Posted by nightphoenix on May 11, 2011 in
Process Writers often speak of “playing God” with their characters. Because of course, the writer must have a better grasp on that character’s strengths, flaws, past, motivations, fears, hopes, goals, etc, than anyone else in the story world, even the character himself. You can’t write a convincing person if you don’t know who they are. But an interesting side effect of this knowing is that sometimes a character will do something the writer didn’t expect. Something that flows out of who that character is that maybe the writer didn’t notice the first time around. But you, the writer, kinda have to go with that, because forcing characters to follow an author’s agenda inevitably drains the life right out of them. Paradoxically, you have to know your characters so well that they quite literally start taking on a life of their own.
But fiction, like life, has conflict and pain and sorrow and people that fall. In fact, one of the first things one learns as a writer is that fiction NEEDS conflict, or it becomes boring and lifeless. True conflict, the kind that grows and breathes and expands in directions you don’t always expect and changes characters you care about…this is hard to write. It is hard to ALLOW this kind of conflict in a story, because it means surrendering some of your godly writerly power to do whatever you wish with your characters. It means sparing characters you’d rather destroy, and destroying characters you really, really wish you could save. True, you could still have the villain have a last-minute change of heart…you are the author, and it’s your story. But you know, and your audience will certainly know that the change wasn’t real, didn’t flow out of who that character was. Such authorial fiat…even when done for the benefit of the character…it invalidates the character as a person. Their choices no longer matter. And they cease to be real.
And the story fails. Read more…
Tags: musings
Posted by nightphoenix on Apr 2, 2011 in
Output,
Process This week, being spring break, I knew I wasn’t going to get much done in the way of actual writing. So, instead I’ve spent a little time concentrating on Amphiptere’s Vision, the MMORPG the hubby and I’ve been working on. It was inspired partially by World of Warcraft and by a turn-based, cartoonish RPG called Dofus, plus a heavy dose of experience from playing Achaea, a text-based MUD. The game I imagine is what’s called “sandbox” style: heavily role-playing dependent, where players can directly affect the world. Players build the houses, towns, roads, and cities; players create and run the organizations; players generate the big conflicts in the game. There are 61 discrete sentient races, 21 of which are playable. The abilities are many and varied, and a lot of the skillsets require creativity and imagination to use. Read more…
Tags: worldbuilding
Posted by nightphoenix on Mar 21, 2011 in
Process Actually, this post is about dreams. Specifically, the small and sometimes nonsensical details that dreams create.
Many of my story ideas come from dreams. Usually two or three dreams that have been fleshed out, expanded upon, and changed where needed to make a coherent plot. Most often, the main element a dream will leave me with is a mood. How does this story feel? What emotions does it evoke? The more detailed dreams will provide me with several characters and maybe even some plot elements, but that mood is what I take the most time in analyzing and writing down.
But often, my dreams aren’t coherent enough, detailed enough, or removed enough from life to really use. What I call “story dreams” actually happen only once or twice a month, if that. Dreams where I wake up and say, “Man, that would make a great story!” and I rush to write it down. Such were the beginnings of Dragon Singer, Briar Rose, Dreamcatcher, Mask of Eldarmarch…the list goes on. Honestly, if they happened any more frequently, either I’d need to be a much faster writer, or my queue would be much, much longer (than it already is).
However, even the fuzzy, wacky dreams can yield ideas in the form of details. Details of life, of people, of feeling; stuff that sort of passes you by when you’re awake. Sometimes things like that are easier to notice in dreams because they occur bigger than normal, stranger than normal, or simply out of context.
For example, I’ve been having a lot of dreams lately relating to the nuclear problems they are having in Japan right now. Radioactive stuff and refugee type themes. Radiation frightens me. You can’t see it, hear it, smell it, or feel it, and you don’t sense anything off if it’s hitting you. Plus, nothing but distance can shield you it. And it kills in a rather painful, horrible way. That’s up there with velociraptors and tiny dark spaces on Nightphoenix’s DoNotWant list.
The latest in this dream series involved me taking care of a bunch of hairless rabbits who’d been exposed, and then trying and failing to stop some overlord from taking over a small imaginary country. (Yes, even in the dream, it was imaginary. And yet, its loss was terrible. Hard to explain.) I was traveling with the refugees, and this monarch of a neighboring friendly nation was giving the refugee children little bags full of tiny toys and candy. Specifically, red apple-spice candy. There was a moment where I was watching the line of sad refugees shuffle along past me, and all around was this miasma of sweet spicy apple-y scent on the air. For some reason, it was that smell and everything it represented that really made it sad for me. That’s what really stayed with me when I woke up.
