Not a pirate ARRRGH, either

ARRRGH. Just for variety, I'm wrestling with my children's book again, and it's one of the toughest 2000 words I've ever written--and only because I can't get the ending to shake out. Texts in this genre tend to be really short--it's an artist's game, really; a writer just frames up the ideas--so whatever you're going to do, you have to do it in a tiny amount of space. You're not going to get a whole lot of psychological growth or anything, but at the end of the day, your story is generally about something. I mean, even Rotten Ralph is about a cat who runs away and realizes he misses his family. No matter how slight the story is, it's got a trajectory leading to somewhere, unless it's a book for readers so young that colors, numbers and letters are all the plot they need. And what I've been wrestling with is exactly what my story is leading up to. I have the physical ending--the boy finds the monster so he can ask the monster to give something back--but I can't figure out what the emotional ending is. Why does he need [something] back? There's a big difference between "I didn't need [something] for luck, I just needed to believe in myself" and "Dad trusted me with [something], and I proved myself by getting it back," if you see what I'm saying, and the latter is closer to what mine is turning out to be. But I'm also dealing with what the monster would want, and what kind of bargain would be most satisfying. The funny thing is that the first 1500 words were pretty effortless--this is the equivalent of a gymnast having to learn to stick the landing. It sounds like I'm overthinking it, I guess, but if I can come up with the right combination, it should look natural and obvious and easy.

Sigh.

Meanwhile, I need to type up my Casino Royale draft while I'm actually off dogsitting duty.

( Linkspam )