Weaving Act One Back In

Readers of this blog know that Second Chance began as a bad novella (which I actually published!) My stories always begin well, even though I'm feeling my way through. Sometimes they turn out great; other times they totally miss. I still love discovery writing because it can lead to some unexpected places, but once in a while they lead to dead ends. That's what happened with Second Chance. It was pretty good up until I found that I had nowhere to go with it. 

Long after it was published (and luckily not purchased by anyone) I realized how unsatisfying it was, and also that I could possibly turn it into something good. I jettisoned the entire last third and took the story in another direction.

This has worked out fine (or relatively fine) so far, but since I've also made changes to my writing style, I always knew that the first part of the novella would require drastic revisions. No, I haven't tackled that yet.

Originally the story left the main character firmly planted in the town of Chance, and in fact the town itself was like its own character, so much so that I could draw a map of where every business and every residential area is located. But in the new version, MC left. And yes, it's almost like a different story at this point; same character, but living in the city and taking on a whole new career. At first I tried to at least include a few long distance phone conversations with some of the original characters, so they wouldn't just be abandoned, but a lot of things happened to her in her new life and it was difficult to integrate the old and the new.

But now she finds herself back in Chance, mostly by accident (although she subconsciously might have made it happen) and she's stuck there for the time being. I've been going crazy trying to find a way to get her out of town and back to Nashville, which is quite difficult considering she has zero money to her name. (This is a loose end I need to resolve, because why can't she draw from her bank account? Ooh, I just thought of an answer!) 

Anyway (I'll fix that) now that she's back, it's my opportunity to start weaving Act One back in. For what it's worth, she had one old friend in Chance who's stood by her, even though she never took the time to tell him she was leaving town, but he's a loyal, forgiving person, and that cruel omission didn't tarnish his fondness for her. He'll be her anchor when she confronts the more difficult interactions that are inevitable. First, her former co-worker, the bartender. He went to bat for her when she was hired as a server. She had no experience and was pretty shaky. He offered constant encouragement (and a bit of sleight of hand) to bolster her confidence. And even though he had a brief fling with MC's mother, their relationship endured. But he didn't take her sudden disappearance lightly, which she learned when she called him from Nashville. He was cold and impersonal. Then there's her former band. The bandleader, in fact, was the only person she bothered to inform that she was leaving, and that was via a phone call. He took it well at the time, but she'd blown up the band, a band she had convinced the three men to form, when they were perfectly happy living normal lives. There are one or two other peripheral characters as well. 

But the big unspoken-about one is the man she'd been in love with. He'd broken up with her over a fact she'd kept from him, which shouldn't have even been a deal breaker; yet it was for him. In Act One she still didn't give up on him until she was forced to. When she got her initial record label offer, and when she was about to accept it, she went to his shop to see if they could salvage their relationship, but he wasn't there. (And then a lot of intervening things occurred. She kept going back and forth ~ accept or not accept? ~ and in the end she realized she was still happy in Chance, regardless. It was home, after all.) She went for a walk to clear her mind, and she saw her lost love in the process of moving into a house with another woman. That's when she decided to accept, and she left town within a couple of days, desperate to forget what she'd seen.

Inevitably, those two are going to meet again. And their past will be resolved. I'm not sure how it will happen, but I know what will happen.

And so, this is my opportunity to meld the two parts together.

As a side note, it occurs to me that I've left a few dangling threads, and that's annoying. There's the unread letter, for one. Then there's her mentor's secret, which I introduced earlier and requires a resolution. Ugh. All this mental traveling between Nashville and Chance, then Chance back to Nashville is exhausting. I might be complicating the story too much. Not to mention explaining why her record label is trying so hard to sabotage her career. (I still don't know why.)

No doubt the ground will be covered with snow when I finally finish this one, and it's still only August. Anyway, it's good to have a path forward.