(no subject)
Stories are strange things.
I'm working on my NaNo (almost 47K as we speak :D ) and discovered a strange problem. The novel is an expansion of a short story I wrote called Call of the Champion. In it the main character Alec retrieved a magic sword and became an emissary of the Fey. In the expanded novelized version, I worked in several plots that have been bouncing around involving Alec -including a trial where he almost loses his magical abilities and his relationship with Jono, the Oracle (Jono was a complete and utter surprise which shall be discussed later), I had started CotC at least three times as a novel, but never found it satisfactory in the way it flowed. The story lagged and nothing happened. Every time I started it at Alec's childhood and started to work my way up from there. Around the same time, I started playing around with another character from the short story, Marlina. She is the previous owner of the sword. In the end of the short, she passes the sword and duties onto Alec. As I played with her, I slowly began to realize she was a very important character and started to try and write her story too. Nothing worked, however.
Then one night, I had a brainstorm. Those are always fun. It's like an epiphany where suddenly everything becomes clear and you know exactly what you need to do. I needed to intertwine the two stories. I needed to show how Marlina ended up at the point where she had to give up her weapon and Alec got to the point where he received it. So I end up telling a story of the ending of one era and the beginning of a new one. Upon realizing this is what I was going to do, I knew I couldn't start in Alec's childhood and bumped him up to his late teens when he would receive the sword. The loss of telling Alec’s childhood made the story that much tighter and more exciting as well as seeing Marlina’s own adventures, allowing the reader to learn exactly what the duties that came along with the sword and the price the bearer paid for the power.
Finally I was ready to bring the two stories together. And Callooh Callay it actually seemed to work! Then I ran into another problem. (Stories are full of them, aren’t they?) As I started the second half I began with Alec retrieving the sword. And I figured once he did that, he could be trained in its use and then be sent out to go back home. But as I wrote this, I realized that I had nothing to work up to after he retrieved the sword. Sure he had the training, but there was no big climax. Turning this problem over in my mind I figured out that I had to reverse the two events. Alec needed to train to become ready to try and receive the sword. Thus tension would be provided as he and Marlina trained together and see if he may or may not actually get ready in time and it would build up to the final moment of his eventual triumph of getting the sword. From there he could leave and go back home and Marlina could go off to her own destiny. (She dies horribly. D: ) This reversal also allowed me to explore several more aspects of the Fey in
Alec’s world that I’ve always wanted a chance to do.
Such reversals and changes are one of the reasons why I never stick to a tight outline. I plan out major events that I want to happen and then let the characters take me where they want to go to achieve those goals. Two characters in CotC surprised me greatly; one because of a complete and utter personality shift and the other in his willingness to die.
In my first early drafts of CotC the character of Jono was Alec’s lover but a very evil and abusive towards Alec. I originally was going to have Alec kill Jono to make him free of Jono and the past that he held with him, showing that Jono no longer had a hold over him. But every time I worked on it, I couldn’t work the scene out where Alec could kill Jono and I couldn’t figure out why Alec would stay with Jono or why his siblings would allow him to do it if he was being abused. Alec’s personality made him unlikely to stand the abuse and would fight back; unlike I as had been writing him as totally passive in their interactions.
As I started writing this new draft something happened to Jono. He wasn’t an evil or at all abusive towards Alec. Possessive as all hell, but he also genuinely cared for him and supported him. Alec turned to him constantly for comfort. As I started to write this, I thought, oh goody now it’ll be more tragic when he is killed by Alec. But then as I continued, I still couldn’t come up with a good reason for Alec to kill him. Originally I had planned for Alec to kill Jono and then meet up with a dragon named Verra Rose who he would eventually fall in love with and marry. But Verra and Alec’s relationship never quite worked for me either. When that thought came to me, I realized that Jono had taken Verra’s place. I had no need to kill him, because had taken the traits that I wanted Verra to have in supporting Alec. This isn’t to say that I’m going to abandon her character all together, but the two of them always worked better as partners than lovers. I had just arbitrarily said that the two of them were in love but could never make the two of them actually be in love. Alec always seemed to drift more to men and to Jono.
The second character is Darian. He’s a companion of Marlina’s. A ladies man and general good natured rogue, Darian always survived whatever trouble got thrown his way and with his horse too. Trouble just slid off him like water on a duck’s back. I had Marlina and her companions going to a different world in the course of her story and as I planned out the events Darian quietly told me that he was going to die in the big battle. At first I said what big battle? And then I looked at my notes and realized that yes, they were going to be heading to a fight. I needed one of the five weapons to be lost off world for the events in the third book and the only way that would happen was if one of the weapon bearers died off world and Darian volunteered… practically insisted that it be him. His loyalty to his horse, he said, would be his undoing. He ended up running off to find his war horse making Marlina order the rest of them to leave him behind - a defining character moment for her- sacrificing one for the good of the many. And though he made a heroic charge towards freedom and home, he never made it, Marlina seeing him die in a horrible and tragic and stupid way, letting her see the result of her choices. And letting his death haunt her and affect her training of Alec later.
I know that if I had stayed with my original plans for both story and characters the story would have continued to stall and then later the character actions would be false and forced. This is, to me, one of the joys of story writing. Seeing how characters and events evolve and change into something more interesting than you ever realized.
