An epiphany - now the story needs guidance

[flawed_ethics]

It's been a while.

Anyway, I wrote a series that I posted on Lit a number of years ago. As young contributors tend to be when heaped with praise, I wrote a sequel with ideas envisioned while writing the original series. Something was wrong with it though. Everything was there, and editors I solicited it for checking said it was fine - but I've never been comfortable with it.

I've thought about how I could get it out in time for the season (it takes place around Christmas), and realized it takes the reader's suspension of disbelief for granted. Being a sequel, its inherited a suspension of disbelief and cannot bear the burden of much more.

So I've envisioned how I would rewrite it to weed out the problem. The issue now is that it doesn't contain all the sexy bits that I (and readers of the series) hoped for. It comes off as more of a Lifetime Movie or something. Which is a shame, because the character development is juicy and the climax is something I'm proud of.

So for those who have been in this situation before - would you try to bandage the story, seeing as it can still pull some weight, or would you let your story bite the bullet and accept it as a learning experience (or just fuck the 'suspension of disbelief' theory, throw the story to the wolves and be done with it)?

 

[FallingToFly]

It's been a while.

Anyway, I wrote a series that I posted on Lit a number of years ago. As young contributors tend to be when heaped with praise, I wrote a sequel with ideas envisioned while writing the original series. Something was wrong with it though. Everything was there, and editors I solicited it for checking said it was fine - but I've never been comfortable with it.

I've thought about how I could get it out in time for the season (it takes place around Christmas), and realized it takes the reader's suspension of disbelief for granted. Being a sequel, its inherited a suspension of disbelief and cannot bear the burden of much more.

So I've envisioned how I would rewrite it to weed out the problem. The issue now is that it doesn't contain all the sexy bits that I (and readers of the series) hoped for. It comes off as more of a Lifetime Movie or something. Which is a shame, because the character development is juicy and the climax is something I'm proud of.

So for those who have been in this situation before - would you try to bandage the story, seeing as it can still pull some weight, or would you let your story bite the bullet and accept it as a learning experience (or just fuck the 'suspension of disbelief' theory, throw the story to the wolves and be done with it)?

Submit it as is, and watch your feedback. That may give you an place to go with it.

Also, consider posting both teh old series and the new on a separarte forum so that you get a "fresh look" at what the readers think.

 

[flawed_ethics]

Thanks for the input!

I'm going to go ahead and post the first chapter of the sequel (which is unaffected by the change in story). It'll be interesting to see how people respond, and how many go and read the other chapters already up.