Falling into Place
It's after midnight and I'm still awake. Can't sleep, ideas'll get me :P.
I am, happily, referring to my idea for this year's NaNoWriMo project. I think this particular idea (I'm calling it Birds for simplicity and an odd string of character names) struck me in May. And I've got the basic outline and most of the major plot details outlined in my head. And more keep falling into place all the time, which is an incredibly rewarding feeling and one that makes it hard to get to sleep some nights. Like tonight.
You see, I've just figured out that Rook (told ya, Birds) is going to allow himself to be captured instead of getting away in the nick of time during the first third-to-half, giving me a chance to more thoroughly explore his home city while also letting me explore a bit more of the magic of the realm. Erant (not a bird, but still) will get the opportunity to swoop in and rescue him in a flashy way, then take him to where Hawk and Lark (now you see the connection) are at and then adventures can continue from there. A real epiphany. I love those :).
Last year I think I felt just as confident about my story for that NaNo. The thing is, I had put almost three years of prep work into Godsnames, while I've put, oh, three months of prep work into Birds. I'm not sure if that's because I'm a better writer and organizer this time around (yeah, I don't believe it either) or if I've just figured out a better way to plan things. Many of these recent epiphanies (and subsequent late nights spent listening to ideas whiz around my brain) have come from questions and problems that I've been trying to answer and solve in The Snowflake Method. It's not a bad little planning system, all things considered. I end up considering individual chunks of the story -- like each character's journey -- instead of trying to plot the story as a whole. It's amazing how much things can change when you begin attributing things like motivation to characters, giving them goals and making them come up with ways to achieve them. And some of them don't achieve those goals. That's something that at least one of my characters is going to learn.
Something I've got that's new from last year -- side characters! Godsnames was a bit unwieldy with five mains. I overstretched, but I think it's still salvageable (still not finished, hoping to take a crack at that during NaNoFiMo in December). Taking the time to plot out what made each of those characters tick didn't give me a lot of time to think about the motivations and storylines of the people they met along the way, even the ones who were important to the mains or the story itself. The villain didn't even get screen time until January, for crying out loud!
Birds is different. I have concrete goals and motivations for each of the main three, but then I also have at least one or two side characters who are in some way attached to each of those three, plus a couple attached to the "villain" (which I put in quotes because, well, he's not a bad guy for the first half of the story :P). I say they're attached because they are related or in some way important to that character. I figure most sideline characters don't just magically pop into a story (most of the time :P). A story is sort of like a tree: the main character(s) is the trunk and the sideline characters branch out from there as friends, relatives, contacts, foes, henchmen, etc. A sudden traveling companion isn't really a character without tether; he now has a stake in the main character's survival because it helps ensure his own. There are no innocent bystanders :P. Anyway, before I got into that strange treatise on plot and character development, my point was that I've got sideline characters who have motivation and personality beyond "provides a valuable waypoint for the mains on the way to the next adventure."
I've also tried to make the plot a lot more driven by the characters' choices than by outside forces in this book. The last one was one big running, stumbling, cartwheeling trip across strange and exotic places while being chased by foes who were always just a bit too far behind. I really need to go back and fix that, but that's for a later date. Much late, because this one feels a lot more finished to me, at least at this stage. We'll see if I'm still saying that in November (or when I finish it, whichever comes latest). The characters are still moving all over the place (I swear, the next novel I write will be set in one single city), but it's because a) they're running from something, then b) they get yanked around (twice), finishing with c) they make the conscious decision to split up for their grand finale. It's not as simple or pretty as I'd like and, as I said, still more outside forces exerting on the characters than I want, but it's an improvement. And I still have two months to get things straightened out in the meantime.
I'm rambling, I know, but it's almost 1am and I needed to get something on paper before my brain explodes.