I'm working on my NaNo (almost 47K as we speak :D ) and discovered a strange problem. The novel is an expansion of a short story I wrote called Call of the Champion. In it the main character Alec retrieved a magic sword and became an emissary of the Fey. In the expanded novelized version, I worked in several plots that have been bouncing around involving Alec -including a trial where he almost loses his magical abilities and his relationship with Jono, the Oracle (Jono was a complete and utter surprise which shall be discussed later), I had started CotC at least three times as a novel, but never found it satisfactory in the way it flowed. The story lagged and nothing happened. Every time I started it at Alec's childhood and started to work my way up from there. Around the same time, I started playing around with another character from the short story, Marlina. She is the previous owner of the sword. In the end of the short, she passes the sword and duties onto Alec. As I played with her, I slowly began to realize she was a very important character and started to try and write her story too. Nothing worked, however.
Then one night, I had a brainstorm. Those are always fun. It's like an epiphany where suddenly everything becomes clear and you know exactly what you need to do. I needed to intertwine the two stories. I needed to show how Marlina ended up at the point where she had to give up her weapon and Alec got to the point where he received it. So I end up telling a story of the ending of one era and the beginning of a new one. Upon realizing this is what I was going to do, I knew I couldn't start in Alec's childhood and bumped him up to his late teens when he would receive the sword. The loss of telling Alec’s childhood made the story that much tighter and more exciting as well as seeing Marlina’s own adventures, allowing the reader to learn exactly what the duties that came along with the sword and the price the bearer paid for the power.
Finally I was ready to bring the two stories together. And Callooh Callay it actually seemed to work! Then I ran into another problem. (Stories are full of them, aren’t they?) As I started the second half I began with Alec retrieving the sword. And I figured once he did that, he could be trained in its use and then be sent out to go back home. But as I wrote this, I realized that I had nothing to work up to after he retrieved the sword. Sure he had the training, but there was no big climax. Turning this problem over in my mind I figured out that I had to reverse the two events. Alec needed to train to become ready to try and receive the sword. Thus tension would be provided as he and Marlina trained together and see if he may or may not actually get ready in time and it would build up to the final moment of his eventual triumph of getting the sword. From there he could leave and go back home and Marlina could go off to her own destiny. (She dies horribly. D: ) This reversal also allowed me to explore several more aspects of the Fey in
Alec’s world that I’ve always wanted a chance to do.
Such reversals and changes are one of the reasons why I never stick to a tight outline. I plan out major events that I want to happen and then let the characters take me where they want to go to achieve those goals. Two characters in CotC surprised me greatly; one because of a complete and utter personality shift and the other in his willingness to die.
In my first early drafts of CotC the character of Jono was Alec’s lover but a very evil and abusive towards Alec. I originally was going to have Alec kill Jono to make him free of Jono and the past that he held with him, showing that Jono no longer had a hold over him. But every time I worked on it, I couldn’t work the scene out where Alec could kill Jono and I couldn’t figure out why Alec would stay with Jono or why his siblings would allow him to do it if he was being abused. Alec’s personality made him unlikely to stand the abuse and would fight back; unlike I as had been writing him as totally passive in their interactions.
As I started writing this new draft something happened to Jono. He wasn’t an evil or at all abusive towards Alec. Possessive as all hell, but he also genuinely cared for him and supported him. Alec turned to him constantly for comfort. As I started to write this, I thought, oh goody now it’ll be more tragic when he is killed by Alec. But then as I continued, I still couldn’t come up with a good reason for Alec to kill him. Originally I had planned for Alec to kill Jono and then meet up with a dragon named Verra Rose who he would eventually fall in love with and marry. But Verra and Alec’s relationship never quite worked for me either. When that thought came to me, I realized that Jono had taken Verra’s place. I had no need to kill him, because had taken the traits that I wanted Verra to have in supporting Alec. This isn’t to say that I’m going to abandon her character all together, but the two of them always worked better as partners than lovers. I had just arbitrarily said that the two of them were in love but could never make the two of them actually be in love. Alec always seemed to drift more to men and to Jono.
The second character is Darian. He’s a companion of Marlina’s. A ladies man and general good natured rogue, Darian always survived whatever trouble got thrown his way and with his horse too. Trouble just slid off him like water on a duck’s back. I had Marlina and her companions going to a different world in the course of her story and as I planned out the events Darian quietly told me that he was going to die in the big battle. At first I said what big battle? And then I looked at my notes and realized that yes, they were going to be heading to a fight. I needed one of the five weapons to be lost off world for the events in the third book and the only way that would happen was if one of the weapon bearers died off world and Darian volunteered… practically insisted that it be him. His loyalty to his horse, he said, would be his undoing. He ended up running off to find his war horse making Marlina order the rest of them to leave him behind - a defining character moment for her- sacrificing one for the good of the many. And though he made a heroic charge towards freedom and home, he never made it, Marlina seeing him die in a horrible and tragic and stupid way, letting her see the result of her choices. And letting his death haunt her and affect her training of Alec later.
I know that if I had stayed with my original plans for both story and characters the story would have continued to stall and then later the character actions would be false and forced. This is, to me, one of the joys of story writing. Seeing how characters and events evolve and change into something more interesting than you ever realized.