Writer's block really isn't the inability to write, in the cartoony blank-page-on-the-typewriter sense. Not for me, at least. What I get is the certain conviction that the scene I'm about to write won't be any good. Instead of writing it, I feel like I should wait until I can write it well.
Except that time never comes, and the scene just gets built up in my head as an insurmountable obstacle of suck that I'll never get over.
It's the Freeze. Last year, I got distracted from my writing on Bryony's Market because of a Devan scene I just couldn't get a handle on. I put it off by a day, two days, and suddenly it was ten months later. I wound up changing up the whole scene anyway.
I hate the Freeze, because it's what's keeping me from getting to the better parts of my story. If only I could get past this one scene, I think, everything would be all right.
The freeze can hit at the beginning of a project, too. I spent months developing the project I call Dairhenien's Library, working out elaborate world-building and character outlines and the like, without every actually starting the story. Eventually, the bulk of all that world-building weighed me under so much that I backed off of the project.
What was I thinking? I was so afraid that the finished story wouldn't live up to the really cool stuff I had developed, and as a result, I just didn't start. I've got lots of great notes out there. Someday, maybe after I finish Bryony, I'll pick them up again.
And that brings me to today. The upcoming scene is one that I don't believe I'll be able to write well. And so I've been spending the last twenty minutes writing this blog post, and started thinking about researching magazine fiction markets instead of writing today. If I were a cat, I should get squirted with a spray bottle for that kind of thinking.
I'm going to write the scene. And there is a very good chance it won't come out well. I'll shake my head and move on. A year from now, or whenever it is that I revise this story, I'll come back and do it right.
But here's the thing--I'll have accomplished so much in that year. For the last year, I stopped until I felt able to tackle the scene, and did nothing on the story in the interval. I was trying to compose the story linearly.
The reader may read the story that way, but why do I have to write it that way? It'd be like building a car front to back, or painting a picture like an ink jet printer, top to bottom.
All right, enough of this small talk. Let's write.
Showing posts with label Dairhenien's Library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dairhenien's Library. Show all posts
18 October 2010
23 August 2008
My First (and only) Completed Novel
Confession: I'm terrifically ashamed of anything I wrote before 1998. I wonder if there's a ten year window of non-embarrassment going on?
Reading:
Oh, you can read about it, if you like. In fact, I'll post a link to a description I wrote of it. But you will never read the actually thing.
I'm talking about The Happy Wars Saga, which stands as my first, and as of now only, completed novel. It's about 88,000 words long, which isn't bad for a high schooler. It took more than three years to complete, features a cast of hundreds of characters, and plagiarizes from nearly every book I had read and television show I had seen up to that moment.
Looking back on it, I can see my progression as a writer during that time. It's composed of fifteen parts, termed "episodes" (plagiarized from Star Wars, of course). The first episode (heavily plagiarized from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) is nonsensical in the extreme. The next two aren't much better. The next three plagiarize more from Star Trek. Only in the last four or five do I manage any real creativity, with the threat of deadly aliens from outside the galaxy uniting warring factions. (It's only fair to mention that many years later, the same concept was used in Star Wars novels in the form of the Vuuzhan Vong. It's only fair that they plagiarize me back.)
This is not my only attempted novel, just the only one that I ever completed a draft on. Before it was a book I wrote in middle school called Space and Beyond, which I came within a few pages of finishing. Next is Floorcraft, which started out as a short story and kind of blossomed from there. Out of eight parts, I've written five and a half. And let's not forget Dairhenien's Library, often begun but never written further than Chapter One.
And now, I've decided that Ferian Fetlock is a book, not a short story. So join the club, Ferian. I won't say wait in line, but be warned--I'm fickle when it comes to finishing novels. You may not fare better than the others.
Publication Status:
Reading:
- "L. DeBard and Aliette: A Love Story," by Lauren Groff
- The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
- "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold" - Outline 80%
- "The Revenant"
- "Cora and the Sea" - Third draft 50%
Oh, you can read about it, if you like. In fact, I'll post a link to a description I wrote of it. But you will never read the actually thing.
I'm talking about The Happy Wars Saga, which stands as my first, and as of now only, completed novel. It's about 88,000 words long, which isn't bad for a high schooler. It took more than three years to complete, features a cast of hundreds of characters, and plagiarizes from nearly every book I had read and television show I had seen up to that moment.
Looking back on it, I can see my progression as a writer during that time. It's composed of fifteen parts, termed "episodes" (plagiarized from Star Wars, of course). The first episode (heavily plagiarized from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) is nonsensical in the extreme. The next two aren't much better. The next three plagiarize more from Star Trek. Only in the last four or five do I manage any real creativity, with the threat of deadly aliens from outside the galaxy uniting warring factions. (It's only fair to mention that many years later, the same concept was used in Star Wars novels in the form of the Vuuzhan Vong. It's only fair that they plagiarize me back.)
This is not my only attempted novel, just the only one that I ever completed a draft on. Before it was a book I wrote in middle school called Space and Beyond, which I came within a few pages of finishing. Next is Floorcraft, which started out as a short story and kind of blossomed from there. Out of eight parts, I've written five and a half. And let's not forget Dairhenien's Library, often begun but never written further than Chapter One.
And now, I've decided that Ferian Fetlock is a book, not a short story. So join the club, Ferian. I won't say wait in line, but be warned--I'm fickle when it comes to finishing novels. You may not fare better than the others.
Publication Status:
- Submitted: 5
- Accepted: 1
- Rejected: 1
- Pending: 3
19 August 2008
Dairhenien's Library, Part 3
Confession: I'm not the same person I was five years ago. I don't miss him. I'm not the same person I was ten years ago. Him, I miss.
Reading:
But today, I'd like to finish my discussion of my long term fantasy project, Dairhenien's Library. If this is the first you're hearing of it, you should catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 first. I left the story of the story at the point where it figuratively and literally began to open up.
The idea of a single library with eight people and six ethereal guardians, not to mention a bad guy, sounds somewhat cramped. Plus, I had imagined a Great Room in the Library with tall windows with rounded tops (sound familiar?), and you can't have windows if you don't have an outside.
And so the Library gained grounds. There was a long stone walkway that led from its door. Barely in sight in the distance was a tall statue--I think either Fiery or Dairhenien himself was frozen there at some point--and from that place, seven others paths led off. One led to the realm of each of the guardians, and the seventh led... well, I don't remember where it led, but I'm sure it was fraught with Meaning.
Even this began to be restrictive, though. Okay, so the Earth Mother had a farm, and the Grave Master had a graveyard, and the Lighthouse Keeper had a, well, a lighthouse. What was the point? Who planted the farm? Who was buried in the graves? What was the point of the lighthouse if no one sailed? In short, it was irrational, and I wasn't a fan of that.
But so far I had just discussed what was in front of the Library. What about behind it? Well, that was easy. A desert, of course, stretching into the distance. To the west, the desert, and to the north, south, and east, the sea. A tiny spit of land jutting into an endless ocean.
Well, I couldn't bear the thought of a great lonely world with no one in it. And so I envisioned desert nomads, no doubt influenced by the Aiel in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. But beyond the desert there had to be something else....
You see what slippery slope I had landed upon? I was no longer writing about a Library and its denizens. I was World Building. In yesterday's post, I discussed what that tempting vice did to Tolkien. Could I escape?
The answer is no. The world developed, and the initial concept remained at the core, like the grain of sand that starts a pearl. Soon, I had continents, and history, and trees of language derivation. I had a magic system and religion and social structure and a fellowship of warriors that had lasted centuries. I had myth and legend and truth and fiction, and great tragedy seen from a distance. I had gain and loss and unrequited love and betrayal and bitterness and redemption.
