I recently finished a fantasy/horror hybrid story about a coven of witches that abducts a natural-born power user to sacrifice him, only for the leader of the coven to backstab the rest of them and possess the user. I’ve been working on this idea for quite some time — the file has been sitting in my trunk for at least five years, but probably more. It came out to be 15,000 words or so of multi-POV.

And I don’t like it. I don’t like how cramped it feels, how little space everything has to breathe, and how the two secondary witches behave at the end. I can fix the last part pretty easily, but the first two are harder because I don’t want to expand it any longer. I feel like if I went longer the story would drag on — it already kind of does in a few places, I fear — but I also don’t see anywhere I can shorten it.

I think I’m going to end up trunking this story for a while. It was going to be part of the collection I mentioned recently, but I can do without it. And since I want there to be an even number of stories, I either have to find something else to write about or remove one of the others. Haven’t made that decision yet either.

I thought, when I finished the story, that I would feel a sense of accomplishment, but all I felt was relief — relief that I didn’t have to write any more of this piece. And a vague sense of dismay because I knew it wasn’t a great story. The premise is fine (it’s not necessarily original, but then, what is anymore?) and I rather like the villain. It just… it doesn’t strike me the right way.

Oh well. You can’t win them all.

This meme has nothing to do with the post. I just thought it was funny.