Posted by Mistress of Feathers on Aug 10, 2010 in
Fiction (and Nonfiction) Reviews,
News,
Novels,
Writing I read The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau in one day, almost in a single sitting. My husband got kind of boggle-eyed when I told him that, and yeah, I guess that’s a bit quick, even for me. I mean, it usually takes me at least a whole day, maybe two, to plow through a several hundred page book. It was quite a satisfying read…I’ve seen the movie, probably a year ago now, and it was pretty faithful to the book. That sort of conciseness, common to the young adult genre in particular, is something I admire when I see it and something I need to do more. I have a tendency to write epically.
Right now I’m working on Inkheart, another book that I’ve seen the movie of. Pretty good so far.
I have a ridiculous weakness for M&Ms. In case the blog itself doesn’t give that away.
You might notice that I’ve tweaked the sidebar a little bit. That picture (and yes, that is me) is one the hubby took while we were in North Carolina. It was a nice foggy day, which made for some very neat photo opportunities. I also finally figured out how to eliminate the search thingy at the top. I never liked it there. I’ll probably put it somewhere else in the sidebar, so the blog is still easily searchable.
I’ve been thinking about the logistics of the coup Raphel is planning for the city of Aschera. Read more…
Tags: books, brainstorming, Reviews, Shades, worldbuilding
Posted by nightphoenix on Jul 31, 2010 in
Novels,
Writing Maybe it’s because I’m on vacation. (Um, yeah, btw, we’re in North Carolina for the week with the hubby’s parents…) Hard to get any solid writing done.
Or maybe it’s because I’m writing a Saeli/Brendan conflict scene, and that’s harder to do from Saeli’s head. I dunno. It ought to be easier, because I’ve got a solid pipeline to Saeli’s internal state of mind. But for some reason, I’m having a hard time generating the necessary emotion to make this scene work. The scene needs to happen, and it needs to happen onscreen. It escalates the tension between Saeli and Brendan, so that Brendan’s later drug experimentation and subsequent explosion at Saeli makes sense. Otherwise, Brendan is going to look like he’s overreacting, and the reader isn’t going to have a clear idea why.
However, maybe I’m trying to milk it too much. Maybe it needs to be extremely short, and maybe Brendan actually holds back a lot of what he’d like to say. I was going to have this fight undermine a lot of the confidence Saeli has just gained in Raphel…but reading that just now, I’m realizing that I can’t do that. I mean, we’ve just had a big reveal in the story. I’ve turned Saeli’s world upside down, and she needs to ride that for a while. Her thoughts need to marinate before I dump the next big thing on her.
And to some extent, I want Brendan’s blow-up at the graduation party to shock Saeli. She needs to know he’s upset, but I don’t think she or the reader needs to know just how much the boyfriend thing has been eating at him until it all comes out. Brendan’s pain is a major consequence of her joining forces with Raphel, and as such, it needs to hit her at the appropriate time.
So this little fight needs to be short and bitter, but not too intense. What needs to be revealed at this point?
-Brendan thinks Saeli has a boyfriend. Because:
-Brendan ran into Cara while looking for Saeli. Cara, concerned because Saeli hasn’t returned to campus yet, and feeling guilty about lying to Brendan in the first place, tells him the truth and sends him after her. This, perhaps, will also create a little tension between Cara and Saeli. Saeli’s going to have to keep lying to keep Raphel a secret, and this will have the effect of isolating her from her Mantle friends.
-Brendan was coming to tell Saeli that he’s earned the gold and white, and that they’ll be Anjahel together. Finding out that she tricked him in order to sneak off campus to meet a boyfriend has completely ruined this much anticipated moment for him. Thus, he is not happy.
However, the crux of his anger is not specifically that Saeli has a boyfriend. Rather, he thinks she had a boyfriend when they talked in the infirmary, and he thinks she deliberately kept it from him. He also assumes that’s why she tricked him in order to sneak off campus. Brendan is feeling like he’s being played by the girl he likes, and that really hurts. I think that’s the reveal I need to save for the graduation party. Let Saeli assume Brendan is mainly mad about the sneaking out, and then let the truth come out later, at the worst possible moment.
I think I know where this scene needs to go now. Note to self…if a scene is going slowly, maybe there’s something functionally wrong with it, and I need to step back and analyze what I’m doing.