And suddenly, I realized that the story had grown beyond the Library. It had taken on a life of its own. The ties to that idea were holding it back, no longer giving it sustenance. And so, reluctantly, I let them go.
There is still a character named Dairhenien, or more completely Dairhenien Pocyovin Savrel Kel'Dromai. But he doesn't have a library, and he doesn't live multiple lives. He has aged along with me, and is now in his late twenties, early thirties. The Six Guardians are now elements of his religion, and believed or disbelieved according to the individual and country. The place outside of time is still there, but I don't believe that Dairhenien will ever set foot in it.
But in that place outside of time, there is a room full of books. At some point, the character who visits that place will go into that room. And when she does, the scene will go something like this:
Reading:
- "Where Will You Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You?", by William Gay
- The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
- "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold" - Outline 25%
- "The Revenant"
But today, I'd like to finish my discussion of my long term fantasy project, Dairhenien's Library. If this is the first you're hearing of it, you should catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 first. I left the story of the story at the point where it figuratively and literally began to open up.
The idea of a single library with eight people and six ethereal guardians, not to mention a bad guy, sounds somewhat cramped. Plus, I had imagined a Great Room in the Library with tall windows with rounded tops (sound familiar?), and you can't have windows if you don't have an outside.
And so the Library gained grounds. There was a long stone walkway that led from its door. Barely in sight in the distance was a tall statue--I think either Fiery or Dairhenien himself was frozen there at some point--and from that place, seven others paths led off. One led to the realm of each of the guardians, and the seventh led... well, I don't remember where it led, but I'm sure it was fraught with Meaning.
Even this began to be restrictive, though. Okay, so the Earth Mother had a farm, and the Grave Master had a graveyard, and the Lighthouse Keeper had a, well, a lighthouse. What was the point? Who planted the farm? Who was buried in the graves? What was the point of the lighthouse if no one sailed? In short, it was irrational, and I wasn't a fan of that.
But so far I had just discussed what was in front of the Library. What about behind it? Well, that was easy. A desert, of course, stretching into the distance. To the west, the desert, and to the north, south, and east, the sea. A tiny spit of land jutting into an endless ocean.
Well, I couldn't bear the thought of a great lonely world with no one in it. And so I envisioned desert nomads, no doubt influenced by the Aiel in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. But beyond the desert there had to be something else....
You see what slippery slope I had landed upon? I was no longer writing about a Library and its denizens. I was World Building. In yesterday's post, I discussed what that tempting vice did to Tolkien. Could I escape?
The answer is no. The world developed, and the initial concept remained at the core, like the grain of sand that starts a pearl. Soon, I had continents, and history, and trees of language derivation. I had a magic system and religion and social structure and a fellowship of warriors that had lasted centuries. I had myth and legend and truth and fiction, and great tragedy seen from a distance. I had gain and loss and unrequited love and betrayal and bitterness and redemption.
And suddenly, I realized that the story had grown beyond the Library. It had taken on a life of its own. The ties to that idea were holding it back, no longer giving it sustenance. And so, reluctantly, I let them go.
There is still a character named Dairhenien, or more completely Dairhenien Pocyovin Savrel Kel'Dromai. But he doesn't have a library, and he doesn't live multiple lives. He has aged along with me, and is now in his late twenties, early thirties. The Six Guardians are now elements of his religion, and believed or disbelieved according to the individual and country. The place outside of time is still there, but I don't believe that Dairhenien will ever set foot in it.
But in that place outside of time, there is a room full of books. At some point, the character who visits that place will go into that room. And when she does, the scene will go something like this:
The room was cramped and stuffy, barely wider than the long hallway that it capped like the butt of a quarterstaff. It was tall, though. Shelves covered the walls, floor to ceiling, and those shelves were stuffed to bursting with books of all descriptions. The musty smell was overpowering, and the sense of sheer weight all around her made L. feel that she would be buried under the weight of two millenia of history, scratched out onto paper and vellum and linen and pressed reeds.Publication Status:
She didn't like the room. So many books made her itchy. But Dairhenien would have loved it.
- Submitted: 5
- Accepted: 1
- Rejected: 1
- Pending: 3
11 August 2008
The Perfect Library
Confession: When I was at my poorest, I used to buy DVD season sets to distract me from how poor I was. Allow me to point out that this was stupid.
Reading:
It's a rectangular room, but not extra long--probably following the golden ratio--that's the kind of thought that would appeal to me. It's two stories in height. There is a set of double doors that leads from the rest of the house into the room.
As you walk inside, there are glass-covered bookcases lining the walls. Every ten feet or so, they are broken by a tall window that stretches from floor to ceiling, with a semi-circular top. There are three on each side, and they can let in lots of light, but there are also thick curtains that could be kept closed most of the time to protect the books from the light.
Imagine that you are just inside the door, and you look up. Above your head, you see a balcony, and as your eye follows it, you see that it runs along three of the four walls, all except the wall opposite. To your left and right are spiral staircases which lead up to the balcony. There is a railing on the balcony, of course, and on the walls (except where interrupted by windows) are further bookcases. The railing picks up on both sides of the balcony where the windows stretch up. In all, the balcony is about six feet wide, and is supported on the bottom by columns which stretch down to the floor below.
The floor is wood, of course, but there is a large rug in the middle of the room. Along the left side of the room is a series of armchairs and tables, with accompanying floor lamps. On the right side are writing desks and less comfortable chairs, and small desk lamps. There are four sets of these; two, then a glass display case, then another two. In the glass display case can be found a set of interesting objects, the more random the better.
In the very middle of the room is a large globe on a stand. The armchairs and desks are not in a straight line, but in a subtle arc with the globe at the center.
The balcony above ends just sort of the end of the left and right walls. At each corner is another spiral staircase, each going in opposite directions because we must have symmetry. On the far wall are two more tall, arched windows, flanking a fireplace. This fireplace is about six feet across and three or four deep, about five feet tall. The mantle around it is carved wood, and there is a brick chimney that goes up towards the ceiling.
The windows on the sides are French windows at the base, so that they can open up to the garden. As I am far less interested in plants than I am in books, I have no clear picture of the garden. (Hell, if I can afford to build a house to my specifications, I can certainly hire someone to design and maintain a garden, right?) But there's got to be one.
I almost forgot to mention. On the left of the door, past the staircase, is a large card catalog. To the right is a rolltop desk which hides a computer and printer. The computer will run the catalog, and will also be set up to print up card catalog cards, which can be filed in the physical card catalog.
One last thing--the ceiling. It should continue to arch up from the point where the highest bookshelves reach. I picture one, perhaps two chandeliers that hang from the center for the main illumination.
Until writing this post, I hadn't realized how clear a vision I had of this house. I also have a clear vision of my study, the bedroom, the ballroom, and the living room. Plus there's a mead hall, which probably deserves its own post.
I mention all of this here because this is one of the places in my head that I go when I'm writing, wherever I happen to be physically. It also informs, and is informed by, my conception of Dairhenien's Library, which I have mentioned before and will no doubt mention again.
By the way--public reading in T minus 10 hours 36 minutes. Wish me luck.
