“Death of a Story” by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 27th November 2014]