I’m revisiting an old story project I started roughly eight years ago. I had a lot of hope for it at the time, but it was a struggle to accomplish much writing on it. I realized, after beating it into submission several times over, that one of the main characters was the problem. Other characters were properly constructed, but one…just wasn’t working. And he was an important character. If he didn’t work, there wasn’t much hope for the rest of the plan.
I’ve gone back to this project a number of times, trying to sort out that one character, but each incarnation didn’t quite work out. I’m not entirely sure what re-sparked my interest in this story this time around, but I think I might just have figured out that problem character I’ve been struggling with all these years.
It’s going through some restructuring and rewriting of existing material, but there are a few pieces in there that are worth keeping.
I currently have six pages of a beginning that I actually kind of like.
Here’s hoping.
Family holidays were still a challenge to survive. Fifteen years after losing his parents in a tragic car accident (one he barely made it out of himself), he still dreaded going through major holidays. They always turned out far less horrendous than he built up in his mind, but he still put himself through the unnecessary agony every single time.
Fifteen years of therapy, support groups, anti-depressants, and a couple stays in the psych ward, he often wondered how he was still alive. Not so much why—just how.
As he returned to his bedroom after his shower, a picture frame sitting on the desk caught his eye. He picked it up and studied the glossy print. It had been taken not four months ago, the last time he’d been back in Minnesota. His own image smiled back at him, sitting next to her on the beach. He had his arm around her and she was resting her head on his shoulder. They were both smiling, both happy. She was his best friend. She was everything to him.
He set the frame back in its place and went to his closet. So much for formulating a way out of the trip. Every reason he could come up with not to go suddenly paled in comparison to the one reason he had to, staring at him, smiling in that picture.
—
 |
The Hardest Part Ingram Hill |
Ya! I like too!