Publication Status:
Reading:
- "Riding the Doghouse" by Randy DeVita
- The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
- "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold"
- "The Revenant"
- Dairhenien's Library - Development
- Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
- Ferian Fetlock - "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
- "Motley" - Expansion
- "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
- Untitled School Mistress Story
- "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
- "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Submitted to The American Drivel Review, July 30th, 2008
- "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Cora and the Sea" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
- "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to Tea: A Magazine, July 29th, 2008
- "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest, July 27th, 2008
It's a rectangular room, but not extra long--probably following the golden ratio--that's the kind of thought that would appeal to me. It's two stories in height. There is a set of double doors that leads from the rest of the house into the room.
As you walk inside, there are glass-covered bookcases lining the walls. Every ten feet or so, they are broken by a tall window that stretches from floor to ceiling, with a semi-circular top. There are three on each side, and they can let in lots of light, but there are also thick curtains that could be kept closed most of the time to protect the books from the light.
Imagine that you are just inside the door, and you look up. Above your head, you see a balcony, and as your eye follows it, you see that it runs along three of the four walls, all except the wall opposite. To your left and right are spiral staircases which lead up to the balcony. There is a railing on the balcony, of course, and on the walls (except where interrupted by windows) are further bookcases. The railing picks up on both sides of the balcony where the windows stretch up. In all, the balcony is about six feet wide, and is supported on the bottom by columns which stretch down to the floor below.
The floor is wood, of course, but there is a large rug in the middle of the room. Along the left side of the room is a series of armchairs and tables, with accompanying floor lamps. On the right side are writing desks and less comfortable chairs, and small desk lamps. There are four sets of these; two, then a glass display case, then another two. In the glass display case can be found a set of interesting objects, the more random the better.
In the very middle of the room is a large globe on a stand. The armchairs and desks are not in a straight line, but in a subtle arc with the globe at the center.
The balcony above ends just sort of the end of the left and right walls. At each corner is another spiral staircase, each going in opposite directions because we must have symmetry. On the far wall are two more tall, arched windows, flanking a fireplace. This fireplace is about six feet across and three or four deep, about five feet tall. The mantle around it is carved wood, and there is a brick chimney that goes up towards the ceiling.
The windows on the sides are French windows at the base, so that they can open up to the garden. As I am far less interested in plants than I am in books, I have no clear picture of the garden. (Hell, if I can afford to build a house to my specifications, I can certainly hire someone to design and maintain a garden, right?) But there's got to be one.
I almost forgot to mention. On the left of the door, past the staircase, is a large card catalog. To the right is a rolltop desk which hides a computer and printer. The computer will run the catalog, and will also be set up to print up card catalog cards, which can be filed in the physical card catalog.
One last thing--the ceiling. It should continue to arch up from the point where the highest bookshelves reach. I picture one, perhaps two chandeliers that hang from the center for the main illumination.
Until writing this post, I hadn't realized how clear a vision I had of this house. I also have a clear vision of my study, the bedroom, the ballroom, and the living room. Plus there's a mead hall, which probably deserves its own post.
I mention all of this here because this is one of the places in my head that I go when I'm writing, wherever I happen to be physically. It also informs, and is informed by, my conception of Dairhenien's Library, which I have mentioned before and will no doubt mention again.
By the way--public reading in T minus 10 hours 36 minutes. Wish me luck.
Publication Status:
- Submitted: 5
- Accepted: 1
- Rejected: 1
- Pending: 3
05 August 2008
Dairhenien's Library, Part 2
Confession: Sometimes, I assume what the answer is going to be before I ask the question. And so I don't bother to ask the question. And I wonder why I get disappointed?
Reading:
Today I wanted to finish, or at least continue, my discussion of the development of Dairhenien's Library, which started last Thursday. I left it at the level of development it had when I was in college.
A group of people from throughout time had access to a place where they could, in essence, live forever. There was a single key to the Library, passed from person to person, but since the Library existed outside of time, they could all still hang out. The main character was the last to hold the key; no one else in the Library could claim that he had passed it to them. Of course, what happened to keep him from passing it along is a mystery, since those memories do not get passed on--only his memories from his last visit to the Library and before are passed onto his successor.
The number of inhabitants of the Library varied, but I eventually settled on eight. I had a difficult time deciding on names, so I described them by attributes: Fiery, the Wanderer, the Scholar, Grumpy, the Fairy, the Quiet Man, the Grandmother, and MC--the main character. His name at one point was Michael, and at another point Connor or Conor. There was to be a love triangle of sorts between Fiery, the Fairy, and the main character.
There was also a villain, whom I named Yelchierin. At first he was one of the many Library inhabitants, or Denizens as I began to call them, but as time went on, he became an outside force, who was trying to dominate the Library for his own ends. At one point, I hit on the idea that he would be disembodied, and that the Fairy would somehow awaken him, and he would take over her body. Throughout much of the story, he would be guiding her actions, and at some point, take over completely.
Another aspect that developed at this time were the Guardians, god/angel like beings who also inhabited the Library. There were six: the Earth Mother, the Fairy, the Weaver, the Sailor, the Lighthouse Keeper, and the Grave Master.
Did you notice that the Fairy was in both lists? Not an accident. You see, the big reveal was going to be that the Guardians were really the future selves of six of the Denizens. The Quiet Man became the Weaver, the Grandmother became the Earth Mother, the Scholar became the Lighthouse Keeper, the Wanderer became the Sailor, and Grumpy became the Grave Master. Fiery was frozen into a statue, and the main character was Dairhenien.
At this point, I felt I was ready to stop the conceptualizing and build a story. It began with the main character, an American student at Oxford. (Did I mention that I really wanted to win a Rhodes scholarship at this point? Damn, that would have been sweet.) He has a great apartment; his landlord is this quiet guy who lets him rent super cheap, just for doing odd and ends around the house, and errands.
One day, though, the old guy starts acting weird. They take a walk, and the old guy is about to give him something when they're attacked! The assailants run off (not sure why), and with his dying breath, the old guy gives him a key and tells him to use it in any door. Then he dies.
So our main character does... eventually. (How long it took varied.) When he does, though, he finds himself in the Library. Ta da! And who does he see inside but a much younger version of his deceased landlord. "You're dead!" cries the MC, and runs away. (Sometimes he ran out of the Library, sometimes, he got lost inside the Library.)
Regardless, he is found and his story is told. But there is consternation: that isn't how it was supposed to happen! During every other iteration of the Library there was no attack, even at that same park on that same day. Weird, huh?
And that's where the thread of narrative would peter out. I never managed to get even that far in actual writing, although I outlined that far several times. I knew in a vague sense what happened next. The concept of the Guardians coming to bestow various powers arose. The last was always the Fairy, who came to bestow the memories of previous iterations.
But I decided that so early in the story, the sort of complete personality shift that would occur by giving the main character thousands of years worth of knowledge and experience would be too confusing. Instead, there was something wrong with the Guardians! They weren't coming like they were supposed to, and everyone is freaking out. Next, Fiery arrives for her first visit to the Library, and she can't get her old memories back either. Oh look, a bond!
And then shit would happen. Just hit the fast forward button, because I never knew what it was either.
Finally, the big reveal would happen, and the bad guy would be defeated, and.... there was never a satisfying ending. In fact, that was the biggest problem with this whole setup. The Library was a fantasy... my fantasy, something I liked to daydream about, but it wouldn't serve as a vehicle for a story, not in its present form.
Not until graduate school did my mind start to open up to the other possibilities. For example, the Library was obviously a building. But what was outside?
And with that, I'm going to pause again in these reminiscences. The next post on this subject should take it as far as I want to go. After all, none of the stuff I've been talking about so far is in the finished version of the story, except the name Dairhenien, the idea of six Guardians, and the concept of a place outside of time. It wouldn't do for me to give away anything in the actual story, would it?
