decisions, decisions

Decisions are always hard, espically in the realm of story writing. Incredables director Brad Bird said something along the lines that business people hate filmmaking because in questions of story, there is no right and wrong answer, and I hate that.

To fill you in, for those that don't know, I am trying to write a childrens story. I had the idea about three years ago, started writing it two years ago, finished the first draft about one year ago and hae been redrafting since. Those of you out there who have written stories will know that this is not an easy process. When I finished the first draft, I sat back, relieved that I had actually finished a story, something I have been trying to do for years. I thought that it would take prehaps a month to go through the story and mabye iron out a few plot holes and rewrite some awkward sentences. As it happens, I have so far eliminated a semi-main charicter, completly changed the personality of the protagonist and started writing the story again. After another year, I am about halfway through and have come up against a wall.

The story is set in the 1700s and concerns two boys; one a sort of assistant cook on a slae ship, the other a slave who has been brought over from Africa. The basic plot went that A rescues B, they end up in Africa and A goes to live with B's family. It had some holes, so I re-wrote it. No it seems like the story is much more A's personal journey, and I am very close to dropping B. He's still in there, but only at the start. A's one good deed kind of destroys his life that was kinda secure. He gets chucked off his ship and basically passed around anyone who wants a servant. I can't think of a way to get B back into it and as a result there is no way to end the story that I can see.

So you see the dilemma that I am in. A story that was once about friendship is now about something else entirely. I really don't want to try to shoehorn the story back around so I have a nice convinent ending.

(p.s. Dr who is still very good)