How to Make Friends and Keep Enemies

This is how I draw*. Benny is on the left, Caroline on the right.
In case you couldn't tell.

So I mentioned liking the Golden Trio (Harry, Ron and Hermione) in my last post, but didn't really connect it to anything. The point of that was that I kind of see my three main characters -- Caroline, Zeke and Stephen -- forming this sort of bond. What intrigues me about my tio is that Caroline fulfills Hermione's role, not Harry's, but she is definitely the hero of this story (Stephen would be Harry, Zeke, Ron).

When I say Caroline is Hermione, I mean, more along the lines of their initial dynamic -- Harry and Ron are off being best friends, while Hermione is lonely because she's a know-it-all. Zeke and Stephen hit it off really well, because Zeke is very likable, and Stephen is incredibly noble (and stupid about it sometimes). Zeke and Caroline really don't like one another, but share the bond of a common home (not a Hermione/Ron thing, just mentioning it).

So now, I am trying to find a way for them to all become friends. In Harry Potter, they fight a troll and win, Hermione takes the fall for them, and they find out she's not all that bad. I don't know how to do this with Caroline, Stephen and Zeke. Stephen has seen a softer side to Caroline just now, and he was upset when she nearly died, but Zeke and Caroline are a different matter. I'm worried that their years of fighting with one another and hating one another for no real reason, can't be overcome by just Stephen letting her join in the games.

I know I was all excited last post about not knowing what's going to happen, but here I am, worried because I don't know how this will work, and I really want them to be friends. Indeed some of the plot, I sense, will need them to be friends. The real reason they aren't friends now is that Caroline is jealous of Zeke.

Anyways, so I'm writing that.

I'm also finding it amusing that Benny, a character from a seperate novel, is making fun of Caroline and Caroline back at Benny as I write. They have amusing interactions. I wish there was a way to combine their stories, but not really. AH WELL. We solider on.

*This is not how I draw. But its how I draw when I'm feeling lazy/am at work and realize I have no image to go with the post. ;)

Playing with Point of View -- CampNaNoWriMo Day 22 (ish)

I have now started three NaNo's for this month. One was about the characters I posted about below. I am still very much in love with that story, but I think it needs some work in terms of getting it to be... a story. Currently I have a beginning, a vague idea of a middle, and an end. I just need to work on it a little bit because it was reading flat to me.

The next one, was of course, The Book of Gates, my twelve part series following Alane and various other characters. It is, in a word, epic. I have been trying to write it for years. Unfortunately, I seem to be a bit daunted by the idea of twelve books to write in a series. I have decided, for my own sake, that if I were to ever try and publish tBoG (hee, t-bog), I would have to write all 12 books before sending out the first one. Mostly because they are complex in terms of their scope, and some things have not yet been planned, and there are arcs, and mini-arcs and over arching arcs, and I want to make sure they all fit together, and come to a satisfying conclusion, so as to avoid the third book slump that seems to happen with quite a few trilogies, and several series (not that it occurs in the third book, its just it happens in trilogies a lot, so I call it that). Anyways. Its a labor of love, and I think I may have to snowflake it, just to try and get a grasp on what I'm writing towards in the first book.

So then I threw my hands up and went and watched Treasure Planet, which, dudes, seriously underrated film. It came out in an over saturated market, and was marketed towards the wrong crowd, which is why people think its not as great as it is, but having watched it nine years later, I've got to say it was impressive. Anyways, so I watched it with the intent of coming up with a novel idea from it. And I did.

I'm not ripping off Treasure Planet, but the initial spark was -- treasure seekers. In the movie, the characters are motivated by the idea of gold, but this is me, so treasure automatically means knowledge to me. Anyways, I was thinking about motivations, and the need for money, and how Harry Potter works, with a trio and the power of friendship (which is to say, OT3?), and I came up with this orphan character who was left at a Space Port and is therefore always looking for money.

And when I started writing it, you know the strangest thing happened. 1. Caroline, my main character, decided to be written in present tense. 2. She decided that she was telling the story, and so it had to be first person.

Most people say first person is an easy tense to write in. I could not agree any less. I hate writing in first person. Mostly because I end up starting a lot of sentences with "I did this" and I find it incredibly difficult to vary my sentence structures in first person. Third feels more natural to me -- I have written in third person limited for most of my novels.

But I was thinking about this, and how my last novel was third-limited to one person -- another first for me, usually I jump around in about five people's heads (oh yes, I am terribly good at finding four people I want to write with, and then discovering I need a fifth voice) -- and it was incredibly interesting to see what it forced the characters to do. So with this in mind, I decided to let Caroline have her way. Who knew, maybe first person, present tense would work for me.