Publication Status:
Reading:
- "Riding the Doghouse" by Randy DeVita
- The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
- "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold"
- "The Revenant"
- Dairhenien's Library - Development
- Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
- Ferian Fetlock - "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
- "Motley" - Expansion
- "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
- Untitled School Mistress Story
- "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
- "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Submitted to The American Drivel Review, July 30th, 2008
- "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Cora and the Sea" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
- "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to Tea: A Magazine, July 29th, 2008
- "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest, July 27th, 2008
Today I wanted to finish, or at least continue, my discussion of the development of Dairhenien's Library, which started last Thursday. I left it at the level of development it had when I was in college.
A group of people from throughout time had access to a place where they could, in essence, live forever. There was a single key to the Library, passed from person to person, but since the Library existed outside of time, they could all still hang out. The main character was the last to hold the key; no one else in the Library could claim that he had passed it to them. Of course, what happened to keep him from passing it along is a mystery, since those memories do not get passed on--only his memories from his last visit to the Library and before are passed onto his successor.
The number of inhabitants of the Library varied, but I eventually settled on eight. I had a difficult time deciding on names, so I described them by attributes: Fiery, the Wanderer, the Scholar, Grumpy, the Fairy, the Quiet Man, the Grandmother, and MC--the main character. His name at one point was Michael, and at another point Connor or Conor. There was to be a love triangle of sorts between Fiery, the Fairy, and the main character.
There was also a villain, whom I named Yelchierin. At first he was one of the many Library inhabitants, or Denizens as I began to call them, but as time went on, he became an outside force, who was trying to dominate the Library for his own ends. At one point, I hit on the idea that he would be disembodied, and that the Fairy would somehow awaken him, and he would take over her body. Throughout much of the story, he would be guiding her actions, and at some point, take over completely.
Another aspect that developed at this time were the Guardians, god/angel like beings who also inhabited the Library. There were six: the Earth Mother, the Fairy, the Weaver, the Sailor, the Lighthouse Keeper, and the Grave Master.
Did you notice that the Fairy was in both lists? Not an accident. You see, the big reveal was going to be that the Guardians were really the future selves of six of the Denizens. The Quiet Man became the Weaver, the Grandmother became the Earth Mother, the Scholar became the Lighthouse Keeper, the Wanderer became the Sailor, and Grumpy became the Grave Master. Fiery was frozen into a statue, and the main character was Dairhenien.
At this point, I felt I was ready to stop the conceptualizing and build a story. It began with the main character, an American student at Oxford. (Did I mention that I really wanted to win a Rhodes scholarship at this point? Damn, that would have been sweet.) He has a great apartment; his landlord is this quiet guy who lets him rent super cheap, just for doing odd and ends around the house, and errands.
One day, though, the old guy starts acting weird. They take a walk, and the old guy is about to give him something when they're attacked! The assailants run off (not sure why), and with his dying breath, the old guy gives him a key and tells him to use it in any door. Then he dies.
So our main character does... eventually. (How long it took varied.) When he does, though, he finds himself in the Library. Ta da! And who does he see inside but a much younger version of his deceased landlord. "You're dead!" cries the MC, and runs away. (Sometimes he ran out of the Library, sometimes, he got lost inside the Library.)
Regardless, he is found and his story is told. But there is consternation: that isn't how it was supposed to happen! During every other iteration of the Library there was no attack, even at that same park on that same day. Weird, huh?
And that's where the thread of narrative would peter out. I never managed to get even that far in actual writing, although I outlined that far several times. I knew in a vague sense what happened next. The concept of the Guardians coming to bestow various powers arose. The last was always the Fairy, who came to bestow the memories of previous iterations.
But I decided that so early in the story, the sort of complete personality shift that would occur by giving the main character thousands of years worth of knowledge and experience would be too confusing. Instead, there was something wrong with the Guardians! They weren't coming like they were supposed to, and everyone is freaking out. Next, Fiery arrives for her first visit to the Library, and she can't get her old memories back either. Oh look, a bond!
And then shit would happen. Just hit the fast forward button, because I never knew what it was either.
Finally, the big reveal would happen, and the bad guy would be defeated, and.... there was never a satisfying ending. In fact, that was the biggest problem with this whole setup. The Library was a fantasy... my fantasy, something I liked to daydream about, but it wouldn't serve as a vehicle for a story, not in its present form.
Not until graduate school did my mind start to open up to the other possibilities. For example, the Library was obviously a building. But what was outside?
And with that, I'm going to pause again in these reminiscences. The next post on this subject should take it as far as I want to go. After all, none of the stuff I've been talking about so far is in the finished version of the story, except the name Dairhenien, the idea of six Guardians, and the concept of a place outside of time. It wouldn't do for me to give away anything in the actual story, would it?
Publication Status:
- Submitted: 5
- Accepted: 1
- Rejected: 1
- Pending: 3
31 July 2008
Dairhenien's Library, Part 1
Confession: I got bored last night and just went to bed. Am I that old?
Reading:
I've kept Cora pretty short so far, unlike my revision to "Dolly Hobbles." I like it as a short short, I think. There's a lot more I could go into, her relationship with Malcolm and Silas, for example. Of course, in the back of my mind during this whole revision is the time limit at my reading on August 11th, and any big additions wouldn't fit in the time allotted. Maybe I'll come back to it later.
It's interesting--one of the comments I continually get goes something like this. "You suck me into your world, but I want to see more. Why is it so short?" The short answer (heh) is that most of these stories were written with a word limit imposed. I can't get away with writing more than a scene or two, and I have to somehow cram an entire story into that short space. I think it's a good exercise, and one that makes me a much tighter and more effective writer. But it can be limiting when there is more potential in a story than the slice I've written. In some cases, I do plan to expand. "Motley" is an example of a story that I would like to expand considerably.
I got up extra early this morning, intending to take a Ramble, but got hooked in by last night's Daily Show and Colbert Report. I did come up with some good ideas for the next chapter of Ferian in the shower, though. If in the finished version there is a scene featuring Ferian, dressed only in a burlap sack, chasing a slimy brown creature through an inn in the middle of the night, you can attribute it to 4am on the morning of July 31st, 2008.
But now, onto my chosen subject for the day. Several people have asked me what this whole "Dairhenien" thing is about. It's listed as in development and that's totally true. It's an idea that's been in the back of my mind for years now.
In fact, I can trace the development of it pretty easily. Back when I was in middle school (yes, it's that long of a story), my mother was the Bookstore Lady. On registration day, the bookstore opened for all the parents to do one-stop shopping for school supplies, and I was always drafted to help stock the story and run the cash register.
Being the early bird she is, my mom got me there super early, and we had finished stocking way before registration day started. I managed to escape and go wandering through the deserted corridors of my school. This was in early August of 1990, just before I started 7th grade.
So as I was walking, I was thinking about how cool it would be if you could open up portals to different places. I'm not sure why, but the idea really took hold of me, and for the next six years or so, it stayed in the back of my mind. As I learned more science, the idea grew more complex. In particular, AP Physics did a lot. I learned about reference frames and the Einstein concept of simultaneity, and realized that for the concept to work, the portals would have to be static in a given reference frame, but could be moving in another reference frame. Oh, and if they could create a doorway in space, why not time?
The last idea was the basis for my next notion, which was the Library. It was a place outside of time, but connected to our world through portals. These portals would access time periods throughout history, and as a result, a select few could all meet in the Library for... well, for whatever. I was unclear on that. At this stage, the Library as a concept more than a plot.
