All The Little Things

As I've been rewriting my novel tentatively titled "The Slightest Moment" I've been greatly expanding on what I had written in my first and second drafts. For example, so far I've extended the events of the first chapter to go beyond the length of the first two chapters of the second draft, and I have plans to expand upon every chapter thereafter in a similar fashion.

What I do is come up with more plot points to intertwine with what I had already planned. The challenge is that it has to be in a way that not only lengthens the story, but enhances it as well. One way that I've been trying to enhance the story actually has a bit to do with a blog post I made over a year ago about the crisis of how to deal with technology in stories today. Specifically in this case I'm experimenting with lots of modern culture references.

Modern culture is so rich and fascinating, after all.

My last two drafts, while based in the modern day, could have easily been based in an earlier year with a few tweaks to minor details. There were few mentions of texting on cell phones, but otherwise absolutely no references to anything else that would tell you what time the story takes place in. I was completely focused on telling the plot (so much so that I forgot to make the characters likable, but that's a different topic) which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but now it's time to try something different.

I'm even attempting to use a modernization as a key subplot point. I think it's going along well so far, though nobody else has read it to tell me otherwise.

Hopefully this isn't all going to blow up in my face.
-Ryan