In Which I Discuss the Perils of Planning Stuff

Cut to October 31, 2011. I know what my plot is. I know who my characters are. I am ready to get stuff written. Planned stuff. The plot I've (kind of) slaved over for basically the whole month.

Then November 1st happened and all that kind of just melted and slithered down the drain as I barreled blindly forth with the rough equivalent of my plot's deformed half-sibling. I don't even remember for sure what the original plot entailed, but I'm pretty sure the title (Dark Horse) was the only thing that remained entirely intact.

This is the NaNoWriMo strain of plot ADD. Dozens of ideas flutter around my head all October, I stalwartly keep focus on one of them, and then some invisible force slams in on NaNo Eve and, well, "Goodbye, focus! It was nice seeing you! We'll have to do this again sometime! Like, next October!"

Now, frankly, I don't think that will happen this year. I'm all, like emotionally invested this time around. Wonderfall (which is based on my poems found here) is my new adopted child, and I love it, and it gives me seizures when I think too hard about it but I ignore those, eat some chocolate, and plan it anyway. There's this nifty article here in which, I kid you not, the Incredible Hulk totally curb-stomps the Three Act story structure in favor of Shakespeare's five acts, and I used it to draw Wonderfall into a modified six act version. It's the most outlining I've done in a year, and I'm going to do more.

See, this year I'm finally employing the Psycho Person Notebook technique, in which I stuff I comp book completely full with outlining and character bios and random writing resources I printed off the Internet. It's working wonders for me, truly. But there are still kinks to be worked out.

Like POINT OF VIEW. THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE.

We do battle every year. I'm pretty sure I wrote an epic forum post about it last year and everything.

Anyway, Wonderfall has three protagonists: Elias, Connor, and Lorelei, the latter of which is our wonderfall girl. And if you hopped on over to Figment and read the poem, you know she doesn't stay long. Except, we still need to know what she's up to. So naturally, I think, well, we'll do third person limited - then we can go around to Eli and Connie and her and know what's what. Except that, when Elias (arguably the true main character) first burst into existence, it was in the form of a first person and pretty badass opening monologue-type thing. And Lore, bless her, had a very Lore-like second chapter too. But I can't get a handle on how Connor would sound in first person, I'm sketch about attempting two male point of view characters when I've never even done one for any length of time, and I'm frankly not a huge fan of rotating point of views to begin with.

So, I say, "OK, so third-person limited it is." Except I still kind of want to write Elias. I hear him talking. Only, I can't just write Elias, because then how on earth would he know what Connor and Lore were secretly getting themselves into. Grr.

And then, I'm still working on character motivations, which of their flaws to haunt them with, and all that good writerly stuff. I'm doing fine with that. I know Elias is going to be put on the spot for how he's always avoiding drama at the cost of ignoring important issues, and Connor's going to be selfish and ignore how he's been pretty distant lately and call Elias out on it. Stuff like that. It's just, depending on the point of view, certain things are going to be highlighted more than others.

Oh, the joys of NaNo planning. Now, I'm off to go find some rubber cement, because stick glue doesn't cut it when pasting things into a notebook.

750 Words Continues to Be AMAZING

For some reason, it motivates me as much as Write or Die does, even though it's not threatening me with loud, unpleasant noises or electric shocks. I mean, it's 750 words, fast. What else does one need during a NaNo event?

But anyway. The details.

It's basically a motivator to write every day, with the very sweet and simple goal of 750 words. It gives you a space to write, a timer, and a word count, and sends you on your merry way. I suppose it's the mere fact that you're being timed - you develop this need to pump out words as quickly as possible. Everything you write is private. The web site keeps track of how much your write every day, and gives you points based on quantity and (I believe) consecutive days written, and whatnot. You get a score card and everything, and there are monthly challenges to participate in.

What amuses me the most is that the site also builds up statistics on what you write, based on what sorts of words you used. It will give your writing a rating, all movie-style (mine's just PG right now) based on violent or sexual words, or swear words you used. It tells you if you've been writing about death, or food, or family a lot, or if you're mostly positive or negative. And it will give you your averages compared to the site-wide average. So that's fun, plus all the typical averages like number of words and words-per-minute.

Oh, yes. There are also badges to win. Because, honestly, who doesn't like badges? Now, I kind of forget 750 Words during the NaNo off-season (shame on me) so I only have badges for joining, writing three days in a row, and writing five days in a row - but there are a ton of other nifty ones to get. The badges are based on birds, so you can aspire to penguins and a phoenix and what have you.

Anyway, if it's getting into the habit of writing that is giving you trouble, this is definitely a good site to try.

People in My Head

I've never really noticed this before, but when I'm coming up with characters - not particular ones, really, but just the odd fellow for a new story or drabble or what have you - the first two things I tend to come up with are a mental image of them, and how they move. Which is funny, because I've never given a second thought to how a character moves - it just comes about all unconscious-like, and I run with it.

Take, for example, the girl I'm going to drop onto the page tomorrow, who has since yesterday decided she's called Cassiopeia, possibly Opal for short. The very first thing I got of her was her hair (this whole two days, she's kind of been sending little snippets of herself to me), which is super-straight and shiny and copper-colored. It ripples over her shoulders and looks like melted amber when she runs. Then she's topped off by this grey beanie of hers, which looks like it ought to be old and threadbare and holey, only it's relatively new and rather soft. And well, there was my first impression of Opal. The rest just kept dropping into place.

She wears a heavy, army green canvas jacket. The collar is usually up. Underneath that is a long, close-fitting, long-sleeved black t-shirt. Dark skinny jeans, or some days denim shorts with black leggings (but that's mostly when she's hanging around the house). Shoes are usually what's closest to her door at the time - sneakers, sandals, boots. Whatever.

Her face is narrow. Very thin nose, eyes that look too big in her head. I'd say she's rather average-looking, in most cases, but then you see her from a certain angle or temperament or light, and she's lovely. It's that sort of off-prettiness. I think she looks at people sideways a lot - it might actually be kind of her trademark. 

After that, I just sort of see her moving. I don't think about it. But Opal's light on her feet. She doesn't really dance around though, instead moving swiftly in whatever direction she's headed. She doesn't flounce, unless she's being purposely flippant. I don't think that's very often. Her reflexes are quick. I have a very solid image of her spinning gracefully on her heel, fluidly pulling a handgun from where it's tucked at the small of her back.

And then, from all that, I sort of have a feeling of what she's like. I haven't though too purposefully about her personality, because it will just come to me as I get about telling her story. I know that when she smiles for photos she has this smug little smirk, and with her whole get-up she looks like a right little smart-arse, but when she smile-smiles it's very sweet and simple and warming. I know that she's says what she thinks and is very frank about things, but she's very physically contained - her hands at her sides or in her coat pockets. Everything about her says slender. But she laughs easily, just not loudly.

That would be my character creation process, on most days. For me it's pretty much the case that the character is already a person, somewhere, and myself as a writer just drew the lucky card of getting to meet her and figure her out. It's fun when they have mind of their own, after all. It's all about making the writing exciting, and it helps when you haven't a clue what your character is going to pull next.