But what would happen when the visitors/inhabitants of the Library aged and died? After all, just because the Library is outside of time doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own timeline. Eventually it would be empty, no? And that's when I decided that there had to be some sort of cyclicity to the Library. An individual would enter the Library for the first time, and travel back and forth to it from his or her own era over the course of a lifetime. Eventually, that person would die. And then, to the point of view of another of the Library's inhabitants, that person would return again, young again. But of course from that person's POV, it would be his or her first visit, all over again. And so it would continue.
But wouldn't that suck to develop a relationship with someone over a lifetime, and suddenly find that he or she has forgotten you completely? And that's when the concept really took shape. In instituted Guardians that would confer certain benefits upon those chosen to come to the Library. The greatest of these was memory. A snapshot of a person's mind would be taken at the end of his or her last visit to the Library. When he or she returned as a youth, those memories would be conferred. Effectively, it was immortality.
Of course, after centuries of this, the person he or she became is radically different from the person he or she was as a youth. There would be huge changes in personality, no? And so the conflict first appeared, and with conflict comes plot. Here are the questions I asked myself:
I'm going to stop there, since that was the state of the story in my head throughout most of college. I also have to go to work. But later on, I'll go into how the story changed from there to its present incarnation.
Publication Status:
Reading:
- "Balto" by T.C. Boyle
- The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
- "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold"
- "Cora and the Sea"
- Dairhenien's Library - Development
- Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
- Ferian Fetlock - "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
- "Motley" - Expansion
- "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
- Untitled School Mistress Story
- "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
- "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Submitted to The American Drivel Review, July 30th, 2008
- "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Cora and the Sea" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
- "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to Tea: A Magazine, July 29th, 2008
- "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
- "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest, July 27th, 2008
I've kept Cora pretty short so far, unlike my revision to "Dolly Hobbles." I like it as a short short, I think. There's a lot more I could go into, her relationship with Malcolm and Silas, for example. Of course, in the back of my mind during this whole revision is the time limit at my reading on August 11th, and any big additions wouldn't fit in the time allotted. Maybe I'll come back to it later.
It's interesting--one of the comments I continually get goes something like this. "You suck me into your world, but I want to see more. Why is it so short?" The short answer (heh) is that most of these stories were written with a word limit imposed. I can't get away with writing more than a scene or two, and I have to somehow cram an entire story into that short space. I think it's a good exercise, and one that makes me a much tighter and more effective writer. But it can be limiting when there is more potential in a story than the slice I've written. In some cases, I do plan to expand. "Motley" is an example of a story that I would like to expand considerably.
I got up extra early this morning, intending to take a Ramble, but got hooked in by last night's Daily Show and Colbert Report. I did come up with some good ideas for the next chapter of Ferian in the shower, though. If in the finished version there is a scene featuring Ferian, dressed only in a burlap sack, chasing a slimy brown creature through an inn in the middle of the night, you can attribute it to 4am on the morning of July 31st, 2008.
But now, onto my chosen subject for the day. Several people have asked me what this whole "Dairhenien" thing is about. It's listed as in development and that's totally true. It's an idea that's been in the back of my mind for years now.
In fact, I can trace the development of it pretty easily. Back when I was in middle school (yes, it's that long of a story), my mother was the Bookstore Lady. On registration day, the bookstore opened for all the parents to do one-stop shopping for school supplies, and I was always drafted to help stock the story and run the cash register.
Being the early bird she is, my mom got me there super early, and we had finished stocking way before registration day started. I managed to escape and go wandering through the deserted corridors of my school. This was in early August of 1990, just before I started 7th grade.
So as I was walking, I was thinking about how cool it would be if you could open up portals to different places. I'm not sure why, but the idea really took hold of me, and for the next six years or so, it stayed in the back of my mind. As I learned more science, the idea grew more complex. In particular, AP Physics did a lot. I learned about reference frames and the Einstein concept of simultaneity, and realized that for the concept to work, the portals would have to be static in a given reference frame, but could be moving in another reference frame. Oh, and if they could create a doorway in space, why not time?
The last idea was the basis for my next notion, which was the Library. It was a place outside of time, but connected to our world through portals. These portals would access time periods throughout history, and as a result, a select few could all meet in the Library for... well, for whatever. I was unclear on that. At this stage, the Library as a concept more than a plot.
But what would happen when the visitors/inhabitants of the Library aged and died? After all, just because the Library is outside of time doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own timeline. Eventually it would be empty, no? And that's when I decided that there had to be some sort of cyclicity to the Library. An individual would enter the Library for the first time, and travel back and forth to it from his or her own era over the course of a lifetime. Eventually, that person would die. And then, to the point of view of another of the Library's inhabitants, that person would return again, young again. But of course from that person's POV, it would be his or her first visit, all over again. And so it would continue.
But wouldn't that suck to develop a relationship with someone over a lifetime, and suddenly find that he or she has forgotten you completely? And that's when the concept really took shape. In instituted Guardians that would confer certain benefits upon those chosen to come to the Library. The greatest of these was memory. A snapshot of a person's mind would be taken at the end of his or her last visit to the Library. When he or she returned as a youth, those memories would be conferred. Effectively, it was immortality.
Of course, after centuries of this, the person he or she became is radically different from the person he or she was as a youth. There would be huge changes in personality, no? And so the conflict first appeared, and with conflict comes plot. Here are the questions I asked myself:
- What if a guy just got him memory snapshot taken, but then immediately afterwards he comes up with a very important idea. He has to leave the Library before he can communicate it to anyone else. Everyone just has to hope that when he returns, he'll come up with it again.
- What if something happened to delay that transference of memory, so that this guy learned about the Library and what would happen to him before it was done? Would he still want it? Not to mention, everyone is pressuring him into it because of that idea.
I'm going to stop there, since that was the state of the story in my head throughout most of college. I also have to go to work. But later on, I'll go into how the story changed from there to its present incarnation.
Publication Status:
- Submitted: 5
- Accepted: 1
- Rejected: 1
- Pending: 3
19 July 2008
Visual Input
Confession: Walked about ten miles today. There was chafing.
Reading:
In an earlier post, I mentioned my plan to take trips to the Met as a way of getting story inspiration. This was my first opportunity to put that into practice, and I have to say, I was satisfied with the outcome. For archival purposes, here are the notes I jotted down over the course of the afternoon.
Publication Status:
Reading:
- "Pa's Darling," by Louis Auchincloss
- Untitled Dark Fantasy Project
- "Cora and the Sea"
In an earlier post, I mentioned my plan to take trips to the Met as a way of getting story inspiration. This was my first opportunity to put that into practice, and I have to say, I was satisfied with the outcome. For archival purposes, here are the notes I jotted down over the course of the afternoon.
- Brother & two younger sisters
- Set in lighthouse?
- Cow skull
- The universe through the portal of a bone. "Bone doors"
- Silent fall
- Woman in white pants, brown shirt, flowing green jacket. Alone. Stark & bare landscape. Once had companions.
- Disapproval - isolated school - children rise up? (Why?) Stark woman wears red, wears self-deprivation like a badge. A little enclave in the wilderness.
- Nic's writing desk. (A sketch of it) - built himself by hand
- D- Colors duller, but shapes & forms stand out. Energy aura - tension & potential, just before a spring. Heat looks angry. Chemical reactions feel like falling off a cliff. Sea-waves pulse with energy.
- Can't directly affect living creatures - resisted by their life force.