Tags: Brendan, Cara, Saeli, Shades, writer's block
Posted by nightphoenix on Jul 23, 2010 in
Novels,
Writing So I’ve reached the point (again) where Raphel has convinced Saeli to help him overthrow the gods. I had to do it a little differently (again), because her internal struggles are a little different. On the first draft of the story, Saeli was very naive, so Raphel didn’t have to try all that hard to bring her in. In the second draft, she got a lot more shrewd, so Raphel actually had to get a little more scary. This time around, I’ve backed Raphel’s mean streak off a bit, although I think he’s still much harsher than the original version of him. Interestingly, being directly in Saeli’s head has allowed me to play Raphel’s mystery up more. I’m also playing up his seductive nature, and on this draft I’m trying to hold off Saeli feeling outright betrayed by him until the very end, when he goes after Aschamon. That way all the various small betrayals will pile on top of her at once, and she’ll realize just how badly he’s played her.
Read more…
Tags: Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Jul 19, 2010 in
Novels,
Writing It will be so gratifying when I don’t have to say that anymore. Five years is a long time for a project, you know?
I think, I think, that the scene I’m currently working on will be one of the last to involve significant changes to the storyline itself. It’s the scene where Saeli meets Raphel in the Sari Cafe…only now she’s already been given her Mantle, she has to sneak off campus in order to meet him at all, she and Cara had to deceive Brendan in order to pull off the escape, and she’s got a two hour time limit to get back (before the school gates close for the night). Thus, the whole dialogue will have to unfold in a different order to accommodate the changes. Plus I’m bringing over a shortened version of the dedication discussion, since the first thing out of Saeli’s mouth is going to be something along the lines of “Uh, they kind of made me a Mantle”…which isn’t going to make Raphel happy.
Read more…
Tags: Brendan, Cara, Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Jul 3, 2010 in
Novels,
Writing I mean, Geris’ cabal has a name: the Blackports. They hail out of Lanschport, in the southeast…which has a certain reputation even among Cowls. All people of Verre have some particular superstitions about the ocean, and avoid it if possible; easy to do on their world. Lanschport has the notoriety of being the only major city built seaside, which contributes to its unsavory reputation. This, by the way, is information that doesn’t have anything to do with the story of Raphel and Saeli, so it will probably never get mentioned.
Geris takes particular delight in being from Lanschport, but then, he’s a weird, perverse kind of guy.
What would Raphel call his cabal? To the larger world, the name would be mostly irrelevant. Raphel is so famous that his cabal is simply going to be known by most people as “Raphel’s cabal”…they aren’t going to care what he himself calls it. But still, they must call themselves something…every group needs an identity.
I’m inclined toward something like “New Iadnah”, or something like that. The Cowls in Raphel’s cabal, or at least a good number of them, are survivors of the Siege of Iadnah. Raphel met Nasira in Iadnah during the siege, an event which definitely changed his life. It’s an identifying point with them…gives them particular reason to want to assassinate high-ranking Mantles. Only New Iadnah sounds a little presumptuous to me. But I dunno, maybe Raphel would name his group something presumptous. Maybe he did it when he took it over from Nasira when he was 18.
I’ll just have to think about it some more.
Tags: ideas, Raphel, Shades
Posted by Mistress of Feathers on May 24, 2010 in
Novels,
Writing Go me, I even spelled fortuitous right on my first try.
So a month or two ago, there was this author that had been recommended to me, and I kept telling myself I should check her out. Then, at the Cassandra Claire and Holly Black event in Vero, that same author was recommended yet again, by those two no less. I said to myself, “I really do need to look into that.”
Then, of course, I completely forgot the author’s name. Read more…
Tags: authors, books, Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on May 6, 2010 in
Novels,
Writing Gotta give the guy some credit. He seems like such a simple character: classic Boy-Next-Door, the one who’s perfect for the heroine but she just doesn’t see it. (In Saeli’s defense, I’m not sure Brendan’s actually “better” for her, in terms of compatibility. I do think they could have made it work, and work well, if she’d been willing to give him that chance.) But there’s a lot going on with him on the inside. He’s actually a bit darker than most boy-next-doors; he has some anger management and depression problems, though they’re buried pretty deep. Throughout this story he’s going to be dealing with feelings he’s never had to face before, and it’s going to dredge some of that up. (Seriously. Making Brendan angry is like pissing off a volcano. Bad idea. Unless you’re Raphel. He seems to enjoy watching people blow up emotionally.)