I'm ridiculously proud of how my main three each have a climactic point, all of which occur very close together and for very different reasons. They all have a deep fear/flaw and they each get a chance to solve it or come to terms with it right near the climax. The way I see it in my head now (which may be very different from what I come up with at the end of November) paints a very vivid and emotional point that I marvel at. Look ma, I R SMRT! I can take characters and give them ways to act like people and real reasons to do things and they turn around and give me ways to solve those problems and ways to grow beyond the mere two-dimensional cutouts that I started with. Because trust me, the original character sketches were two-dimensional and very cardboard.
Oh, hell, I'm here. Why not.
My original idea was for the characters. There was no plot. I was driving home from work and thought, Wouldn't it be cool to write about people whose minds were completely erased. No memory, clean slate. I made a few caveats, like that they would remember language, reading skill, vocabulary, have a certain amount of muscle memory in doing certain tasks, be able to identify basic objects by sight even if they'd never seen them before, all of which were there to move the story along. After all, it's no fun if your characters have to completely reinvent the wheel and then unlearn all that data only to relearn another set. Unless you're dealing with some high-level psychology or you're just plain bored, that's not productive. From there I had to build up. What caused them to be amnesiac? Why would they do something so foolhardy and dangerous? What did they think would happen? (I actually have a scene in my mind for the minutes right before the event that causes the amnesia; I'm just not sure if it's material for the book or if it's completely irrelevant by the time I get to the end.) What's going on around them that's so important that they would risk doing this thing? Why would three people who are so very different (the Soldier, the Apprentice, and the Turncoat, as I called them originally) end up doing the same thing? And what happens after? How does being completely mind-wiped affect them? Because I believe that Nature determines personality as much as Nurture, I made sure they still resembled their former selves. And they do resemble them just enough that friends and relatives will recognize familiar gestures or habits, but word choices and attitudes will be shaped as much by their post-amnesia experiences as by the type of people they are deep inside.
The concept of completely turning three people inside out and watching them put their lives back together was fascinating. But now I'm just as enthralled by the type of people I can see they're going to become and what they're going to do to improve their situations and the situations of those around them. I've got a fairly complex magic system in place, with plenty of taboos and mysteries. I have constructed a past that transitions into the present, shaping the way current social and political practices are handled and showing the stark contrasts between different choices that different leaders made in regards to past threats. Right now I need to work on that part most. I have the "ramifications in the present" bit worked out pretty well, but I need to really solidify what happened in the past, because it really has an impact on all the current characters. As it should. The past always has an impact on the present. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's small, but it's always there. And I love that. It's one of the reasons I love history, because I can see all the pieces falling into place years and even decades before an event occurs. That sense of depth and scope is just so invigorating. I'm trying to give at least some of that to the Birds. I hope I make a good go of it.
I think I started out last year with the idea, naive as it was, that Godsnames would be the book I would write to sell. Obviously not, looking back on it now. I might be able to whip it into shape, but it'll take a pretty big effort on my part. Especially since it's not even finished. Consequently, it wasn't until June of this year that I finally got down to actually plotting the ending. Yeah. Anyway... my point is that Birds feels more polished. I don't take as much time to ramble. I don't think the book is as front-loaded as Godsnames (by which I mean lots goes on at the beginning and then the characters just sort of stumble around during the last half). I think I have interesting and relevant information and events going on all through the book. Plus I have the extra added bonus of being able to show the world to the reader through the eyes of three characters who know just as little about what's going on as the reader does. Score! Not a trick I can use more than once, but still kinda useful. Anyway, I think Birds might be publishable. And if not, if I get to the end and try to go back and edit it and find that I'm not as satisfied as I thought I would be and either I can't make it work or I'd rather start from scratch, I don't think I'll be as emotionally crushed. It was hard to look back in March at what I'd written and realize that it would take a lot more work to get the manuscript finished, then a lot of work after that to whip it into shape. My prediction this year is that I will either have to do less work to reach that point with Birds or I will be less depressed if that ends up being the case.
Godsnames was a benchmark. I write 75,000 words. Tag, I'm it. Birds will be the mark of repeatability. If I can do it once, can I do it over and over? I really think I can. And proving that to myself will be extremely sweet, no matter what the outcome. It means I can be a writer, that I am a writer by all measures. Anyone can write 75,000 words. But I can do it consistently.
