Tag: novel writing

Tying Up

I finished another chapter. Serving like a flare in the night, it lit more of the final stages of the novel, Good-bye, Hello, and the Incomplete States series. Seeing those pieces, I re-arranged one chapter and wrote the beginning of another. As I wrote that, the segue off a previous chapter appeared. This was the opening to the final final piece. I laughed at the phrase even while I juggled pieces in my mind and saw it all come together with the ending already written. A chill thrilled me as I read the pieces. So satisfying and fun, visiting this world and these peoples, and all their myths, technology, travels, and adventures. They move into this last phase with hope, but I write with bittersweet inevitability.

It’s been a fun journey with these concepts, and narrowing the focus of the concepts into a tighter and tighter frame. Once again, revelations and realizations surprised me. These mostly involved Kything, Kything, who began as Professor Kything, named in honor of the term from A Wrinkle In Time. Kything was not who they thought.

Kything was not who I thought.

There’s more of him still to be revealed to me. The revelations and patterns remind me of a difficult Sudoku. After wrestling with logic and patterns, hunting for the final solution, a key square was just completed. With it came the insights to finish the puzzle.

Even as I think that it was a wonderful day of writing like crazy, I’m beginning to grow sad, because I see this marvelous journey coming to an end. Yes, a lot of writing remains, and then the the editing and revising marathon begins, but those are different skills, with a separate satisfaction to them, than the unbridled creative flow of raw writing.

I feel a quiet chuckle as I realize, this feeling I have is just like how I feel when I’m finishing reading a good book.

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After the Revelations

This is not how I thought writing would go.

I had a romanticized, glamorized vision about the writing process and a novelist’s life. I thought I would be dictating the story, making it up and writing it down. Instead, here we go again. Philea finishes her wide-ranging tale and brings it back to the moment where it split away,  and joins two other paths. One path was forged by Pram when he told his part of this story, and the other path was forged by the six primary characters on the Wrinkle.

I’ve been waiting for this re-connecting. I’d seen and heard, experienced, if you will, what they were going to say and do once they came back together. Honestly, Philea’s side-trip astonished me. She went into a life that I didn’t know existed. It’s also surprising that it startled her as much as it startled me.

But, at last her side-trip is done. It’s time for those long-awaited next scenes. But before I go into writing those scenes, I need to soak in what Philea and the other characters experienced. She and Pram shared more examples of parallel life-experience-reality-existences — a LERE, their shorthand for other Now events that that lived (or are living) and share with the rest trapped in this cycle.

They’re trying to understand what will happen to them. They’re attempting to take a piece of information and fit it in with other pieces of information to create a substantive, believable cause and effect tale for what they’re enduring. That’s human nature, to fill in the gaps, color them with some form of logic or explanation, and make it all whole.

I feel for them, pitying them, because I know that’s not their nature. That’s not what they’re living. Even as they draw closer to the truth, sometimes even stating it in incredulous terms as a possibility, the six don’t always agree on the verbiage or logic. The logic argues against their standard expectations about reality, existence, and the arrows of time. Besides, not all of their experiences will support the truth, in their minds, because they don’t remember everything that they experience. Remembering more answers less by introducing more complexity and gaps. At this point, I think all readers will understand that.

So listening  to — hah, typing — my characters’ struggle to resolve these new fragments of information, I really feel for them. The passages of their thoughts and dialogue that I’ve typed leave me oddly reflective.

That’s a first, raw, impression. On greater thought, it’s not leaving me oddly reflective. Instead, I’m taking what I learned through my characters’ learning, and applying it to my existence, here in the real world.

We’re all pieces. We see ourselves as pieces that comprise a whole. Yet, few of us ever fit fully, completely, and comfortably. And when one of us goes, we struggle to see the new whole, because we remember the whole that we knew, and lament its changes. We search for answers and rarely find closure and resolution. We remain wondering.

With these notes softly echoing in my mind, I sip the final dregs of cold coffee and end my day of writing like crazy.

4

The Character Mix

Philea’s voice remains strong. She retains control of the story boards, dictating what’s going on. I’d prefer some shortcuts so I can finish the novel (and series, Incomplete States). 

Not going to happen. The characters know what they want to say to convey the scene’s meaning to them and how they want the scenes to portray them. Kanrin is straightforward when he speaks and pragmatic in his actions, but likes to keep his speaking to a minimum, letting others fill the gaps. He doesn’t ask questions, but wait for people to volunteer insights without being prompted. He knows that many people like to give their opinions, and within these opinions are some aspects of the truth, or enough to give him direction. His story telling tends to be direct and shorn of observations. He’s also very patient.

