it’s just an old writing scrap…
Today, while going over some of my old files (organizing… or maybe procrastinating from chapter ten revisions), I found a scrap of an old project. Just a single typed page of writing, nothing long or involving. The document properties says that I haven’t touched it since March ‘08.
I know it’s mine. I know the characters. It’s based off of an old version of ‘The Artificer’s Angels’. I even recognize some of the turns of phrases that one of the character uses. After a good twenty minutes of strenuous recollection I have an inkling of what might have been going on, but I can’t be sure of that either.
I don’t remember writing it.
The funny thing is that it’s really, really good. The tension is excellent, the conflict hits in the gut, the dialogue has the stiff flow of the very angry, the description is short and vivid. The worst that can be said for it is one or two contradictory narrative lines. And then… and then it ends. In the middle of the scene.
… I kindof want to strangle the author.
(If anyone wants to feel my pain (or tell me that I’m delusional and it’s not that good) I’m posting it unedited under the cut.)
leptodactylous
The word of the day is ‘leptodactylous’ (lep-teo-DAK-teh-lus).
Adjective. “Having abnormally slender fingers and toes.”
See this? Ring size 3.75. I could have gone down to 3.5. 
In the event of confusion, this is my new promise ring. Sortof like an engagement ring, but without stress, wedding plans, or formal announcements.
elizawyatt.net is back up
Well, sortof.
The design of the site is up. Some graphics are final, some are sketches stuck in to represent the artwork that still needs to be done, but overall, the layout is looking close to done. Thanks for everyone who bore with me while I wrested for control over my domain information with the old (going out of business) host.
a literary confession
I have never read anything by China Mieville.
He’s been recommended to me for years, actually. I remember… three years ago a fellow I knew raved about it for several minutes. Blogs praise him, word of mouth loves him, authors that I love love him. But I have never read anything by China Mieville.
As it turned out, the Sandpoint library had a copy of Perdido Street Station. I’ll let you guys know how it goes.
anyone know any good steampunk fantasy?
It’s been established that I’m going to be working on a magical-steampunk sort of setting for NaNo. And I’m really excited– I love the style, the ideas, the flavor I’ve got in mind…
… But it occurs to me now that I don’t read much steampunk.
In fact, the only steampunk that I’m really familiar with are in webcomics. Namely, Girl Genius (great, fun comic, though its creators use the term ‘Gaslamp Fantasy’), and the more serious, violent Freak Angels, which is post-apocalyptic steampunk. The Phoenix Requiem is Victorian-style fantasy, but not at all ‘punk’, so though it’s a great story, I don’t think that it counts (obviously we need more mad science). Some of the Final Fantasy games also fall into this category, though loosely.
So. In an effort to delve a little more into the genre, does anyone know any really good steampunk novels that they’d like to recommend? Plot and humor-wise, Girl Genius is very suited to my tastes. I know my plans bastardize the genre a little as I also have a magic system.
nano plan
It’s a bit early for it, but with National Novel Writing Month a bare month and a half away, I thought that I’d outline my project and a few of the details. Anyone participating in NaNo is welcome to add me to their buddies list– [my profile].
The Artificer’s Angels
POV: Third person omniscient. Currently out of fashion, but nonetheless holds promise.
Rating: PG – PG13. I’m in the mood for something lighter.
Genre: Fantasy.
Sub-Genres: Magical-steampunk, action/adventure, romance.
Most grave robbers take the jewelry. This one stole the body.
On a tour of a mechanist’s laboratories– her brother’s workplace– Merrily Soarin wanders off, peeks into an ajar door, and discovers a boy in a glass tube. Just before Merrily is caught, she could have sworn that he looked at her. As if he were still alive.
Enter master artificer Maxwell Gallows, once famous, now infamous. He’s been looking for his son’s corpse for a long time, and meeting Merrily Soarin was the best thing that had yet happened for his search. But there are a few problems.
Maxwell Gallows would rather kill Merrily than repay her for her help. The mechanist is an old enemy, and won’t back down from a fight. Resurrection is illegal, and protocol dictates that the recipient be destroyed. Leo, the artificer’s son, is so damaged that his next death will be his last no matter how brilliant his father. To make matters worse, in an attempt to steal some of Maxwell’s old projects, the mechanist accidentally activated one.
Major Characters:
Leo Gallows – Leo has a good, level head on his shoulders, and unlike his father, he has a strong conscience. He’s unbearably shy around girls, and doesn’t take well to Merrily’s constant hugs. He’s on his way to becoming an artificer in his own right.
Maxwell Gallows – Manic, driven, brilliant, but also self-centered and elitist. He doesn’t take well to being helped by a farming family, much less a religious one. He’s killed Leo twice in lab accidents.