- What sort of dynamic is there between multiple siblings? In particular, I'm imagining a girl of about ten forced through circumstance to take care of her older brother (about twelve) on a journey, while simultaneously caring for her younger sister, who is about six. I'm not sure what got them in trouble or where they're going, but there's a potential for some interesting conflict.
- I saw a painting of a lighthouse. It was beautiful but isolated, and this sounded like a good setting for a story.
- Thanks to Georgia O'Keefe, I saw a number of cow skulls. They have such a dis
tinctive shape... where could I go with that? Dunno, yet. - "The universe through a portal of bone" is a phrase in a description of another O'Keefe painting called "Pelvis II," which I happened to find just now online. It sounded interesting, made me write the phrase "Bone door." I imagined a story concept in which travel to other places/worlds/times/etc was possible, but required the use of bones in some way, either to construct the door or activate it. Magic, as they say, always demands a sacrifice.
- I saw a picture of someone falling, as if from a cliff, and it struck me that no one else was around to watch him fall. I picture him as not screaming, but silent as he fell, and the world around him just as silent. It was a vivid image.
- The woman in question was a self portrait of an artist whose name I've already forgotten. It wasn't the woman that caught my attention as much as it was her clothing, which seemed both utilitarian and dramatic at the same time. Her expression was odd too. I pictured her as the last person left of a once larger group, who had progressed out of the greener places and times in her life to a place where she was alone. But she was driven. There's still some job that needs to be done.
- In another picture, I saw a story fully formed. There was a stern looking woman, probably not old in retrospect, but in her demeanor. Behind her was a building which in my imagination became a school. I saw it as a place in the wilderness that this woman had turned, through her force of will, into an enclave of civilization. Perhaps it's a British school in India or South Africa, and within its bounds, no one could tell save by the weather that they're not in the English countryside. For whatever reason, this woman has become hardened, and believes that anything good is a luxury which should be rooted out and dispensed with. She's proud of depriving herself. She does the same to the students she cares for. Ironically, she does care for them, and is doing as best she can, as she sees it. I imagine the children rising up against her somehow. But what would start it? Children are going to assume that what they experience is normal unless something happens to disturb that equilibrium. I imagine a stranger coming to the school while they're in their playground, perhaps a native of that foreign country, and he or she is found by the children before their teacher. What transpires? I don't know, but it would have to be major.
- The remaining points have to do with Dairhenien's Library, my perpetually in-progress series of novels. I saw a writing desk that would be a perfect accessory for Nicodemius, an old adventurer-turned-scholar. I can see him making it himself by hand, not using his magic, just to demonstrate that he can.
- One painting I saw, a Picasso, caused me to wonder how perceptions alter for Dairhenien while he's using magic. It's a magic of seeing structures, but since the human body is only capable of perceiving certain sensations, a kind of aphasia takes place in which perception of magic is mapped to the other senses, as well as emotions.
- The final point is a solution to a problem of balance that has been bothering me. Of the two forms of magic in my story, one had long felt far more powerful than the other. By posing a restriction against its use on living creatures, I believe I've evened the playing field.
Publication Status:
- Submitted: 2
- Accepted: 1
- Rejected: 1
16 July 2008
Camaraderie
Confession: This was supposed to be the title of yesterday's post, but I got so off-topic, I decide to save it.
Reading:
I think back to successful television shows like Friends, in which the entire dynamic of the show was the relationship among six characters who were, well, friends. But that's what's so unusual... they weren't competing with each other, not really. They were helping each other. And if they occasionally ran into conflict with each other, that was the exception, not the rule, and only served to drive the dynamic further.
There's a feeling of acceptance about group membership. It's the feeling of being a small part of something greater, of being an integral part of it. And that's what I would like the reader to experience in Dairhenien's Library. Dairhenien has his journeymates. So does Nicodemius, although some are now gone. It's what Lilith doesn't have and envies, until she finds the library herself, and then discovers that she's part of a fellowship far greater than any other. It's what the Fairy has with her mercenary cronies, whom I should write much more like Star Wars smugglers than evil bandits. Only the bad guys are alone. And that's the point, isn't it?
Publication Status:
Reading:
- Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
- Untitled Dark Fantasy Project
- "Cora and the Sea"
I think back to successful television shows like Friends, in which the entire dynamic of the show was the relationship among six characters who were, well, friends. But that's what's so unusual... they weren't competing with each other, not really. They were helping each other. And if they occasionally ran into conflict with each other, that was the exception, not the rule, and only served to drive the dynamic further.
There's a feeling of acceptance about group membership. It's the feeling of being a small part of something greater, of being an integral part of it. And that's what I would like the reader to experience in Dairhenien's Library. Dairhenien has his journeymates. So does Nicodemius, although some are now gone. It's what Lilith doesn't have and envies, until she finds the library herself, and then discovers that she's part of a fellowship far greater than any other. It's what the Fairy has with her mercenary cronies, whom I should write much more like Star Wars smugglers than evil bandits. Only the bad guys are alone. And that's the point, isn't it?
Publication Status:
- Submitted: 2
- Accepted: 1
- Rejected: 1
12 July 2008
A good writing day
Confession: I'm afraid something's going to happen to take this away.
Reading:
The ending surprised me a little. Oh sure, I knew how I wanted to the story to end, and that's how it ended. The events that transpired are the same as I had planned. But I wasn't able to make that ending be an ending with closure. It was an ending with a hook for the next chapter. In other words, Ferian is refusing to shut up and be a short story. He wants to be a book.
As you can see, though, I didn't immediately put the next story, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," as my new writing project. Nor did I put up Dairhenien's Library, although that had been my original plan. You see, in two weeks I'm going to participate once more in the 24 Hour Short Story Contest, and I want to be in the right frame of mind for that.
My next major task is to actually start working on the "Cora and the Sea" revision, since my reading on August 11th is coming up fast. I don't know if that will take two whole weeks or not--hopefully not. So I need to decide on another project to fill in with in the mean time. Dairhenien might be a good bet, if nothing else to organize further the world building notes I've written. Or characters... yes, I should probably start working on characterization a bit more. I know many of the broad strokes, but none of the flavor.
Of course, any time I work on Dairhenien, there won't be an immediate payoff. I need to get "Illuminated" resubmitted, and perhaps another story too. Should I work on "The Revenant" some more? Do some more magazine research too?
It's doubly important to get more stories out because of the other thing that happened today: our girl "Dolly Hobbles" was accepted for publication by The Storyteller magazine. It is slated for the Jan/Feb/March 2009 issue of that publication.
As you can imagine, I'm thrilled. I immediately called my parents and a few others, and emailed everyone who has ever helped me in my writing. Now I'm going to have to put an Accepted counter down here too!
Publication Status:
Reading:
- Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
- The Last Command, by Timothy Zahn
- "Cora and the Sea"
The ending surprised me a little. Oh sure, I knew how I wanted to the story to end, and that's how it ended. The events that transpired are the same as I had planned. But I wasn't able to make that ending be an ending with closure. It was an ending with a hook for the next chapter. In other words, Ferian is refusing to shut up and be a short story. He wants to be a book.
As you can see, though, I didn't immediately put the next story, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," as my new writing project. Nor did I put up Dairhenien's Library, although that had been my original plan. You see, in two weeks I'm going to participate once more in the 24 Hour Short Story Contest, and I want to be in the right frame of mind for that.
My next major task is to actually start working on the "Cora and the Sea" revision, since my reading on August 11th is coming up fast. I don't know if that will take two whole weeks or not--hopefully not. So I need to decide on another project to fill in with in the mean time. Dairhenien might be a good bet, if nothing else to organize further the world building notes I've written. Or characters... yes, I should probably start working on characterization a bit more. I know many of the broad strokes, but none of the flavor.
