I can finally say that after quite a few months, I have the first draft of my next story. It is still not ready for publishing, but at least the basics are all there. I have a cohesive story. Now I need to go over everything I've written for the story to make it ready.
Here's an interesting statistic: Although there are 18 chapters for this first draft, there were over 45 additional chapters, scenes, and ideas written that didn't make the cut. The story changed directions a few times and necessitated all this rewriting, but I feel that this has been worth it.
Here are some things I wanted to do:
Avoid the MacGuffin of the tickets. They shouldn't be needed. The Stiff story barely mentioned them and was better received than the first.
Start with a beginning and have a destination in mind. Don't publish until you are sure of the story.
Have a story that flows like Aimless, with people making mistakes, learning from them, and growing.
Have a rock-steady main character to ground the story and be the moral compass. In Aimless, it was Asami. I loved that character!
Write a story that I will enjoy reading and where I can be proud I wrote it.
End the story without any loose ends. (Well... you'll have to see.)
Keep the main characters underage. Life lessons are learned then. The story should be about learning from your mistakes.
Get rid of Jim. It was a silly rule of mine, based on my dislike of a story about a guy named Tim. I'm keeping the first letter, "J," but Jim is dead and gone. Unless I publish a story that was formerly in my slush pile.
Add additional stories that can add to the universe, but keep the stories self-contained.
I think I've accomplished a lot of the things that I wanted to achieve for this story. The big ones were "no loose ends" (but I wanted to leave room for a sequel or two). I also wanted a story similar to the Tickets series, but didn't want the actual prop of the Tickets themselves. Although I grew up in the 1960s, the Tickets series was set in the 1970s. The new series is set in the recent past, but I have no experience with current school life, so I had to make some "educated" guesses (pun intended). So, I might get feedback from current teachers or students that may tell me I got everything wrong.
I also wanted to showcase a more mature writing style. I know from reading other people's stories that I hate seeing typos, so I set out from the start to not allow them. I want the story to flow smoother. I also want to do right by my readers.
So, now I've come to an easier part of my work: getting to the final draft. I have to reread my first draft and ensure that the story is consistent, avoids repeated scenes, and I may need to fill in missing things that came as a result of removing parts of my stories when I was doing the first draft.
So, if you can wait just a little bit longer, I'll have something ready to publish Real Soon Now.
Please send feedback. If not now, then in a bit when I start publishing.
Peace!
JiMC