Every New Beginning…

…Comes From Some Other Beginning’s End

–Seneca the Younger
–Semisonic, “Closing Time”

NaNoWriMo is over. Let me say a couple more things to add to Monday’s analysis. I really don’t think I’m good at writing Mystery. Furthermore, I don’t think I’ll be writing mystery again. And this is why:
In my last post, I wrote this observation:

• Falling in love with my characters. I have a tendency to fall in love with certain types of characters (mostly female) and then they start to take over the story because I just want to write about them and give them larger roles than they probably deserve.

Then this thought struck me. Why not just write a story with all female characters? Then I could not worry about it.

BOOOM!

Within an hour, I have an entire world, characters, settings, conflicts, everything. It just avalanched out of control. Imagine an isolated planet far in the backwater of the galaxy. The original settlers had a small problem…a faulty Y chromosome cause most infants to be born girls. For countless generations, they’ve formed a highly structured matriarchal society with wars and walled cities. Now zoom in on one city, a high school, a girl, someone immersed in their world’s struggle for survival as males grow scarcer every generation. (Okay, yeah, it would be kewl to be a dude in this scenario, but I’m not trying to write a mantasy here).

One day, our heroine meets a boy her age…practically the only boy her age in her entire city of ~100K…and things explode from there.

I wanted a short story. But my ideas are never small. I don’t know where this idea is going. Right now I’m working on a “journal” concept, that my Heroine is writing assignments for a school writing project, therefore she’s “required” to include backstory in her journal (see I how squeeze that in?).  I’m hoping a few of those could be stand-alone stories. I’m feeling about ten times more energy about this story than I ever felt about the mystery. While it was a nice break to write a contemporary story, I need to stop kidding myself. I’m a science fiction writer, I always have been, and I always will be.

I am going to try to write this with YA in mind. She’s 16 in earth years, and has serious concerns about her life. She’s been slotted to be a warrior, but has never tasted combat. She’s not into the dating scene, but new emotions will surface once she meets the boy. So it’s a coming-of-age in an insane world full of cutthroat bitches and man-hungry hostiles who will stop at nothing to steal your city’s man supply. (It’s really not a mantasy, I swear! The men are treated like prized pigs.).

Oh, and one last thing. My heroine has a cloudy past. The beginning of this mystery (hey, Mystery!) will be revealed one day in science class when she discovers that she’s neither XX nor a feminized XY with a faulty SRY gene. She’s OO. WTF?

I call this concept, “Girl World.”

But I have this small teensy tiny problem. Remember good old Steam Palace? That 120K word tome set in an alternate New England where Sophia Stratton has to defend her country from the mad Reichland Emperor? Well, in a fit of insanity, I signed up for the Writer’s Digest Conference in NYC January 20-22. That includes an agent session where I can pitch my book to tons of agents. Do you know what that means?

Steam Palace and my query letter must be completely finished and in manuscript format by January 20. Holy shit. What about Girl World? What about Christmas? I am really in the deep doo-doo now.

So from NaNoWriMo’s end comes a new beginning, but I haven’t even finished my last new beginning. I better get paid for all this. Fortunately airfare is dirt-cheap ($220 round-trip SEA-NYC) and I found a coupon code for the convention so I paid even less than the early-bird rate.

So wish me luck, I’m going to need it.

Important Lessons

Important Lessons

Well, I’m finally in edit/critique phase of Steam Palace. I’m still looking for a few more dedicated beta readers to help me hammer this into a final form, so send me a note if you’re interested! I’m still looking at Labor Day to start sending out queries. Ambitious, but I can do this, but I could use your help!

So here go the important lessons.

1. Share. I think my family gets tired hearing about my book, but I think this may be because I tend to complain about setbacks and story issues and negative criticisms, but I rarely share all the positive feedback I receive. Things like “[Viola]is one of…my favorite characters in the blog circles.” That’s pretty high praise.
2. Finish. After I read this post by Natalie Whipple, I realized that I’m trying too hard to make everything perfect. I’m not trying to create a best-seller or anything, I just have listened to a lot of advice that new authors need to make a huge impact, so everything must be perfect. I’m beginning to not believe this so much. Every book is flawed. No character is perfect. People will either like my writing or they won’t. It will either sell or it won’t, and no amount of revision will change that. I write how I write, I care about the things I care about. My characters fight and love and care and hate, and if people aren’t on board with them, what can I really do? Move on, that’s really it.
3. Most Writing Advice Sucks. And I’m not talking about endless writing blogs explaining that show is absolutely better than tell even though it triples your word count. I think it’s because most people (and I’m including the professional books on writing) present writing rules as absolute-you-must-follow-or-never-see-publication rules. That’s crap. Everything has its place, even adverbs. And, like show vs tell, everything has a price. No backstory? Then no motivation. Deep POV? Then no broader look at the scene. No adverbs? Then choppy sentences without color. Sometimes, someone just runs fast. I want these fucking rules to be presented as choices, not rules, with pros and cons on each side. The more I try to follow them, the deeper hole I dig myself. Yes, I will continue to listen and read writing advice, but I will try to understand it on a deeper level, not a robotic follow-or-die mentality.
4. Just Tell The Story. I think this is one thing I’ve lost touch with. I’ve been so concerned with making everything perfect, that I’ve forgotten what this craft is all about. Telling a story. About a woman who meets this other woman who she can’t stand at first but by the end of the story they are willing to die for each other. That’s all it is. That’s all I need to tell show. Wow…I just discovered the whole theme to Steam Palace as I wrote this: You can love people who are vastly different from yourself, because deep inside, we’re really all the same. That’s all my book is. Kewl. Check out this great post on Theme by Merrilee. So all I need to do is focus on what my story is and remove all the extraneous crap. Done and done.