Merrily Soarin – Cheerful, impulsive, accepting, and the bringer of hugs. Merrily spent half of her childhood working on the farm, a quarter taking stupid dares, and another quarter trying to resuscitate injured animals. The family has a little graveyard beyond the garden where Merrily buries the ones that don’t make it.
Paul Soarin – One of Merrily’s five older brothers, Paul bears the nickname of ‘Shadow’ for his tenancy to conform and follow.
Abraham Gennyson – A strong mechanist, Paul’s boss, and one of Maxwell’s old rivals. Abraham is brilliant at clockwork, but does not understand biological engineering or magic.
Uriel – The prototype Maxwell used before he tried to rebuild his son after his first death. Maxwell pulled Uriel out of a hospital morgue, but in the process of resurrecting him, erased his memories. Maxwell thought it was ironic to give him the name of an angel.
fantasy, epics, and genre blends
Macro world-building is to epic storylines what micro world-building is to…?
It’s occurred to me more than once that epic fantasy quests tend to be the standard cliche. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’, Martin’s ‘Song of Ice and Fire’, Abercrombie’s ‘The First Law’. I might even accuse Neil Gaiman’s ‘American Gods’ of being an epic urban fantasy. There’s no shortage of untried boys off to save the land from the evil overlord in this genre or hard-hearted antiheroes stumbling into wicked schemes that demand their reluctant action. Our writers have a tenancy and a reputation to dream BIG. … Myself included. The siren call of royalty and massive catastrophes is hard to resist.
But what happens if we shy away from epic? What if the story is told on a smaller scale?
This isn’t a new idea, really. If contemporary novels used the same scale that fantasy novels used, the world would be overrun by Tom Clancy wannabes. We have mysteries of all different flavors, low-key romances, social dramas. An abundance of ideas and subjects to choose from. A multitude of things to work with, corporations, cultures, attitudes, ideas…
Maybe the real world just has more to work with. Maybe, when we go to draw out our world maps, we’re doing ourselves a disservice and cutting out ideas that don’t need maps to sketch out. Fantasy is a setting, not a genre. Perhaps an expectation of flavor… the same way science fiction, westerns, and historical fiction are all ’setting genres’, where a content genre can be (and maybe should) be added.
Are there any really good fantasy stories that ‘write small’? Have they escaped notice? Or are they just not that interesting?
they’re just that good
Last week, I rented one of my favorite movies, “V For Vendetta”, as my boyfriend had not seen it and was sure to like the intellectual anarchy. Well, it’s two days late now, and I’ve found myself rewatching it a few times as I work on my book. It’s a good strategy– watch part of a movie, go back to the story, flip again. Especially an intelligent film that keeps your mind working.
I’ve noticed something that the movie does, though, that never occurred to me before I started watching it back to back.
The writing almost never includes setup, or how anything was accomplished.
For instance, in the very beginning of the story, V is introduced as a hero, madman, and genius. And strangely, this is all done in stylized dialog.
“Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.
“The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
“Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.”
I could probably spend a good couple of posts going over the stylization, alliteration, and concept of strong, over pronounced dialog as a form of characterization. Let’s skip all that for now, and move on now that anyone who hasn’t seen the movie has an idea of V.
V proceeds from there to lead Evie to a rooftop, where he speaks with her for a moment before Big Ben chimes midnight, then pretends to conduct an orchestra. The police-state broadcast system starts playing classical music, the building beside where V stands is destroyed with explosives, and fireworks are set off, the biggest and last being red ones that form a ‘V’ with a circle about it at the end of the show.
So… to do this, this character is assumed to have hacked into a high-security government system, sneaked into a building, rigged the entire thing with explosives that would destroy that structure and only that structure, added a fireworks show, and set everything to go off in sync to a timer set just after midnight. Later, we find out that V is badly burned, and the mask isn’t just for decoration.
And the audience just accepts that he can do this. V is brilliant. We’re convinced. He’s just that good. Excellent characterization and genius in details and small things can override logistics and improbability. When weighed against other factors, it turns out that the logistics just aren’t important.
Inversely if V were written by anyone else…? I doubt it would have worked at all.
In fact, imagine that we had a weak character and a full description of exactly how said person managed to do A, B, and C. I think it would fall flat, even as a perfectly plausible chain of events. Mystery versus description, the mystery has a much stronger case than one would think.
novel infidelity (nanowrimo, and that next thing…)
There are fifty-one days between today and National Novel Writing Month 2009.
One month and twenty one days. Seven weeks and two days. Fifty-one days. Thirty-five weekdays. One month, twenty days, thirteen hours, ten minutes until the starting gun at midnight (from the time of writing).