Handley is more scattered. She tends to do free-association streaming of thinking and interaction. She gets angry at people and hold grudges without sharing why with them. She’s also troubled more than the rest by the entire series and its concepts. They don’t make sense to her, and even while she experiences them, she’s attempting to either rationalize them or reject them.

Meanwhile, Pram has become more physical, aggressive, and belligerent. He’s also awoken to the awareness that he was used and that most people don’t consider him a nice person. Yet, is it really him? Or are his interactions being manipulated to drive him to a specific end? Impatient to be free of the circular complications, he’s always asking the others for information.

He also knows from his external memory that he wasn’t always like this, but he’s trying to unwind the cause and effect to better understand how and why he changed.

Because of his experience in Returnee, Brett is more philosophical about the situation and open to ideas about what might be going on. His experience taught him that systems and perceptions can’t be trusted, and that we often only have a sliver of the available information. Brett is also a rememberer, able to recall and understand his other life-experience-reality-existences with greater clarity than the rest, giving him deeper insights into the struggle they’re all enduring.

Richard, another rememberer, is less talented as a rememberer than Brett. When it comes out eventually that Brett is actually Richard’s replacement, Richard becomes bitter and sullen. He wants the others to want and need him, and is desperate to do and say things that will raise his esteem.

Then we have Philea. A scientist in most of her life-experience-reality-existences, she’s the most intelligent of the group. Her intellectual prowess (and technological breakthroughs like her time-traveling machine, Wrinkle), enhanced her value as a target for the organizations, species, businesses, and other entities who seek to master and control the forces that this group have encountered.

Although Philea isn’t a scientist (or engineer) in her current incarnation, her thinking style and logical expression remains similar, but less practiced. Fleeing and jumping the Wrinkle as hostile forces close in and try to take them, her new experiences awaken greater insights in this part being written now. I always knew and respected this piece existed, and that it would come to be written at the right moment. That moment seems to be now. Her revelations awaken the group to greater depths of involvement and complexity.

Still, I was surprised with her introduction and references to Kything. While writing like crazy during the past week, I wondered how this was all going to tie together even as I typed and edited it. Philea dropped the reveal on me at the end of yesterday’s writing session.

Good to write all that up. Permits me to think through the craziness and reassure myself that I’m keeping up with developments.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Cringe Writing

Philea continued to dominate my recent writing sessions. During yesterday’s effort, she took me down paths that had me cringing. It wasn’t the sort of stuff that I generally write. It was contrary enough to my normal voice and style that I considered whether it should be continued. I wondered if she’d breach the series’ borders and was taking off into the wrong direction.

This prompted a guidelines review in my post writing walk. They were good reminders.

  1. Write like crazy. I’m still finishing this book and series. (The series is Incomplete States, and this novel, the fourth, is Good-bye, Hello.) Basically, open the doors, portals, floodgates, valves, lit the fuse, whatever metaphor works, and let it go. Editing is for later, when it’s all done.
  2. The characters are allowed latitude to explore themselves and the story. This has the additional benefit of allowing me to explore the story and characters.
  3. I’m an organic writer. While I know where I expect to end up, the paths I follow are being created as I go. That’s the same with the characters. A compass is used to keep us going in the correct general direction, making corrections as necessary.
  4. Let the readers decide. Readers bring all kinds of conceptions and ideas to stories they’re reading. They find their own interpretation of truths and myths, and apply them. They won’t all enjoy the same books, or even the same parts of a book.

That last point, about readers deciding, emerged from early critique groups. I’d noticed several biases develop in a writing group. Not surprising, as they’re all readers before they’re writers.

  1. Some like to be told everything. They don’t want any gaps in what was said or happened. They don’t want it to be abstract. Others prefer that their imagination fill in the gaps, or that, this is like life, and we don’t always know all of the answers.
  2. Some writers/readers like a leisurely style. The want to slow down and breath in the atmosphere.
  3. Some prefer style over substance, or substance over style. 

I tend to write in a very active voice. It’s my preferred voice. But, I use multiple POV (sometimes first person, but third person dominates). In giving latitude to characters, I notice some of them don’t like a direct, active voice.

After thinking about that, I realize, well, of course. I don their skins and minds when writing from their POV. When I do that, I try staying true to them and their voice. Just like real individuals, they have styles of observing, thinking (and applying knowledge and lessons learned), interacting, and taking action. They carry emotional and physical baggage. These traits direct their voice when the story is being told via their POV.

This wasn’t something I developed on my own. I’m always developing on other writers’ shoulders. This specific point came through an epiphany I had while reading J. Franzen’s The Corrections about fifteen years ago. I later cemented my impressions while reading Wally Lamb, Michael Chabon, Louise Erdrich, Tana French, Kate Atkinson, and others.

