When things don't quite go right

On August 1, I started the rewrite of Singer & St. Jude 1: The Lost Cause.  This book has already been published by Double Dragon, but I asked for the rights back because I wanted to move the story about a hundred years into the future and use the series (there are several more that have not been published) as the starting point for the Inner Worlds Council Universe.  The books introduce two important factors for many of the later works. The first is the introduction of the psis and their powers, as well as the fear that moves a lot of humans against them.  The second is the start of the organization that later becomes the Old World Morals Society, a group much like the Far Right of today with their insistence on people living in ways they have decided are correct.

So I started the work.  The rewrite has been going very well, in fact, at least on one level.

But something kept bothering me.  Really nagging at me every time I sat down and started typing.  I could not figure out what the problem was, however.  So I kept working.  I changed things, I nudged this and that.  I liked a lot of what I got, but I felt something essential was missing.

Missing is the important word.  What the story missed was a sense of the future.  I had a few terms and a couple gadgets.  I had a reason why this particular area of the world would not be as advanced as other places, but even so, the story lacked a feel for the hundred and some years that had passed.  I had, in fact, not done any real world building for the new version.

This is embarrassing.  My favorite author wrote a lovely quote for me: A talented author with a gift for world building.

She said that about me.  And here I sit with a story that might as well be taking place right now, except for the ruined city. 

I am finishing out this rewrite to fix the rest of the plot problems.  Then I will put the book aside and start thinking about how I might change things.  I don't think I'll work on the novel again until next year -- which isn't that far away.  I will, however, start looking at the world building aspects that I ignored.

Next up is the final run through on Tales of Grey Station 9.  And outlines.  Having trouble there, too.

But at least I finally figured out the problem with the current novel.  I can deal with problems I see even if they take me a while to fix.  The ones you simply can't find are the ones that will drive a writer crazy.