Of course, any time I work on Dairhenien, there won't be an immediate payoff. I need to get "Illuminated" resubmitted, and perhaps another story too. Should I work on "The Revenant" some more? Do some more magazine research too?
It's doubly important to get more stories out because of the other thing that happened today: our girl "Dolly Hobbles" was accepted for publication by The Storyteller magazine. It is slated for the Jan/Feb/March 2009 issue of that publication.
As you can imagine, I'm thrilled. I immediately called my parents and a few others, and emailed everyone who has ever helped me in my writing. Now I'm going to have to put an Accepted counter down here too!
Publication Status:
- Accepted: 1
- Rejected: 1
08 July 2008
Status Updates
Confession: Ordering sushi makes me feel classy.
Reading:
Once "Ferian" is in draft form, I'm going to switch over to "Cora" and do what I've been promising for weeks--revise it.
I've already mentioned that I want do some Dairhenien next, but that it's going to be more developing than writing. So I should probably add a new "Writing" status up at the top as well. The question is, new story or finishing an old one? I don't want to do more Floorcraft until I've revised the old stories.
I just realized something. "Ferian." "Cora." Dairhenien. "Simon's Story" (from Floorcraft). Everything I've written lately has featured a character's name in the title. The main character. The POV character. Interesting.
Also, I've got one more new status to add to my posts, this time at the bottom:
Rejection Counter: 1
Reading:
- Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
- Dark Force Rising, by Timothy Zahn
- "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"
- "Cora and the Sea"
Once "Ferian" is in draft form, I'm going to switch over to "Cora" and do what I've been promising for weeks--revise it.
I've already mentioned that I want do some Dairhenien next, but that it's going to be more developing than writing. So I should probably add a new "Writing" status up at the top as well. The question is, new story or finishing an old one? I don't want to do more Floorcraft until I've revised the old stories.
I just realized something. "Ferian." "Cora." Dairhenien. "Simon's Story" (from Floorcraft). Everything I've written lately has featured a character's name in the title. The main character. The POV character. Interesting.
Also, I've got one more new status to add to my posts, this time at the bottom:
Rejection Counter: 1
04 July 2008
World Building and Plot
Confession: I'm always the first to show up at parties.
Reading:
I go back and forth between these two activities when working on this novel/series. The world building is the fantasy equivalent of research, and it is both easier and more difficult in its way. Whenever I want to figure out what the culture of given place is like, I make it up. What could be simpler? But the tough part is making sure that the details I create are internally consistent with the world I've created... and I have to be certain that any unusual details can be communicated through the story without needless exposition. If a world concept distracts from the story, it has to go. All must serve the story.
When I get tired of world building, I work on plot. I have a general arc for the series, and pretty decent idea of the first book, but there's no depth. I usually work on plot until I get stuck, then do some world building to move forward until I get bored, then go back to plot.
By the way, you can see from the status header of my post that I'm now listening to the audiobook version of Harry Potter book 7. Honestly, I listened through book 6 just recently too, but didn't think to mention it. I'll make sure that status is included from now on, since listening to an audiobook is as legitimate a way of experiencing a story as reading.
As long as they're unabridged.
Reading:
- Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling
- "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"
- "Cora and the Sea"
I go back and forth between these two activities when working on this novel/series. The world building is the fantasy equivalent of research, and it is both easier and more difficult in its way. Whenever I want to figure out what the culture of given place is like, I make it up. What could be simpler? But the tough part is making sure that the details I create are internally consistent with the world I've created... and I have to be certain that any unusual details can be communicated through the story without needless exposition. If a world concept distracts from the story, it has to go. All must serve the story.
When I get tired of world building, I work on plot. I have a general arc for the series, and pretty decent idea of the first book, but there's no depth. I usually work on plot until I get stuck, then do some world building to move forward until I get bored, then go back to plot.
By the way, you can see from the status header of my post that I'm now listening to the audiobook version of Harry Potter book 7. Honestly, I listened through book 6 just recently too, but didn't think to mention it. I'll make sure that status is included from now on, since listening to an audiobook is as legitimate a way of experiencing a story as reading.
As long as they're unabridged.
29 June 2008
Advice from a Friend
Confession: I wasted most of today reading webcomics. I also make a chocolate cake, but I don't count that as wasted time.
Reading:
"What sort of education did he have?" he asked. "What was his relationship with his father?"
I was stymied. As I wrote two days ago, I have a decent idea of his character, but I know nothing of his background. It's no wonder I don't know where to take him if I don't know where he's from. My entire concept of his background was that he was a con artist, roaming the country with his wagon and his horse, living it up and scraping by. But as for how he got there, I have no clue.
So I'm going to answer those questions and start again. I'd better finish tomorrow, since that's my deadline. If not, I'll take a little bit of time this week, but by next weekend, I want to be working on Dairhenien's Library again, if only for a weekend.
Reading:
- Someplace to be Flying
- "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"
- "Cora and the Sea"
"What sort of education did he have?" he asked. "What was his relationship with his father?"
I was stymied. As I wrote two days ago, I have a decent idea of his character, but I know nothing of his background. It's no wonder I don't know where to take him if I don't know where he's from. My entire concept of his background was that he was a con artist, roaming the country with his wagon and his horse, living it up and scraping by. But as for how he got there, I have no clue.
So I'm going to answer those questions and start again. I'd better finish tomorrow, since that's my deadline. If not, I'll take a little bit of time this week, but by next weekend, I want to be working on Dairhenien's Library again, if only for a weekend.
26 June 2008
Location, Location, Location
Confession: It's been a while since I was in a relationship. Even the group of women knitting in the corner of the restaurant look hot. To my credit, they are all about my age.
Reading:
Dairhenien's Library has ranged wildly. Lately it has been written at the back table of the Panera Bread in Bohemia, but in the past, it's been at the Borders in Friendship Heights, the Barnes and Noble in Georgetown, La Madeleine in Chevy Chase, and others. It started at my dad's work computer at Cargill Steel and Wire, where I typed up some notes while waiting for him to finish up for the day.
Location is pretty important for me and my writing. It's not that these places set the tone for the story--I mean, they're pretty much all coffee shops, bookstores with coffee shops, or college coffee shops. But each is distinct, and just thinking about those places puts me in the same mental place I was when the stories were written.
With "Ferian Fetlock," I have no such place. Each part has been written in a different location. I think I need to find a place, a new place, and write there until it's done. That's my project for this weekend... to finally put that story to bed and move on to something new.
Reading:
- Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
- "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"
- "Cora and the Sea"
Dairhenien's Library has ranged wildly. Lately it has been written at the back table of the Panera Bread in Bohemia, but in the past, it's been at the Borders in Friendship Heights, the Barnes and Noble in Georgetown, La Madeleine in Chevy Chase, and others. It started at my dad's work computer at Cargill Steel and Wire, where I typed up some notes while waiting for him to finish up for the day.
Location is pretty important for me and my writing. It's not that these places set the tone for the story--I mean, they're pretty much all coffee shops, bookstores with coffee shops, or college coffee shops. But each is distinct, and just thinking about those places puts me in the same mental place I was when the stories were written.
With "Ferian Fetlock," I have no such place. Each part has been written in a different location. I think I need to find a place, a new place, and write there until it's done. That's my project for this weekend... to finally put that story to bed and move on to something new.
25 June 2008
A Choice, Briefly
Confession: I'm a slave to my own impatience.
