Sylvie is a novella adapted from a first-person short story called Secrets Of L'Hotel. It is a work I began in 2011 and never finished. Like so many projects, it was simply abandoned, despite the fact I'd written nearly 14,000 words.
Years later, it's easy to see I abandoned the story not because of the plot or the character development, but because I had a story in fragments. I had so many ideas but no idea how to tell a cohesive story, something that's often a problem for me. My theatrical training often shines through in my fiction, as I often picture each story as a collection of scenes that develop characters and reveal those dirty little secrets everyone has.
Re-reading Sylvie, I saw it was a piece I wasn't yet mature enough to do justice at the time I created it. It gave me the inspiration to rework the idea set 20 years from when Sylvie occurred, and revise it for a younger audience who now allow lives, identities, and futures to be defined and destroyed via social media.
This story turned into Unfriend, which I hope to start writing as my 2018 NaNoWriMo project. However, I also decided to rewrite Sylvie as a novella. It is a type of project I've never done before.
It is a gift to the friends and followers who support my writing. It is also because I look at the character of Sophie Winslow, and she is one that deserves to be immortalised. It seems somehow wrong to never finish her story.
I can't promise it'll work out the second time around, either, but I'm going to give it a try and hope for something positive. <3
Looking at some of my older works, I noticed that like many writers just starting out with long pieces of fiction, I always chose a first person narrative. In the original short story, the narrator's real name is never even revealed.
Nowadays, I am fond of writing in 3rd person, particularly 3rd limited. I suspect something as simply changing POV may rescue this lost and abandoned little gem.
Who knows? In another 5 years, it may be good enough to sit next to The Great Gatsby on bookshelves.
Yeah....probably not that one. ;)
The cover was perfect for this story and was the last thing that inspired me to just go ahead and make this a project It is done by my friends and two of my favourite designers, avadel.
So many thanks to Wattpad and the many friends and followers I've made during my time here! Some work and some don't, but there is never any source of creative inspiration for me around here.
YOU ARE READING
Sylvie (Sporadic Updates!)
Historical Fiction"It's practically fictional, except for the fact that it actually happened." It Is the first line that ambitious New Yorker Elise Orsini ever writes about her year within London's inner circle. In 1998, amidst a frenzy of tech-booming ambition, Eli...
