Things only I care about
So, I have successfully moved into my apt in the town where i am going to go to grad school. I have food, and internet, (one of these is more important than the other, you know which.) And I have met my roommates/department/first years. And one of them doesn't know how to small talk. I have issues with small talk as well, which generally turns into: awkwardness= me telling more and more idiotic personal stories. But in this case, no small talk was probably the best thing ever, because eventually (after a digression about Focus in Hungarian) we got onto the topic of my novel, which i have been trying to revise now, after getting my crit back from my first readers. This guy hasn't read any of it, but he made me explain it to him, the core conflict, the character relations, and everything. And he managed to point out like sixteen places where there were logical flaws, or not enough motivation for certain character actions. This is incredible, because now i have a way to actually clearly think about the skeleton plot of the story, minus all the random writing stuff I have in it.
The problem is, I already know some things I want to drastically change, or shuffle, to put them in order, and i have some idea of what they will mean in the future, but I still have two big questions left to answer before i really know how it's going to go. (They are probably questions that I should have answered before starting the whole thing in the beginning, but oh well, that's not how I work.)
What is my main character's goal? He's a thirteen year old boy, who has not yet started liking girls, and prefers skateboarding and lacrosse. This combination of elements is itself mildly problematic, but I think it gives him a different way of seeing the world than other people. Both skateboarding punk chic and lacrosse yuppy prep are styles and attitudes that don't really agree with each other, but MC can almost pass in both communities. He's a little straight-laced for the rest of the skateboarders, and a little loner-punk for the lacrosse team, and he tries to make up for it by being better than everyone else at everything, but he isn't accepted for it, if anything they like him even less.
He has to be better, stronger, faster, smarter, because if he gives them an opportunity for ridicule, he will never gain the respect back. But he doesn't want to cheat, because then he isn't really better. Being better is what he takes pride in, and cheating would take away that pride. He's not really a team player and he doesn't like helping people. Perhaps when he goes into the new world (S, as I seem to have taken to calling it), he sees his own selfishness institutionalized, and doesn't really like it. But I still don't have a goal for him, except wanting to be better. I wonder if he is attracted to sorcery, not by the power, but by the opportunity to be great. Once he finds out that he has potential, he might want to pursue it.
If that's the case then I need to make sure my depiction of sorcery is clear, where it is a combination of internal development, and making exchanges with other creatures for their abilities. Or, for the nefarious, stealing from other creatures and manipulating them into giving you power.
What are the stakes? Mr. MC needs to rescue his aunt, by collecting the bits of her shattered soul and putting them back together, and he needs to rescue his mom, who has had something done to her memory, so when he meets her in S she doesn't know who he is. But his mother's problem has existed his entire life, and his aunt is only blown up into bits now. Yet there is some relation between the two problems. At first it was that his aunt had put the spell on his mother to make her forget one thing in particular and accidentally had caused extra problems, but it was her historical enmity and laziness that had gotten her blown into pieces. This is not enough motivation. There needs to be a better reason than this. But it may be about my MC, so what is special about him?
Yay for brainstorming.
The problem is, I already know some things I want to drastically change, or shuffle, to put them in order, and i have some idea of what they will mean in the future, but I still have two big questions left to answer before i really know how it's going to go. (They are probably questions that I should have answered before starting the whole thing in the beginning, but oh well, that's not how I work.)
What is my main character's goal? He's a thirteen year old boy, who has not yet started liking girls, and prefers skateboarding and lacrosse. This combination of elements is itself mildly problematic, but I think it gives him a different way of seeing the world than other people. Both skateboarding punk chic and lacrosse yuppy prep are styles and attitudes that don't really agree with each other, but MC can almost pass in both communities. He's a little straight-laced for the rest of the skateboarders, and a little loner-punk for the lacrosse team, and he tries to make up for it by being better than everyone else at everything, but he isn't accepted for it, if anything they like him even less.
He has to be better, stronger, faster, smarter, because if he gives them an opportunity for ridicule, he will never gain the respect back. But he doesn't want to cheat, because then he isn't really better. Being better is what he takes pride in, and cheating would take away that pride. He's not really a team player and he doesn't like helping people. Perhaps when he goes into the new world (S, as I seem to have taken to calling it), he sees his own selfishness institutionalized, and doesn't really like it. But I still don't have a goal for him, except wanting to be better. I wonder if he is attracted to sorcery, not by the power, but by the opportunity to be great. Once he finds out that he has potential, he might want to pursue it.
If that's the case then I need to make sure my depiction of sorcery is clear, where it is a combination of internal development, and making exchanges with other creatures for their abilities. Or, for the nefarious, stealing from other creatures and manipulating them into giving you power.
What are the stakes? Mr. MC needs to rescue his aunt, by collecting the bits of her shattered soul and putting them back together, and he needs to rescue his mom, who has had something done to her memory, so when he meets her in S she doesn't know who he is. But his mother's problem has existed his entire life, and his aunt is only blown up into bits now. Yet there is some relation between the two problems. At first it was that his aunt had put the spell on his mother to make her forget one thing in particular and accidentally had caused extra problems, but it was her historical enmity and laziness that had gotten her blown into pieces. This is not enough motivation. There needs to be a better reason than this. But it may be about my MC, so what is special about him?
Yay for brainstorming.