That’s what good details do. They call attention to what’s really important in a scene in a subtle, in-world way. They meld all those abstract, powerful emotions into an object, a texture, a moment, something tangible the audience can take away with them. “That was a great love story” isn’t nearly as powerful as “I bawled my eyes out when he handed her that ring”. They might not remember anything else about the story, but they’ll remember the ring and the feelings associated with it. Think about the Phantom of the Opera’s rose with a black ribbon, or Joker’s joker playing card. Significant details often become symbols, reoccurring themes that crop up again and again in a story. (And any details mentioned when describing a room, or object, or person, ought to be significant: ie, if the protagonist always wears a blue headband, that should play some later role in the story…if only to identify or mark her).
So, today, I am reminded to mine my dreams for details missed in the waking world. Like hairless rabbits. And apple-spice candy.
Tags: brainstorming, dreams, ideas
Posted by nightphoenix on Jan 14, 2011 in
Novels,
Output,
Process Well, I finished the line edit a week or so ago, and have been (mostly) diligently working on copyediting. And realizing that there’s often a wide gulf between what I think I wrote and what the sentence actually says. And that I tend to read what I think I wrote. Blarg.
I’m also working on a synopsis, which is more blarg…but not as bad as it could be, since I had the foresight to sum up all the important events of Hands on index cards in preparation for editing. I think I’ll have everything ready for the conference.
Speaking of: Hey, the Space Coast Writers Guild conference is coming up! Jan. 28th and 29th (which is a Friday and a Saturday). It’s a great conference, and not too pricey, as far as writing conferences go. Click here for details and a registration form. You can also walk in and register the day of.
I did the conference booklet again this year (yeah…last weekend’s mad project), and I hope it looks as good printed as it does on a computer screen. The registration booklet I did was a little graphics-busy, IMO.
So…one might ask why I’m blogging when I probably should be copyediting or synopsising or somesuch. Well, I’m feeling a bit burnt out and I figured writing something is at least more productive than reading pages upon pages of Slacktivist comments. Not that those aren’t interesting, and un-productive…anyway. Read more…
Tags: business of writing, Shades, the real world
Posted by nightphoenix on Sep 15, 2010 in
Novels,
Output,
Process …from Tennessee, that is. Went on a trip with Eli and my mom to her property up there. It was fun and relaxing, except for the part when we almost hit a deer. That was kind of scary. No internet or cell phone service up there, so I’ve been a bit out of touch these last couple of days. This is kind of a long post. Update, and (another) new idea.
Read more…
Tags: brainstorming, ideas, Shades, Windwaker, worldbuilding
Posted by nightphoenix on Sep 8, 2010 in
Novels,
Output,
Process,
Short Stories This month I’m making it a goal to revisit The Smell of November. I think that story always suffered from the word limit needed to enter it in the WD contest. So I’m lengthening it, and tweaking the storyline a bit. I’m making it more ambiguous, so that the reader never really knows if Alan Hunter is truly a wolf-faced escapee of Arcadia, or if he’s just plain crazy. Going to try and get it in shape to submit to the Realms of Fantasy magazine.
If they take it, I may turn it into a serial thing. Alan Hunter’s story makes a nice lead-in to the overall Grimms storyline, something I’ve wanted to get started on. One of the Grimms, on a rescue mission, meets Alan after he’s been recaptured. They all escape. The Alan/November romantic tragedy will be wrapped in as a subplot to the whole Grimm tale. I don’t think Alan will ever actually be a Grimm; he’ll function more as a solitary ally. He may not be the only one; the Grimms will probably acquire a network of allies as the story fleshes out. Rescued kids who make it back to their families, but still know. Faerie enthusiasts who are in on the truth. Maybe even a rogue Fae or two.
I’m still working on Shades. In the process of spreading out and raising stakes on an already tense scene. I think I’m approaching the point where I won’t have to change much more. I’m also pretty sure I’ve said that before. *sigh* On the upside, I get to burn some mansions down. What’s the point of having a cabal of Cowls in a Mantle city if they never wreak any havoc? Let’s just say it’s high time for some chaos.
Read more…
Tags: editing and revisions, goals, Grimms, ideas, Shades, Smell of November
Posted by nightphoenix on Sep 1, 2010 in
Process I’ve observed something about myself. I do my best writing when I write for myself, but I do my best art when it’s for other people.
Not that I don’t want other people to read my writing…I do. Eventually. And it’s not that I don’t have readers in mind while I write. I’m always thinking, “Okay, is this going to interest anyone other than me?” and “This is going to bore people” and things like that. But ultimately I write these stories because I want to see them on paper. I suppose I’m writing the sort of book I’d like to read. Even if everyone else thinks the book stinks, I’ll still want to read it. Bit narcissistic, I guess. My point is, I’m not really doing this FOR anyone else. I want people to be interested, but I’m not going to write stories just to please them.