Of course, in a qualifying pause, I change up styles to reflect pacing and tension. I use shorter sentences and words in confrontational scenes, epiphanies, fights, and arguments. That brevity contributes to a more direct and intense feel, speaking for myself — yeah, it’s my blog post, right, so who else could I be speaking (or writing) for? — as a reader and a writer. Your preferences might vary.

As a reader, I’m not married to any one style. I like enjoying books and taking what I can from every one of them. Many books end up surprising me, and I like that most of all, as a writer and a reader.

So I cringed and wrote Philea’s part about Holes and The Stipulations. I won’t predict whether it’ll make it into the published version.

Time to get back to writing like crazy, at least one more time. 

 

 

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Startled Again

Once again, the characters knew what was happening. Following the action, I typed.

While all were heading for the same ending, the characters took different paths. Where they frequently demand attention for themselves like hungry little kittens, today, the characters were coordinated about who should go when. “Start and type this chapter,” one said, and that was done. “Continue with this chapter,” another said when the first was finished, and that was done. Meanwhile, the revelations made and the other characters and points they introduced surprised me — again. They talked about things that I’d never considered, leading me into directions that caused me to say, “Wow.”

Two thousand words later, after intense typing, I told them, “I need to stop.” My ass was asleep, for one. My coffee remained, cold and oily, and my stomach announced it was empty and required something be put into it. But beyond those prosaic matters, I wanted to revel in the characters’ revelations. It’s embarrassing and humbling to make this admission, but it’s like I’ve been reading some terrific book, but strangely, it’s the one I’m writing.

I should put that in quotes, as it honestly felt like I was transcribing what I saw and heard. It’s surreal. I suppose I should be jaded by this process by now, but it still strikes me as a surreal experience. It still amazes me. It’s still fun.

I know that I’m not the only writer who experiences writing in this manner. I’m probably the only one who regularly gushes about it in blog posts. I have read other posts where the blogger is skeptical that my sort of process happens. They doubt that I can’t know what the characters know. That’s writing, though, a different process for all of us.

Enough. Done writing like crazy, for at least one more day.

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The Dance

Shuffle, shuffle, step, slide

Pivot, pivot, step, slide

They — the characters – know the dance steps and move smoothly around me on this dark floor. I’m a stranger, striving to follow their movements. Sometimes they slide in quickly, and step back out — one, two, gone — while I’m still trying to engage them. They dance in, say their pieces, and dance away again. Just when I think I’m discerning the rhythm the movements –

Pivot, pivot, step, slide

Another group of dancers have taken the floor, and the music has changed.

Time to dance — sorry, write — like crazy, at least one more time.

 

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Philea’s Voice

Philea didn’t let me down again today. Her voice remains as clear as glacier fresh filtered water. My only involvement was as typist to catch the words as they shot out. It was lovely and astonishing witnessing her character evolve through these chapters. She re-adjusted what she knew of herself and the situation, made new assessments and decisions, and re-discovered her courage, strength, and commitment.

Of course, the story turned corners that were blind to me until I turned them. So the novel and series moves forward, word by word, at what feels like a mincing pace because there’s so much to see, hear, find, and share. But when I step back and take in the entire picture, its breadth and depth surprises me. It’s like walking on a beach, and stopping to see where you are, and confronting the enormity of the ocean’s sound and power.

Great day of writing like crazy. On to other endeavors.

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Today’s Writing #106

The confluence of two events created an excellent writing day.

One, the coffee shop was busy.

Two, Philea seized control.

Maybe due to the Ashland International Film Festival (AIFF), or maybe because of the cold spring rains and chilly weather, the coffee shop was busy when I arrived. I found a table but no outlet for my laptop’s powerpack. Well, I decided, I’d take what I could and write. If a table with an outlet came open, I’d seize it.

Sharply aware of my HP Envy’s short time on battery, I ordered myself to be focused. There was no worry there, because Philea had taken over.

Philea is one of my series’ main characters. I mentioned the other day that I dreamed five muses rode in on horses. One dismounted and transformed into a character, becoming Philea, a character introduced to me when I began writing the second volume of this quadrilogy back in 2016.

Philea has been center-stage since the night of her appearance in my dream. Going back to a previous post about her from January, 2017, reminded me of how strong and independent she is as a character. As before, she didn’t have any stage fright today, but strode out into the action, introducing a quickly realized rich setting, a new character, and greater background information on this leg of her journey.

The bottom line of this confluence: I ended up writing three thousand words in less than fifty-five minutes. There was a lot more in the tank at that point. Philea knew exactly where she was taking me. “I need to stop,” I told her when the computer issued a warning. Half of my coffee remained in the cup.

“No problem,” Philea replied. “I’ll be waiting here tomorrow.”

I hope she doesn’t stand me up. Fantastic day of writing like crazy. I hope every writer has the chance to experience such days.

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