Last year I started doing my marathon-style writing workout, building up daily wordcount so that once November rolled around, I was ready to write 1700 words a day (which turned into 2400, but that's beside the point :P). I'm doing it differently this year. Starting September 1, I'll write 1,000 words a day for a week. Then up it to 1,200 the next week. Then 1,400 the next. Finally 1,600 the last week. I remember how easy it was last year working up to that point. I think I'll just skip the small stuff (I started at 400 words a day last year in early August :P) and go right for the hard ball. Also, sprained ankle from hell this year. During October I'll keep writing every day, but with no set pace so that I'm not burnt out during November, but still working on the outline and Snowflake design document for the novel. With luck I might even have a scene by scene outline by the time Halloween gets here.
I am extraordinarily excited about NaNo. I remember how much fun I had last year, the camaraderie and good times I had just being a writer in a huge group of other writers. We exchanged ideas and talked about our characters and our plots (or lack thereof :P) and pounded out words by the thousands. I'm looking forward to the experience surrounding NaNo just as much as I am the act of writing the novel itself. What's even better is that I'll be going into it knowing people and feeling like a part of the group instead of having to go through the process of trying to integrate. I'm a social person. I can integrate. But it's nice not having to :).
In health-related news, I am hobbling around without the use of crutches these days, at least somewhat. I still use them at night, because hobbling on a bad foot in the dark on the way to the bathroom when you're still half-asleep is a recipe for disaster if I've ever heard one. I also still use them when my ankle aches or when I've been up and around a lot. So it's stronger, but not altogether better. It's nice to know it's getting there, though! Far better than that first week when all I did (literally!) was lay on the couch watching bad daytime TV or sleeping (btw, I have seen more episodes of Flipping Out, Law & Order, Top Chef, Ice Road Truckers, and Dog the Bounty Hunter than any one person should be subjected to in their life). Ah the Inarnets. How I missed you!
I am, happily, referring to my idea for this year's NaNoWriMo project. I think this particular idea (I'm calling it Birds for simplicity and an odd string of character names) struck me in May. And I've got the basic outline and most of the major plot details outlined in my head. And more keep falling into place all the time, which is an incredibly rewarding feeling and one that makes it hard to get to sleep some nights. Like tonight.
You see, I've just figured out that Rook (told ya, Birds) is going to allow himself to be captured instead of getting away in the nick of time during the first third-to-half, giving me a chance to more thoroughly explore his home city while also letting me explore a bit more of the magic of the realm. Erant (not a bird, but still) will get the opportunity to swoop in and rescue him in a flashy way, then take him to where Hawk and Lark (now you see the connection) are at and then adventures can continue from there. A real epiphany. I love those :).
Last year I think I felt just as confident about my story for that NaNo. The thing is, I had put almost three years of prep work into Godsnames, while I've put, oh, three months of prep work into Birds. I'm not sure if that's because I'm a better writer and organizer this time around (yeah, I don't believe it either) or if I've just figured out a better way to plan things. Many of these recent epiphanies (and subsequent late nights spent listening to ideas whiz around my brain) have come from questions and problems that I've been trying to answer and solve in The Snowflake Method. It's not a bad little planning system, all things considered. I end up considering individual chunks of the story -- like each character's journey -- instead of trying to plot the story as a whole. It's amazing how much things can change when you begin attributing things like motivation to characters, giving them goals and making them come up with ways to achieve them. And some of them don't achieve those goals. That's something that at least one of my characters is going to learn.
Something I've got that's new from last year -- side characters! Godsnames was a bit unwieldy with five mains. I overstretched, but I think it's still salvageable (still not finished, hoping to take a crack at that during NaNoFiMo in December). Taking the time to plot out what made each of those characters tick didn't give me a lot of time to think about the motivations and storylines of the people they met along the way, even the ones who were important to the mains or the story itself. The villain didn't even get screen time until January, for crying out loud!