Now art, on the other hand, is a whole different thing with me. And when I say “my art”, let me clarify that I’m talking about the art I do that doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m writing. If I’m drawing book stuff, I’m still technically in writer mode. Other than story-related pieces, I really don’t make art for myself. I’m not one to make stuff that I’d hang on the wall…unless I was creating the piece specifically TO hang on the wall. I think my wands even fall into this category. I like making them, but I’m not so much making them for me as I am making them for Someone Else.
And when I do make art for a specific purpose, or for a specific person, I work much faster. What would probably take me a week doing it for myself, I can create in a day for someone else. The whole process just becomes easier. I don’t know why that is…I’ve only recently observed THAT it is, for me. I don’t do art for its own sake. I don’t just draw because I “feel” like it. I have to have a purpose in mind.
And on the other hand, when I try to write something for someone else? The process bogs down. I hate writing essays, for instance, and how-to’s. Even if it’s a subject that interests me, it’s just never as satisfying as working on my novel. Have anyone else noticed that book and movie reviews on this blog are few and far between? I don’t enjoy writing them. Because it’s the sort of writing one does more for other people than for yourself (after all, you’ve read the book or seen the movie…you don’t have to tell yourself what you thought about it). It’s difficult, and the result is not satisfying. I have to write for its own sake; trying to squeeze an objective in there is hard.
So I have two creative outlets which I enjoy and am fairly skilled at: writing and visual art. My writing belongs to me. My art belongs to the world, I guess. I wonder if I was always like this, or if choosing to pursue writing over art caused my brain to wire itself this way. If I’d chosen to concentrate on art instead, would it be the other way around?
Has anyone else with multiple creative interests noticed something like this about themselves?
Tags: business of writing, the real world
Posted by nightphoenix on Aug 27, 2010 in
Process Found this gem on the inside of Hanson’s Live & Electric album. I’m going to reproduce it here, because it could just as easily apply to writing, or art, or any other creative endeavor.
“For some, music is not just a pastime.
It’s an undeniable fact of living.
A blissful slavery of mind, body and soul.
To rise above the ashes of mediocrity is rare,
Yet the gift of song is freely handed out to anyone who cares to receive it,
Instantly shattering our daily drudgery.
“The path to pursue more than the usual,
More than what is safe and known,
Is wrought with time-sharpened jagged blades that cut deep,
Blocking many from the road to something greater,
Beyond the stunted imagination of their peers.
“Within the veins of the few,
Passion fills every sinew with a sweet unquenchable purpose,
Calming the fear of those treacherous paths.
Though each slice burns and bleeds,
Still they take each cut
And wear the scars with pride to signal their choice,
That undying pursuit of greater joy within every chord.
“And so they say – Watch Me Bleed”
By Hanson. Of course.
Tags: Hanson, inspiration
Posted by nightphoenix on Jul 12, 2010 in
Process So the hubby and I went to see Despicable Me on Saturday. It was an entertaining movie…solid story, solid character arcs, lots of funny moments that weren’t over-the-top. In fact, a lot of the humor was surprisingly smart for a movie of this genre, even the fart jokes and such.
But I was especially struck by the three girls. They were perfect for the role they had in the story, and they really called something to my attention that I hadn’t thought about before: how children are portrayed in movies now, versus how they are portrayed in much older movies, like Pinocchio and Peter Pan. Despicable Me had a tight soundtrack, one where you notice the music because the action in the movie is moving right with it (as opposed to just background ambiance). The three girls’ theme exemplified them perfectly: it kept the hip-hopish rhythm and beat that ran through the whole movie, but it had this very innocent, upbeat flute melody floating on top.
Read more…
Tags: movies and television, musings, reviews
Posted by nightphoenix on Jun 26, 2010 in
Process Last weekend, the hubby and I took Eli to see Toy Story 3 with my mom…and later that night, we saw The Karate Kid (minus Eli and my mom!).
Toy Story 3 was good, but surprisingly…well, dark. I mean, some of stuff those toys were doing, some of the scenes, whew. Just the fact that these are children’s toys makes it all the more disturbing when they imprison and hurt each other, you know? It reminded me of one of the interesting aspects of faery lore: the grotesque is hidden within the enchanting and innocent. Everything seems fine and beautiful, but there’s something…off…that you just can’t put your finger on. Until it’s too late.
But they wrapped up the Toy Story saga quite well. Yes, I cried.
The Karate Kid was a different beast altogether.
Read more…
Tags: business of writing, movies and television, reviews, the real world
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