Reading:
In the mean time, I find my thoughts turning back to Dairhenien's Library more and more. Should I work on the novels while the mood has me, or should I finish "Ferian Fetlock"? Which would do me more good?
Reading:
- Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
- "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"
- "Cora and the Sea"
In the mean time, I find my thoughts turning back to Dairhenien's Library more and more. Should I work on the novels while the mood has me, or should I finish "Ferian Fetlock"? Which would do me more good?
22 June 2008
Artistic Inspiration
Confession: I had a long conversation with a stranger in a train on the way back from the city today. I think he was a stoned-out ex-hippie. It was fun.
Reading:
They say a picture is worth 1000 words, but I'll probably keep these closer to 250.
The idea is to build a character library of descriptions and characterizations that I can turn to when I need someone to fill a role and I get stuck. This can work for other stories too, but DL is where I got particularly stalled with such things.
Reading:
- Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
- "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"
- "Dolly Hobbles"
They say a picture is worth 1000 words, but I'll probably keep these closer to 250.
The idea is to build a character library of descriptions and characterizations that I can turn to when I need someone to fill a role and I get stuck. This can work for other stories too, but DL is where I got particularly stalled with such things.
21 June 2008
Immigrant Inspiration
Confession: I visited Ellis Island today, and it was all I could do not to cry.
Reading:
The setting of the series is a fantasy one, but the cultures are on par with what you might find in the late Victorian, early Edwardian era. Social mores are paramount, and man has achieved so much in so little time that there is a feeling that nature can be utterly conquered.
So when Dairhenien is traveling, he would naturally have to pretend to be someone innocuous... why not an immigrant? He'll get a view of the culture he enters from the bottom up and no mistake!
I'll just have to see how that fits in.
Reading:
- Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
- "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"
- "Dolly Hobbles"
The setting of the series is a fantasy one, but the cultures are on par with what you might find in the late Victorian, early Edwardian era. Social mores are paramount, and man has achieved so much in so little time that there is a feeling that nature can be utterly conquered.
So when Dairhenien is traveling, he would naturally have to pretend to be someone innocuous... why not an immigrant? He'll get a view of the culture he enters from the bottom up and no mistake!
I'll just have to see how that fits in.
26 May 2008
Rational versus Irrational Magic
Confession: I cried for the last 150 pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Almost nonstop.
Reading:
In revising "Illuminated," I noticed that this is my first ever fantasy story, or even fantasy idea, with what I like to call "irrational" magic.
It all comes down to the type of magical system employed in the story. Some are almost scientific in their complexity, like the One Power in the Wheel of Time. There are some mysteries and inconsistencies, sure, but having read twelve books in that universe, I feel I could sit down and write a pretty good research paper on the way the power works. Moreover, I could make explicit what is and is not possible with the One Power. Magic, in that universe, is merely an extension of the laws of physics, not something that breaks those laws.
David Edding's The Belgariad (and The Malloreon which followed) is similar in a way, not with magic, but with prophecy. The ways that prophecy work in those books are very explicit. Much of the interest of the series derives from that overt view of prophecy as something that can be studied rationally.
And that's the keyword for me, rational. These are systems that make sense, within the context of the story in which they're written. The authors have made entirely explicit the causes and consequences of their magic systems, and we have the ability to predict how things will work in those words irrespective of whether the authors actually wrote about those scenarios or not!
That's why The Wheel of Time would make such a great role playing game. The rules of magic are so explicit that they could be easily encapsulated into a rule set. (The D20 RPG did an okay job, but it could be done better.)
You'd never get that level of explainability with, say King's The Dark Tower or Susanna Clarke's Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell. In both cases, magic is unpredictable and irrational, and the reader never knows what it may or may not be capable of.
That's not to say that there aren't rules, but in both cases, those rules come from what the characters themselves are capable of, not what the magic system can achieve. The vast majority of magic is hanging out there as a great unknown, and it remains a mystery what it can accomplish.
In the case of Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell, the irrationality of magic was actually a theme of the book. For centuries, English magicians had been trying to study it as if it were a rational system, but as the book proves, it is inherently irrational. One of the main characters concocts a potion that bestows temporary madness just so he can understand magic better. The end result is the assertion that the world of magic (in the book, that is) is more great and wonderful than the human mind can comprehend.
Given my background, I'm much more comfortable with the scientific approaches to magic. My longterm project, Dairhenien's Library, uses a very explicit and rational magical system itself.
"Illuminated" is my first attempt at an irrational system, although I don't think that was my purpose in starting out writing. I give no explanation as to why the four books exist, only that they do. And I establish rules... if Lasair had not resisted, he would have lived; if he hadn't broken the rules earlier on, he wouldn't have gained the forbidden knowledge that frightened him so and caused him to try to resist the final page. It was his choices that defined the outcome, not some undefined magic system. Yet, I hope, I left the reader with the idea that there were parts of nature that were great and terrible and beyond our comprehension.
Reading:
- Master of the Cauldron by David Drake
- "Illuminated"
In revising "Illuminated," I noticed that this is my first ever fantasy story, or even fantasy idea, with what I like to call "irrational" magic.
It all comes down to the type of magical system employed in the story. Some are almost scientific in their complexity, like the One Power in the Wheel of Time. There are some mysteries and inconsistencies, sure, but having read twelve books in that universe, I feel I could sit down and write a pretty good research paper on the way the power works. Moreover, I could make explicit what is and is not possible with the One Power. Magic, in that universe, is merely an extension of the laws of physics, not something that breaks those laws.
David Edding's The Belgariad (and The Malloreon which followed) is similar in a way, not with magic, but with prophecy. The ways that prophecy work in those books are very explicit. Much of the interest of the series derives from that overt view of prophecy as something that can be studied rationally.
And that's the keyword for me, rational. These are systems that make sense, within the context of the story in which they're written. The authors have made entirely explicit the causes and consequences of their magic systems, and we have the ability to predict how things will work in those words irrespective of whether the authors actually wrote about those scenarios or not!
That's why The Wheel of Time would make such a great role playing game. The rules of magic are so explicit that they could be easily encapsulated into a rule set. (The D20 RPG did an okay job, but it could be done better.)
You'd never get that level of explainability with, say King's The Dark Tower or Susanna Clarke's Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell. In both cases, magic is unpredictable and irrational, and the reader never knows what it may or may not be capable of.
That's not to say that there aren't rules, but in both cases, those rules come from what the characters themselves are capable of, not what the magic system can achieve. The vast majority of magic is hanging out there as a great unknown, and it remains a mystery what it can accomplish.
In the case of Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell, the irrationality of magic was actually a theme of the book. For centuries, English magicians had been trying to study it as if it were a rational system, but as the book proves, it is inherently irrational. One of the main characters concocts a potion that bestows temporary madness just so he can understand magic better. The end result is the assertion that the world of magic (in the book, that is) is more great and wonderful than the human mind can comprehend.
Given my background, I'm much more comfortable with the scientific approaches to magic. My longterm project, Dairhenien's Library, uses a very explicit and rational magical system itself.
"Illuminated" is my first attempt at an irrational system, although I don't think that was my purpose in starting out writing. I give no explanation as to why the four books exist, only that they do. And I establish rules... if Lasair had not resisted, he would have lived; if he hadn't broken the rules earlier on, he wouldn't have gained the forbidden knowledge that frightened him so and caused him to try to resist the final page. It was his choices that defined the outcome, not some undefined magic system. Yet, I hope, I left the reader with the idea that there were parts of nature that were great and terrible and beyond our comprehension.
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