Birds is different. I have concrete goals and motivations for each of the main three, but then I also have at least one or two side characters who are in some way attached to each of those three, plus a couple attached to the "villain" (which I put in quotes because, well, he's not a bad guy for the first half of the story :P). I say they're attached because they are related or in some way important to that character. I figure most sideline characters don't just magically pop into a story (most of the time :P). A story is sort of like a tree: the main character(s) is the trunk and the sideline characters branch out from there as friends, relatives, contacts, foes, henchmen, etc. A sudden traveling companion isn't really a character without tether; he now has a stake in the main character's survival because it helps ensure his own. There are no innocent bystanders :P. Anyway, before I got into that strange treatise on plot and character development, my point was that I've got sideline characters who have motivation and personality beyond "provides a valuable waypoint for the mains on the way to the next adventure."
I've also tried to make the plot a lot more driven by the characters' choices than by outside forces in this book. The last one was one big running, stumbling, cartwheeling trip across strange and exotic places while being chased by foes who were always just a bit too far behind. I really need to go back and fix that, but that's for a later date. Much late, because this one feels a lot more finished to me, at least at this stage. We'll see if I'm still saying that in November (or when I finish it, whichever comes latest). The characters are still moving all over the place (I swear, the next novel I write will be set in one single city), but it's because a) they're running from something, then b) they get yanked around (twice), finishing with c) they make the conscious decision to split up for their grand finale. It's not as simple or pretty as I'd like and, as I said, still more outside forces exerting on the characters than I want, but it's an improvement. And I still have two months to get things straightened out in the meantime.
I'm rambling, I know, but it's almost 1am and I needed to get something on paper before my brain explodes.
I'm ridiculously proud of how my main three each have a climactic point, all of which occur very close together and for very different reasons. They all have a deep fear/flaw and they each get a chance to solve it or come to terms with it right near the climax. The way I see it in my head now (which may be very different from what I come up with at the end of November) paints a very vivid and emotional point that I marvel at. Look ma, I R SMRT! I can take characters and give them ways to act like people and real reasons to do things and they turn around and give me ways to solve those problems and ways to grow beyond the mere two-dimensional cutouts that I started with. Because trust me, the original character sketches were two-dimensional and very cardboard.
Oh, hell, I'm here. Why not.
My original idea was for the characters. There was no plot. I was driving home from work and thought, Wouldn't it be cool to write about people whose minds were completely erased. No memory, clean slate. I made a few caveats, like that they would remember language, reading skill, vocabulary, have a certain amount of muscle memory in doing certain tasks, be able to identify basic objects by sight even if they'd never seen them before, all of which were there to move the story along. After all, it's no fun if your characters have to completely reinvent the wheel and then unlearn all that data only to relearn another set. Unless you're dealing with some high-level psychology or you're just plain bored, that's not productive. From there I had to build up. What caused them to be amnesiac? Why would they do something so foolhardy and dangerous? What did they think would happen? (I actually have a scene in my mind for the minutes right before the event that causes the amnesia; I'm just not sure if it's material for the book or if it's completely irrelevant by the time I get to the end.) What's going on around them that's so important that they would risk doing this thing? Why would three people who are so very different (the Soldier, the Apprentice, and the Turncoat, as I called them originally) end up doing the same thing? And what happens after? How does being completely mind-wiped affect them? Because I believe that Nature determines personality as much as Nurture, I made sure they still resembled their former selves. And they do resemble them just enough that friends and relatives will recognize familiar gestures or habits, but word choices and attitudes will be shaped as much by their post-amnesia experiences as by the type of people they are deep inside.