The beginning is rough. I always try and start with some sort of action -- whether it be speech, or something important about to happen -- because it means I have to keep going. If I start with description, I'm bogging myself down in unnecessary backstory. Action requires my pen (fingers, I usually type) to move. In this novel what ended up happening was a lot of "I ran. I looked around. I slid on my knees towards. ect." I hated it. I wanted to get out of it so badly. Often I would find myself trying things like "She did this," before realizing I was referring to Caroline, and having to delete it. I also have many, many problems with the tense. I have written "said" instead of "says" so many times, I am shocked when I manage to type "says" first.

But something funny happened around 7,000 words. I stopped noticing. I got into the story. I found Caroline's voice, while slightly annoying, and things began to happen.

I've got to say, there are some brilliant bits to writing in first person, present tense. For example -- I know as much as Caroline about what's going to happen and I DON'T NEED TO KNOW! I usually write towards something, it helps, and with third person, past, you have to know where you are going so you can have the write thoughts cross character's minds. With first person, present, you can guess where you're going, but the story can accommodate all sorts of things, and you feel much more connected to the character.

No, I am not in love with first person present, I don't think I'll stick with it forever. But for this story, which is teetering between sci-fi and fantasy, where I don't know what the end is going to be, its perfect.

Anyways, I'm 11,000 words in, and I have 9 days to finish this novel. Oh, would you look at that? Another 9 day novel?

Except it won't be. I don't have the pressure to finish the novel like I did with 9 day, just to get to 50,000 words. :D

OH AND CHECK OUT FIREBIRD ON BLOGGER. We're mirroring it on blogger and on LiveJournal because Josh doesn't have the same experience on LJ as me. I prefer LJ, to be honest. BUT IT WILL BE UP ON BOTH SO CHECK IT OUT.

Camp NaNoWriMo Session 1 Day 3

As the titles of these posts get longer and longer, the days of July creep away. I only have one more day before I start my job and my time becomes... different? I'm not sure, but I'll be working a 9-5 job and that will be something to get used to.

Anyways, so today I sat down to do a minor amount of planning for Camp NaNoWriMo. You may recall that the outline method I attempted for the 9 Day Novel failed, so I am not going to attempt it again. I do, however, think that having wrestled with characters for a bit, I accomplished a lot in terms of knowing where things were going to go. The other thing I found out was that I tend to find characters after the end of their novel. In my 9 day novel, Penny and Tia were found way, way, way after their novel, and recently I realized that Neil, Leta and Erik have a lot of background that has to get covered before I can really dive into the present I was working with. So I will probably be going even further back and trying to plot from there. 

I'm using James Scott Bell's method as described in his book on writing Plot and Structure: A disturbance and two doorways. The basic premise of this idea works with the three act structure -- the beginning is a disturbance, the doorways lead from one act to another, and are 'doorways of no return' so there is no way to go but forward for the characters.

So, this is what I'm doing for an outline -- the disturbance and two doorways and then I'll hit the road running, because I now know I've lost all the words I could have written due to the shift in timeframe.

At least I have tomorrow off, right?

Anyone else doing Camp NaNoWriMo? How's it going?

Camp NaNoWriMo Seesion 1: Day 1, 2 and 3

Wow, Day 1 of Camp NaNo was a slog. I didn't get around to until late, and I was super tired, so I'm pretty sure the end of the section I was working on doesn't make sense. I even think that a majority of it is going to have to go as I think about the requirements of point of view. 

Also Day 1 involved a drive into Boston which turned into Dorchester and Roxbury and being really, really lost. The story goes like this: Kat called me around 5:30 to ask me to bring her cell phone to her in Boston, because she left it at her parents. I was not pleased at the prospect of heading into Boston Friday night around rush hour, but I couldn't very well say no, so I went. She is currently working on a show, which was why she didn't me to bring it to her and while I had been to the theatre once, I actually hadn't been to the theater by car, so I got a bit lost heading down to the theater. 

I saw one of the actors heading into the theater as I pulled up and yelled for him to bring the phone to Kat and then, because I'm dog sitting, I headed back towards the house. Only, not quite knowing where I was meant that I went the wrong direction. I was heading out of Boston, I kept telling myself, and that meant I could find a way back home. However, as I traveled in search of a street I knew I got more and more lost. And then my phone died. 

So here I was, a white girl in a red VW Bug, feeling very visibly suburban and lost in one of the most dangerous places in Boston and I had to pull my laptop out of my bag to charge my phone. Great. While my phone was charging, I hit a street called "Washington" which I took gladly, thinking it was a street it turned out not to be. I ended up wiggling around in Dorchester for almost an hour, trying to figure out the best way out. 

