Stepping into another pair of shoes.
I am thinking of adding an extra scene to Extermination after taking the Enhanced CCW course.
Elaura suffers from anxiety after the massacre, but fights to push past it. She recognizes the underlying reason and still chooses to press on. Like all of us, she has her coping mechanisms, and has to manage herself. This is something I deal with myself, even though I don't have a major event causing my anxiety I do still find ways to work past situations that trigger.
Like I mentioned before, I took the Enhanced Concealed Carry class and you are required to shoot a certain number of supervised rounds to be eligible for the permit and the range we went through requires a 20 round qualification. If you've never fired a gun before, there is a moment of anticipation much like opening a can of Pillsbury biscuits. You know the ones I mean, right? Those pressurized cardboard cans that pop when you pull the label off? That moment when you are waiting for it to pop and when it does, it still scares the living crap out of you. The first shot was a lot like that. The trigger came halfway back with no action. I kept pulling. Finally, the trigger released the hammer and off my bullet went. The anticipation leading up to the shot was so great that no dry fire in the world can prepare you for that first round. The primer ignited and the gunpowder exploded in the round and my bullet raced to the target.
I anticipated the round so much that when it finally went off, It scared the living crap out of me. Well, that's what the instructor said should happen, right? So why do I share this? Well, anxiety is one thing that Elaura and I share. "WHAT?" you may be thinking, "An author give a character a weakness of their own? Balderdash! No sane author would do that." Well, the answer to that would be that every sane author does do that. Each and every one of us leave a little part of ourselves in the stories we write.
What I am realizing with Elaura, is that I need to do more to step into her shoes and pull her less into my own as I go through this rewrite. While at that range, I suddenly realized that while I may have fired guns, I need to start doing some training like what she will go through in the military. Mind you the Delta military is the only introduction to guns that most people will have legally. As with every civilization, there will be illegal ownership, but it is harder to access without the ability to rob a munitions depot transport. They are heavily armed and fortified, and would take a small army to capture. Most of the citizenry have resorted to more basic weaponry. Bows and arrows, swords, daggars, crossbows, and the like.
Something that I need to work with on Elaura's end is balancing how much of this new training will be included in the story and how much do I leave to "It happened at boot camp." The danger I find with adding this in, is of course word count. My first draft was 96000 words roughly. The re-write of just the storyis adding about 1200 words per chapter and shows no trend in slowing down. This would leave me in a space of having to cut and chop.
So my readers, I come to you for advice. Would you like to see a bit of her training? Or should I leave it out to come out as an extra snippet later?
Much Love
-----April
Elaura suffers from anxiety after the massacre, but fights to push past it. She recognizes the underlying reason and still chooses to press on. Like all of us, she has her coping mechanisms, and has to manage herself. This is something I deal with myself, even though I don't have a major event causing my anxiety I do still find ways to work past situations that trigger.
Like I mentioned before, I took the Enhanced Concealed Carry class and you are required to shoot a certain number of supervised rounds to be eligible for the permit and the range we went through requires a 20 round qualification. If you've never fired a gun before, there is a moment of anticipation much like opening a can of Pillsbury biscuits. You know the ones I mean, right? Those pressurized cardboard cans that pop when you pull the label off? That moment when you are waiting for it to pop and when it does, it still scares the living crap out of you. The first shot was a lot like that. The trigger came halfway back with no action. I kept pulling. Finally, the trigger released the hammer and off my bullet went. The anticipation leading up to the shot was so great that no dry fire in the world can prepare you for that first round. The primer ignited and the gunpowder exploded in the round and my bullet raced to the target.
I anticipated the round so much that when it finally went off, It scared the living crap out of me. Well, that's what the instructor said should happen, right? So why do I share this? Well, anxiety is one thing that Elaura and I share. "WHAT?" you may be thinking, "An author give a character a weakness of their own? Balderdash! No sane author would do that." Well, the answer to that would be that every sane author does do that. Each and every one of us leave a little part of ourselves in the stories we write.
What I am realizing with Elaura, is that I need to do more to step into her shoes and pull her less into my own as I go through this rewrite. While at that range, I suddenly realized that while I may have fired guns, I need to start doing some training like what she will go through in the military. Mind you the Delta military is the only introduction to guns that most people will have legally. As with every civilization, there will be illegal ownership, but it is harder to access without the ability to rob a munitions depot transport. They are heavily armed and fortified, and would take a small army to capture. Most of the citizenry have resorted to more basic weaponry. Bows and arrows, swords, daggars, crossbows, and the like.
Something that I need to work with on Elaura's end is balancing how much of this new training will be included in the story and how much do I leave to "It happened at boot camp." The danger I find with adding this in, is of course word count. My first draft was 96000 words roughly. The re-write of just the storyis adding about 1200 words per chapter and shows no trend in slowing down. This would leave me in a space of having to cut and chop.
So my readers, I come to you for advice. Would you like to see a bit of her training? Or should I leave it out to come out as an extra snippet later?
Much Love
-----April
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