Competitions and Revisions

you know, i really want to return to posting stuff more regularly.
this space is now more than one year old and i think it's time to be here more often.
So...

a few days ago i received my weekly New Scientist email. In it there was news of a flash fiction competition.

You can find out more about it here.

But, basically, if you're interested, you've got to write up to a maximum of 350 words under the theme How the world will be in 100 years?
The deadline is 5pm on the 15th of october 2009 and only one entry per person.
They're going to select one of these short stories to publish on their weekly paper edition and then a few other to be published online.
Do read the terms and conditions. It's quite short and to the point.

I've already written 5 short stories.
Resonance
The Moment
Our Tomorrows
Collapse
CloudSquared

The themes vary but my aim has been to insinuate rather than tell.
You see, I read the eight short stories that were posted online and i wasn't that happy with most of them. I liked the ideas but almost all of them lacked either wit or subtlety, or both.

Well... to be honest, I don't know if I've managed to make that happen with mine but that was the goal!

In any case, these are only the first drafts. I've been trying to work on my book and thus haven't been working on them. I know that, if necessary, if not before, I can do those on the 14th of October at midnight...

Today I spent a good deal of my time reading and revising the chapters relating to the father and the brother visiting the main characters grave.
The father chapter was a bit difficult because i didn't want it to sound too emotionally one sided. I don't know if I succeeded but I think it's a deep one and I think it will easily carry the reader through as well as hint at a very different perspective of the story.

The brother chapter had more or less the same problem. It kind of drifted from one side to the other. Halfway through it I was thinking that maybe this isn't cohesive enough but, on a second thought, perhaps that's just what it needs, that floaty emotionality. I feel it's a kind of flash forwarding kind of chapter. For me the brother starts talking in his early teens but finishes in his adult life.

Now I'm facing the teacher chapter. This is another of the guys visiting the dead guys grave, figuring out his own perspective on life, death and, obviously, the incident.

The problem is that a good deal of the text I've written doesn't really fit in the sense that it's a dialogue between two teachers, only then moving towards the internal, almost merciless monologue that characterises these chapters (they all belong under the work heading Grave).

So here's what I'm thinking of doing (and only because the stuff contained inside the dialogue is actually useful):
I'm gonna separate the dialogue from the monologue and thus create two different chapters. One to be the prologue of the other.
The first will be about two teachers talking (still don't know the location) about a third one that will end up going the funeral we've seen on the first chapter of the book.
The second will be about him actually being there, again giving us a new perspective on the main character and his predicaments.

Don't know if I'll have time to finish it today but I still have the next two days off so... to work!

It would REALLY be nice if I could finish revising this section by wednesday night...

peace.