Read more…
Tags: Brendan, Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Apr 29, 2010 in
Novels,
Writing …is an experience I’m enjoying. I think part of the reason she’s such a hard nut to crack is because of how much she holds in. First person lets all that come out, while preserving her facade. Part of it is her own personality: she’s a private and introverted soul by nature, and opens up to people only slowly. But part of it stems from her effort to be good enough to wear the Mantle. White Mantle society frowns on open displays of emotion; they are quiet, reserved people (on the outside, anyway). Saeli feels things very passionately, but over the years she’s learned to dampen that fire, and only show what she thinks people want to see. Her face still gives her away if her emotions run too high, though, and she hates that about herself.
Saeli has learned to hold back her emotions to the point where she’s actually made herself a little bit numb on the inside. But once she does accept that she does feel something, it burns through her. I’m about four scenes back into the story now, and she’s spent two of those either watching Raphel or actually interacting with him. She’s definitely physically attracted to him, but interestingly enough, it hasn’t crossed her mind yet. It’s that pseudo-numbness. How she feels is irrelevant to her…how she conducts herself is everything. She’ll analyze her feelings later, in private, probably in great detail. And once she does realize what those physical reactions mean…oh, she’ll fall. Hard.
She’s also something of a pessimist, or at least a cynic, in her head. She always braces for the worst, or she looks at situations and starts thinking of how it could have been worse. She’s always examining herself, asking why she feels the way she does, criticizing herself when what she sees doesn’t line up with what she thinks should be there. She thinks through everything. A lot of that is tied up in years of thinking she’s not good enough…she won’t shake that easily. Raphel is going to nail her with that, especially once she starts dealing with her fears of not being good enough for him.
Saeli also thinks she’s a terrible liar, when in reality she’s a fairly good one. It’s just that she hates lying, and is thus sure it’s written all over her…but she’s so used to holding back that keeping secrets is not that much of a step for her. Brendan is the truly terrible liar. Cara’s average. Raphel makes an art of it.
She’s got some snark in her, sometimes, but it’s not a big part of her personality.
Anywho, that’s where I am with her so far.
Tags: revisions, Saeli, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Apr 23, 2010 in
Novels,
Writing I’m thinking of swapping the point of view in Shades from third person to first person. I figure, hey, since I’m planning on dismantling the beginning yet again, this is the time. The only head we’re ever in is Saeli’s anyway, so it won’t be as big of a switch as it could be.
The thing is, I’ve realized that the one character in the story whom I cannot seem to really connect with is Saeli. Everyone else has a self, a voice that I can feel inside. I can picture that essence and I have an instant grasp on that character; I have a snapshot of who that person is inside and where they are coming from. Everyone except my protagonist, that is. I think the only way I’m going to break into her head is to write from her head.
I actually don’t know if that will work, ultimately, for the story. There are a couple of places in my third person POV where I deliberately back off a little bit from Saeli, for artistic purposes and such. I never lose her, but sometimes I’m in her mind and sometimes I’m maybe a little further over her shoulder. I’ll lose that, but I may make up for it with more direct introspection from Saeli. I need to break her off from me. The problem is, she and I approach life in very much the same sorts of ways: we think things through, try to see it from every angle, we hesitate, we dither, we question every move we make…and we’re maybe a little bit too willing to take people at their word. She deals with Raphel the same way I would, if it was me in her shoes. (Because, you may remember, it was. Only maybe not so bad.)
She’s not really so different from me, but ultimately, she’s not me. And I, as the writer, need to grasp this difference and let Saeli be who she really is. First person would also fit better with the dark, introspective direction this story seems to be going in. I admit, I want it to be a bit more literary than the norm of what’s on the YA shelf right now.
Tags: revisions, Saeli, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Apr 19, 2010 in
Novels,
Writing See, this is what happens during 3+ hour drives with a busted CD player. I had an idea for Shades in the car yesterday, driving back from Gainsville. It would dump the reader into the action sooner, and it would eliminate some of the shadiness of my characters’ early motivations. The problem is, it involves a complete restructuring of the first book. Again.
Read more…
Tags: revisions, Shades
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