Onto musical version 4

Yesterday I finished version 3 of Puzzle House Blues, my new musical. This set of edits was directly in response to criticisms and discussion made by trusted friends who read it, as well as the observations of my collaborator. I struggled a fair bit with this one, as there were some structural issues that needed to be solved before other things could be improved, but I finally think we're on the track we want. Troy looked it over, and he has agreed that at last we have reached the stage where we're polishing.

That means we're diving into version four. The story is strong, well-paced, and makes sense. Now we're working on making sure the characters are all as well-defined as possible. Troy looked over the current script and gave very specific notes. I am once again grateful I've found a collaborator with whom I work so well. His notes have been very on-point at every point of the process, and his view of how to make things work has gelled very nicely with mine. The combination of him and my very discerning friends have been a godsend to my editing process. I tend to get too close to my projects to see the issues that they see.

And of course, the songs. Troy is primarily handling the songs, music and lyrics, but I'm acting in a kind of editorial capacity. We're trying to figure out how to balance the spoken parts with the musical parts in terms of moving the story and illustrating the emotionally dramatic moments. It's a new challenge for me, but I think we're on the right track.

We're going to do another reading once this round of polish is done and the songs are at least mostly set. We need to see how it all hangs together in combination, for which a second reading is necessary. I look forward to that point, as I think we'll be just a few steps away from there.