Eventually I got on a parkway, which lead me, finally, to streets I knew, but it was very, very disconcerting to not know where I was. It meant when I got to the place where I'm housing sitting, I wasn't feeling super up to writing.

Day 2 hasn't been much better. Indeed, I seem to have lost the 2,000 words I wrote due to the POV issue. I also lost words due to these guys: 

Theo is lying on the cushion, Thor is sitting there with his funny face. They are both super old and slow at everything. However, that being said, they are both characters, and quite amusing at times.

I also went to see Kat's show. I'm not a huge fan of the show -- I never went through a Rent phase -- but the show was quiet enjoyable. Possibly because there were actors that I worked with in high school in the show, and people I knew from Kat talking about them, and the moment the show started I could tell who had directed it. I also didn't noticed mistakes the way I used to. I wonder if its the distance of time that has changed my perception of theater, or something else, but it was different to go to a show and not pick out the details that were problematic.

Except for Ryan (who played Roger, if you know the show, and who I stage managed in his first show at my high school as a freshman) who was weirdly mumbly at the beginning -- that I noticed and was annoyed by, mostly because it felt like he just wasn't opening his mouth. Weird.

Anyways, so writing!

I came up with characters! I have Leta, Nik, Neil and Lilah. Huh, typing them out like that I have noticed a trend in names. I guess Nik will have to be Erik, which is fine, as that was his name originally until he told me he was half native american and I got a mental picture of him. Okay, so Erik, Neil, Leta and Lilah. I kind of am unsure of Lilah's name, but I have a really strong sense of her character.

I also have something that could be a plot, mostly to do with forcing people together in a specific way to ensure that they have to interact, which will force plot. I hope. I could also muddle about with the characters until they tell me their real plot as I did with the 9 day novel. We'll see. I'm off to look for a better name for Lilah. Now I've thought about it, Leta is a good name, but Lilah is an 'L' name that can change.

Other then that, of course, I have to write for Firebird. I'm excited about the prompt. Maybe I can use it for NaNo?

Post 9 day novel Wrap up

DONE! *faints*

My final word count with the chapter titles removed came to 59295 (a pleasing palindrome of a number).

I've been playing with these characters for less then a year, but they're already huge in my mind, real people. I'm excited to finish this chapter of their lives (I know what continues to happen with them of course, and it may turn into another novel, it may not). But its tinged with sadness. I really love these guys and now I think I should take a break, or I'll never be able to edit this thing.

Halley wants me to send it to her and to get it done by August, which I'm totally for, but I need some separation from it, so I'm going to head into Camp NaNoWriMo which starts today and attempt to keep up with the blogging as I go. Of course, there are fewer words involved with Camp NaNoWriMo, so it might not be as pressure cooking exciting as the 9 Day Novel stuff.

The problem is, now I've got Penny (my lead) stuck in my head. I'm having problems trying to come up with a new character to play with. I started thinking about how I started with Penny and the gang: NaNoWriMo last year where I had a brain wave about 11 days in and decided to do something that was based entirely around five characters that I pulled out of no where.

That novel was not terribly good, I will admit. After all, nothing happened but people running around shooting each other. But I did get five great characters from the exercise of writing about 40,000 words on them (I wrote 50,000 words in November, but only 40,000 of them were for that story). It is at this point, that I have a confession to make. My brother, Jasper, actually was quite instrumental in getting the actual novel I wrote these last 9 days started.

Jasper put up this on his blog, which for some reason spoke to me and resulted in me asking him to illustrate something I wrote. Then of course he was like "Yes! Totally!" and I was like "Crap! I haven't written anything he'd like to draw!"

Luckily I had been kicking around with the idea of doing an Oregon Trail in space story, and had been borrowing the characters from my NaNo to do it, and had this idea of a city in my head, a city made out of giant space ships that had settled in the ground. Anyways, taking that, I threw my five characters into the city and tried to see what would happen.

This was where I met Lee, and what I sent to Jasper: the mixed up beginning of Penny getting into Carys and seeing the great ark ships. This was what Jasper got from it:

It was kind of fabulous (the middle sketch of the woman with her hand on her hip has lead to Lee's expansion) to see what someone else thought of my characters (and typical of Jasper to gravitate to Lee's character, he likes mechanical things) and so it was that I began to search for a way to make their story real.

June came around and I realized I hadn't written anything, and so the 9 Day Novel was born.

Now I'm having problems because WTF am I going to write for Camp NaNoWriMo? Perhaps its time to find some characters again and throw them into something they don't quite understand. :D

9 Day Novel has been great. I've enjoyed it incredibly. I will probably do it again.

Keep watching. Camp NaNoWriMo is up next.