And Then It Was Just Yada, Dada, Yada

In my literary blog, The T. H. Weingarten Miscellany, I am nearing the end of the first, rough  draft of my book.  Technically, I have reached the climax, and I have started to resolve all the problems that have developed over the course of the story.  It has taken over a year to get to this point, at least in writing it.  I have had the main gist of the story bubbling up ever since college.  Over that length of time, many things have changed.  From the beginning, the story was all about how a man, 'Chris,' had to become the guardian of the half-brother he never knew, 'Sam.'  I didn't come up with those names until I started writing the blog.  Even now, they could just be placeholders.  Chris was originally going to be a few years younger, or older.  Twenty-seven seemed to be the right spot, but there is a little leeway.  I didn't know what job Chris would have.  The publishing spot just popped up.  Originally, he didn't really have a job, beyond owning the apartment building where he lived.  He had mad great investments in college, as opposed to having all this money just falling onto his lap.  Strangely enough, most of the tenants wouldn't have known he was the owner.  Not even the few he considered his gaming friends.  That part of Chris has remained constant.  When he first got notified about Sam, he had known just who he was, as opposed to the slight doubt that Sam was claiming to be his son in the current version.  Chris just didn't know what to do.  Sam also was different.  He was now a thirteen year old who was just starting to go through puberty, as opposed to the raging mass of hormones he would turn out to be at fourteen.  He was still very quiet, although it was going to be more out of shock than vocal problems.  Apparent vocal problems, but you'll have to wait another chapter to find that part out.  Chris also knew more about his father in the early version, although he still hadn't had contact with him in years.  It was more of a clean divorce, rather than the borderline criminal activities his mother went through to hide them.  Chris's attitude towards his mother was better, too.  Very little antagonism.  In fact, his mother was much better off as well.  I think I had her as an up-and-coming politico of some sort.  I changed the dynamic, mostly to make Chris more sympathetic.  He was coming off as smug and irresponsible, so I had to play him off of someone even worse.  The first day the two spend together was also much shorter.  Sam didn't need a whole new set of clothes, so they went straight to the apartment.  One detail that was changed was that Chris found more about his father online, particularly a clip of one of his films.  He actually had seen parts of it, before he got to New York.  This would become a critical change, but I'll bring it up when I get to reviewing that section.  A road trip was always a part of the plan, although the medical reason came later.  I don't remember why they had to drive to New York, but there were two reasons why I wanted them to do so.  First, there would have been a scene where Chris visited his mother before heading on to NYC.  While Sam was napping, Chris would take a sudden detour and drive on it for about twenty minutes, on the sudden urge to ask his mother directly about some of the reasons for the divorce.  However, he accidentally kills a chipmunk on the road.  Chris takes the as an omen, and he turns around to get back on his way, an hour late.  The second reason was I wanted to pay homage to another book, Divine Right's Trip, by featuring a similar scene mentioned ion that book, the letters "D" and "R" being sky written.  It my version, it was part of the cause for the traffic jam that would delay the pair even longer.  The current version just has the letters as part of a partially obscured sign, seen near a horrible accident.  In both cases, the message would read "Drive Safely," the irony not lost to the reader.  In both instances, this led to the need to stay at a hotel for a night, and also the first scene where Chris catches his younger brother in an act.  Very embarrassing to both, but I needed some levity at that time.  It would also foreshadow the later scene with the art film.  Again, you'll have to wait for that tidbit, in next week's installment.  While this draft of the book isn't that long, there are still major differences that occur between the versions.  One last thing this week, though.  The current draft is averaging about eight pages, double-spaced, per chapter.  This will lead to a page count of under two hundred, making this more of a novella than a novel.  I am planning to revise, mostly by fleshing out some minor characters and adding some missing details.  This should push me to the two hundred to two hundred fifty level, if not higher.  As the next installments will show, more than just one scene was cut.