The concept of completely turning three people inside out and watching them put their lives back together was fascinating. But now I'm just as enthralled by the type of people I can see they're going to become and what they're going to do to improve their situations and the situations of those around them. I've got a fairly complex magic system in place, with plenty of taboos and mysteries. I have constructed a past that transitions into the present, shaping the way current social and political practices are handled and showing the stark contrasts between different choices that different leaders made in regards to past threats. Right now I need to work on that part most. I have the "ramifications in the present" bit worked out pretty well, but I need to really solidify what happened in the past, because it really has an impact on all the current characters. As it should. The past always has an impact on the present. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's small, but it's always there. And I love that. It's one of the reasons I love history, because I can see all the pieces falling into place years and even decades before an event occurs. That sense of depth and scope is just so invigorating. I'm trying to give at least some of that to the Birds. I hope I make a good go of it.
I think I started out last year with the idea, naive as it was, that Godsnames would be the book I would write to sell. Obviously not, looking back on it now. I might be able to whip it into shape, but it'll take a pretty big effort on my part. Especially since it's not even finished. Consequently, it wasn't until June of this year that I finally got down to actually plotting the ending. Yeah. Anyway... my point is that Birds feels more polished. I don't take as much time to ramble. I don't think the book is as front-loaded as Godsnames (by which I mean lots goes on at the beginning and then the characters just sort of stumble around during the last half). I think I have interesting and relevant information and events going on all through the book. Plus I have the extra added bonus of being able to show the world to the reader through the eyes of three characters who know just as little about what's going on as the reader does. Score! Not a trick I can use more than once, but still kinda useful. Anyway, I think Birds might be publishable. And if not, if I get to the end and try to go back and edit it and find that I'm not as satisfied as I thought I would be and either I can't make it work or I'd rather start from scratch, I don't think I'll be as emotionally crushed. It was hard to look back in March at what I'd written and realize that it would take a lot more work to get the manuscript finished, then a lot of work after that to whip it into shape. My prediction this year is that I will either have to do less work to reach that point with Birds or I will be less depressed if that ends up being the case.
Godsnames was a benchmark. I write 75,000 words. Tag, I'm it. Birds will be the mark of repeatability. If I can do it once, can I do it over and over? I really think I can. And proving that to myself will be extremely sweet, no matter what the outcome. It means I can be a writer, that I am a writer by all measures. Anyone can write 75,000 words. But I can do it consistently.
Last year I started doing my marathon-style writing workout, building up daily wordcount so that once November rolled around, I was ready to write 1700 words a day (which turned into 2400, but that's beside the point :P). I'm doing it differently this year. Starting September 1, I'll write 1,000 words a day for a week. Then up it to 1,200 the next week. Then 1,400 the next. Finally 1,600 the last week. I remember how easy it was last year working up to that point. I think I'll just skip the small stuff (I started at 400 words a day last year in early August :P) and go right for the hard ball. Also, sprained ankle from hell this year. During October I'll keep writing every day, but with no set pace so that I'm not burnt out during November, but still working on the outline and Snowflake design document for the novel. With luck I might even have a scene by scene outline by the time Halloween gets here.
I am extraordinarily excited about NaNo. I remember how much fun I had last year, the camaraderie and good times I had just being a writer in a huge group of other writers. We exchanged ideas and talked about our characters and our plots (or lack thereof :P) and pounded out words by the thousands. I'm looking forward to the experience surrounding NaNo just as much as I am the act of writing the novel itself. What's even better is that I'll be going into it knowing people and feeling like a part of the group instead of having to go through the process of trying to integrate. I'm a social person. I can integrate. But it's nice not having to :).
In health-related news, I am hobbling around without the use of crutches these days, at least somewhat. I still use them at night, because hobbling on a bad foot in the dark on the way to the bathroom when you're still half-asleep is a recipe for disaster if I've ever heard one. I also still use them when my ankle aches or when I've been up and around a lot. So it's stronger, but not altogether better. It's nice to know it's getting there, though! Far better than that first week when all I did (literally!) was lay on the couch watching bad daytime TV or sleeping (btw, I have seen more episodes of Flipping Out, Law & Order, Top Chef, Ice Road Truckers, and Dog the Bounty Hunter than any one person should be subjected to in their life). Ah the Inarnets. How I missed you!