Thanks for listening, and don’t forget…NaNoWriMo starts in 100 days!!!!

Iapetus999 and the Olympian

Iapetus999 and the Olympian

It was my honor to meet Olympic Two-Time Bronze Medalist J. R. Celski yesterday in my local 24 Hour Fitness gymnasium. He won the bronze medal in short-track speed-skating in the men's 1500 meters race and the men's 5000 meter relay in the 2010 Winter Olympics. He’s a little guy but very polite and gracious, despite having to face a gym full of screaming female teenagers worthy of a Twilight premiere.

I thought of writing a post equating winning an Olympic medal to writing a novel, but frankly I have no idea what it takes to win a medal. Reading his website, I see that he’s been skating and rollerblading since he was little, and performed in a lot of Junior events around the country over the years. Maybe that’s what I need to be doing…competing, putting myself out there, entering every competition and contest I can find, sharpening my skills like J. R. sharpens his blades.

Then maybe someday I’ll be the one sitting behind the table with screaming girls waiting in line just to see me.

What Makes A Hero

What Makes A Hero

Here is the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry on Hero:

A hero (heroine in female) (Ancient Greek: ἥρως, hērōs), in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. Later, hero (male) and heroine (female) came to refer to characters who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self sacrifice – that is, heroism – for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero)

So the question is, how does this definition fit with the “hero” archetype in The Hero’s Journey?

Most books on fiction writing will tell you that the Hero is the main character of the story, the character with the most to lose, and who must undergo the largest transformation of all. Let’s look at each of these.

Main Character: Most stories center around one main character. This character can be known as the viewpoint character, especially if the story is told in First Person POV. In Third Person, this character has the preponderance of the action and dialog throughout the book. Some writers may attempt to have several main characters (like a Band of Brothers type story). The problem is that you wind up with character starvation…where important parts of the story are left out so the reader winds up not caring about any character. It’s best to focus on one character’s story, and bring in the supporting characters as needed.

Biggest Loser: As the story progresses, a good author continuously raises the stakes. Maybe the story starts out with the main character seeking a donut. (Think Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle). More and more obstacles arise to thwart him on his quest for a simple donut. In almost every story, eventually the main character must risk death, in fact, they must die in order to pass through to the other side. Now this death may be metaphorical, and usually involves the character facing his biggest fear. He must use everything he has learned on his journey in order to succeed.

Transformation: People don’t change. That’s a fact. What makes you angry today will probably make you angry tomorrow. What people do is learn. The deepest, most profound knowledge a person can learn is knowledge about themselves. When it comes down to it, all we are is what we are. The hidden truth is that we can’t change the world, we can only change ourselves. But we can’t really change who we are. So what happens? I believe that it’s about letting a part of ourselves die, and letting another part grow. It’s a rebalancing of our internal structure. It’s figuring out what’s truly important. A hero has a latent ability to be a hero, he just needs to know how and have sufficient motivation.

Now, I’m going to disagree a bit with what I just wrote. The other day I had another epiphany about heroes. One line of thought is that heroes fight an opposing force. Good vs evil. Then I read this post by PurpleClover. I’ve been so focused on Heroes fighting Villains that I lost the true meaning of Hero. It’s all well and good that the Hero face death, and learn something meaningful, blah, blah, blah. This still has nothing to do with being a true Hero. What I’ve described so far doesn’t truly define a hero, it only talks about a couple of characteristics. Even that definition from Wikipedia falls a bit flat. So now I’m going to throw out a new definition:

A True Hero must, by risking death and everything he holds dear, defeat the villain or oppositional force that is threatening someone else.