I’ve got forty percent of Blue Crystal to revise still (though chapter eight is getting a major face lift at present). One chapter fixed a week (optimistic, as I’ve got the teaching job going again) means that it’ll take another five to six weeks to finish revisions. That last one or two weeks for polishing just might not be enough time to really finish final polishes, and I’d hoped to start agent searching before NaNo starts.
Why?
I’ve got a really, really fun story in mind to start on next.
Back two years ago, when I started Blue Crystal in NaNo 2007, this was actually my second idea for the fall project. My first choice was this yet immature idea, at the time a co-written sort of idea/plot that I just didn’t think was ready for a 50k marathon. Now, after two years of mulling in the back of my head, a go-ahead from my former partner to change, develop, and write the story without him, I’m more than ready to get started. It has everything that Blue Crystal doesn’t. Mad scientists, an awesome villain (he rams a screwdriver through his head in his first scene), an understated romance, and a sunny, Victorian-esc setting with a steampunk flair.
NaNoWriMo does something to me. I’ve participated twice (once on Blue Crystal’s first draft, then in ‘08 with Blue Crystal’s third as a blind rewrite), and I’ve won both times. Before I started NaNo, I’d difficulty finishing anything. So here’s the problem: do I set Blue Crystal’s last changes aside and concentrate on the new thing knowing that a short attention span is my biggest writing weakness, or do I go full-bore and wear myself out literary-wise before November comes around? Or should I be prepared for both and see how things go?
It’s getting awfully hard to concentrate.
fight scenes
“Battles are like people. No two are exactly alike.” (Ad-libed from Joe Abercrombie’s ‘Before They Are Hanged’.)
As a known Joe Abercrombie convert, I should preface this by saying that he is much, much better at fight scenes than I am.
I started this blog partly to show the progress on my novels, then partly to discuss writing theory and craft. Lately I’ve been working on revisions (59% done), and there’s not much to tell there that’s not a private discussion with my test-readers. And what I have been learning about writing at this time… it seems to make so much sense that I have to wonder if I really have any right to lecture anyone on plot theory, or style, or character development, or anything related. The longer I teach college, the less qualified I seem to be. So far from ignoring the book or the blog, I’m really hard at work. At this point, I’m still on track to be looking for agents come November when I’ll start my next book idea for NaNoWriMo (also: I’m really excited about this).
Back to fight scenes.
The more I read and write them, the more they seem to have a lot of character. That character comes almost directly from the limitations of the participants. What can the character see? What exactly is going on from his perspective? What can they do about it? (Oh, really? You think that they can pull that off?) It’s easy to get caught up in where the character ought to be at the end of the fight, but not the play and direction of the battle itself. The desire to get the character on the other side of the room when they’re not set up right can be overwhelming.
In an effort to organize my thoughts on this, I figured I’d go point by point.
1. Long sentences and description of any sort slow down the action. If you want a fight that’s fast paced, you’re going to have to cut down on the commas, nix the adjectives, and accept short actions and play-by-play writing.
2. A fighting character can not keep track of everything going on around them, and can be confused easily themselves, especially when it comes to taking their own wounds. This is something that Joe Abercrombie does that makes his fights so realistic– he’ll stick in short fragment of description instead of saying that the character was knocked onto their back. If the character doesn’t know what the heck is going on, why should the reader (if you’re writing in first or third POV)?
3. A fighter doesn’t think about reacting any more than you think about how to type. Personally, any time I start thinking about where the keys are located on my keyboard, my work gets riddled with typos. A practiced fighter has their moves locked into muscle memory. They react. They do not think actively about every stroke. There may be yelling. They may not realize it at the time.
4. People are very fragile. People are incredibly tough. (Don’t you love it when writing comes in paradoxes?) Real fights have real consequences. Scars can be more than decoration. Bad knees, limited flexibility, poor balance, all of these things can come out of a victorious battle. A good punch to the side of the ear can snap a man’s neck. Others can survive bullets through the head. A six foot fall on one’s neck can be just as deadly as being crushed by a maul, but miraculously men have survived falling from planes with faulty parachutes.
5. Fighting two men is not twice as hard as fighting one. If you’ve got two men on you, kill one very, very fast, and preferably not while standing between them. Three is even worse. Four and up? From personal experience with martial arts, three on one can’t be added to. There’s just no room to slide in. This of course varies with the weapon and type of combat.
6. Take your time with combat. Develop it, give it a ‘face’, a feeling, an environment. Change your language choice to reflect the sort of mood you want to create.
7. Be true to the point of view. Don’t show things that shouldn’t be seen. Not every stroke needs to be accounted for, and it will feel still and too crisp if tried. Even an omniscient POV focuses on the major actions.
These are my initial thoughts, anyway. Feel free to add anything that I’ve missed, as always.
