2008-10-02
The last chapter will be posting shortly as I write this, if it hasn't already. All three versions.
The story is basically my upside down attempt to counter-balance the huge, huge number of stories involving white men wanting to see their wives with black men. I turned it around. But in true rache fashion, that wasn't good enough. I wanted a little more conflict than just a reluctant wife. I wanted her to have her own personality, her own desires, and her own vulnerabilities.
I've said it before, characters are everything for me and the "action" is only important in how it affects a character. I mean some stories are only about the action, mine are (hopefully) more about the characters and the conflict is just a tool to inform us about them. That's a very simple explanation, I know.
Why three endings? I wasn't happy with any of the three. The obviously limiting factor was where chapter four ended. Amber was in a very bad place emotionally. She was wrecked and it's hard to see where anything positive could come from that, without turning the story into a completely misogynist fantasy ...And let me say, chapters 3 and especially 4 are definitely "classic" scenes of male dominance. Hopefully they were set up enough to be acceptable for the Amber character. And then the idea was always to "save" Amber at the end. To find a happy ending, in some form.
So I took my three shots at it. Individually they're all interesting and I think they're plausible to varying degrees. But if I had it to do over, I'd probably go easier on chapter 4 and it was a good lesson for me. I'm applying it to "Priss" actually, which is a similar story in theme, but I'm hoping it will be better written.
So that's kinda the deal. I don't want to put any spoilers here. Writing is hard sometimes. It can be complicated as a creative/philosophical exercise because characters are people. They just live in a different way, but they still require a great deal of energy and thought if they're going to work.
Thanks for reading
and if you haven't read it...It's not a bad story.
rache