Defeating your own demons is not good enough. That’s known as therapy. Yes, in the end, our hero gets the donut. It’s the reward for everything he’s gone through. But perhaps in the end, he gives the donut to someone else. He’s undergone some heroic struggle just to get a donut, but he’s learned that it’s not about getting the donut anymore.

In my new WIP I’m working on for NaNoWriMo, the villain has no ill wishes for the heroine. In fact, he loves her in his own way and wants to marry her, take care of her, all good things. She can’t defeat him just to get out of a sticky situation. She must defeat him because he’s threatening her friends and the whole country with destruction. She needs to realize that she’s been with him and supporting him for all the wrong reasons. Of course, once she breaks off the engagement, he really, really becomes an enemy. Yikes!

So here is my summary of What Makes A Hero:

• The Hero is the Main Character of a novel.
• The Hero must be willing to Risk Everything.
• The Hero cannot succeed without Transformation.
• Men should write about Heroes, women should write about Heroines. Go with what you know.
• A true Hero defeats a villain who threatens others.

Did you spot any Bad Advice in here? Disagree with anything? You could win!

I Try Outlining

I Try Outlining

I’ve worked through a bunch of outlining and issue identification for Dawn’s Rise. At this point, it looks like I may be facing a complete rewrite. The plot can’t work as is, and I would basically be rewriting the whole thing. I don’t feel like doing that. I could write endless blogs on the specific issues, but let me summarize it by saying the whole emotional journey and transformations just aren’t right. I’m not saying that it can’t be salvaged, and that it wouldn’t be worth the effort. The problems are A) I feel really burned out and B) I don’t care that much anymore about the story. I’m beginning to hate my own characters. I know I can fix this into a publishable state. It’s just a cost/benefit/sanity issue at this point.*

So, I’m going to put Dawn’s Rise aside for the time being. I’m much more interested in creating new stories right now. I’ve been working on the same novel for 7 months. I have a partial ms, a couple of ideas, and this “new shiny idea” that I’m fleshing out. You may remember me posting a whimsical “Lover’s Journey” last week. I tried writing the same thing from the woman’s perspective (a would be “Part II”), and I wound up with a decent plot. I mean, a really decent plot. It’s a classic romance: a woman has to choose between a life of comfort and wealth or a life of uncertainty with the man she loves. (Don’t ask me why I keep getting engrossed with stories featuring heroines. But the MMC** in this outline is totally kick-ass, one of the best concepts I’ve had to date, very conflicted.). Romance writer? Me?? I already know my pen name: Andrea Rose. Would make book signings…awkward.

What’s interesting is that I wrote a whole story in under 3000 words. I don’t mean a short story, I mean a whole novel-scoped story. Obviously, it’s all telling with almost no dialog. Now, the story itself is laughably bad, and my wife couldn’t stop from laughing (at me) when I read it to her, but when I stepped back and retold it from a higher level, it worked. I started fleshing it out a bit, taking each paragraph and writing a page of details. Ideas began springing into my head: hmm, this would work as historical fiction. This would work as a Western. Heck, this would be awesome as Steampunk, which would require less research and more creativity. Is this the beauty of the outline method? I captured the essence of the story, the emotional journey, and now I can fill in the settings, the dialog, the subplots and characters to make this thing breathe. I think I may start a new blog category called “Epiphany.”

I’m probably going to work on this for a week or so, and see where it goes. I know that I will return to Dawn’s Rise, but I think I need some distance at this point. I hate doing this because I really want to be able to complete DR, but I also want to enjoy what I’m working on. My other hope is that maybe with this outline method, I can craft drafts that don’t require endless revisions and critiques—that I have the “story” part of the story worked out so I can focus on the details, instead of starting with details and working back to the story.

How has outlining helped you?

[Edit]

A couple bloggers pointed out their series on plotting. Here's a quick list:

• http://jordanmccollum.com/2009/09/plot-thickens/
• http://theinnocentflower.blogspot.com/2009/08/dont-dis-map-part-i.html

If you know of more, add a comment and I'll put it here.

[/Edit]

Couple unrelated notes:

• I changed up my blog feed so that if you use something like Reader, you should see some links at the bottom of the feed, including a link to tweet my post. If you don’t, you might need to re-subscribe to my feed using the link on the side of my blog. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it
• Turns out that there’s a secret pinhole on the bottom of my Netbook that resets it. I couldn’t use it for a week because I thought the problem was with the charger. The battery would just not re-charge, and the Netbook would not run on AC power. When I finally found out about the pinhole, it fixed everything. Now I have 2 chargers, which isn’t so bad.

*I have no idea what outline plan this image relates to, so I neither endorse nor discourage it. It’s for decorative purposes only.
**Male Main Character