Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I often think about what might come next in my WIP, plot arcs, character growth, scenes, and dialogue. Sometimes I use what’s produced but I frequently go with something that erupts in my head when I sit down to write.
Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Thinking about what I’m doing in my writing and thinking, and writing and posting to understand what I’m thinking and writing.
See, I had to leave my characters behind and scale the walls once again. First I did it while I was walking, but once I glimpsed the territory, I needed to map it out on paper.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the walls. I’ve never heard other writers use the expression as I use it. The walls establish the characters’ limits of knowledge. They’re different for each character — all remember, realize, experience, or know different aspects than others.
Beyond the walls are the other events taking place that will affect the characters. How much is happening and what you, the writer, decides to share, depends on the story you’re telling. For examples, walls are frequently employed in sitcoms. One character establishes some half-ass fact or understanding predicated on misheard or overheard information, or glimpse something and make a wrong assumption, initiating a chain of misguided decisions. We, the audience, knows what’s going on beyond the wall. That sets up the humor.
We see the walls in the Jason Bourne movie franchise, where many walls are employed, torn down, or penetrated. Secrecy, security, dirty histories, and personal agendas establish and maintain the walls.
In this series that I’m writing, I use multiple walls. A huge part of what’s going on is happening beyond the walls. It’s stuff that wasn’t told to the characters or the readers. Now, though, the characters are storming the walls. They’re planning to tear them down, so I need to go see what’s happening on the other side. To get to that point, I pulled out pen and notebook. I resort to this methodology when I’m going my craziest. Pen and paper is less permanent, and more fluid and malleable. Typewritten words on screen or paper demands grammar, punctuation, and spelling be followed from years of conditioning. The notebook and pen shouts, “Scribble fight!” And off I go.
Got my coffee, and in position. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Young Saroo ran.
“Eleven,” the writer said.
“What?” I answered.
“Saroo,” Noor called.
“Eleven dimensions,” the writer replied. “Think about what eleven dimensions mean. Add it to your research list.”
Ah, time for a back up to an explanation.
My wife and I saw ‘Lion’ at the theater yesterday. The movie began at 12:40 PM. With logistics and travel, we needed to leave for the movie at 12:10. That then, was my target time. To reach it, I needed to leave the coffee shop by 11:55 for the walk to my car and the drive home. Two hours of writing required me to be in my seat with my drink by 9:55. To do that, I needed to reach the coffee shop by 9:45 to set up and order. That meant I needed to leave the house by 9:35, if I didn’t get a pre-writing walk in, 9:25 if I limit my walk to ten minutes, etc.
The ten minute walk was a compromise but acceptable. Regardless, when it was time to pack up and head home to go to the movies, I was still writing. Just when of those days when the faucet is turned on and scenes and words pour out. Cool. I enjoy that.
But the bottom line of it is that the writing day was truncated. That happens. Except, in this case, the writer kept talking to me during the movie.
“Eleven dimensions is not key to the story but do some research for how it might fit into it.”
“Okay. Noted.”
Dev Patel made his appearance as Saroo.
“The key is chi accumulation,” the writer said. “Think chi less as energy and more as particles in this application. It’s like ice, in a manner. An accumulation is what causes a sense of ‘now’. A past and present doesn’t exist; there is only now. The greater the accumulation of chi, the more intense and certain it becomes that now exists.”
“Okay.”
“You need to remember that.”
Saroo began his class in Melbourne.
“Don’t you mean we need to remember that?” I asked my writer.
“Sure, sure, quit splitting pubic hairs. Also, everything has a chi particle variant.”
“Right.”
“But Brett’s chi is like an isotope.”
“Uh huh.”
Saroo is later considering colorful pushpins in a map. He’s frustrated. The pushpins are presented in various perspectives.
“The phenasper,” the writer said. “He needs to see the colors to understand it. Seeing the colors allows him to be an empath but not a telepath. He develops the skill sufficiently to be a hyper-empath and see the saikis but to be a true telepath, he must see through the colors.”
“Ohhhhh.”
“When he can see through the colors, he becomes telepathic. The colors are emotions and sensory outputs as experienced and filtered by others.”
“Right, right.”
“But also, as he develops, he cultures an affinity for the electronic communication spectrum.”
“Right, right.”
“And the energy the machines put out.”
“Right.” Forgetting the movie for a second, I pursued that. “Of course. The machines and their chi help create the now. And they have their own memories.”
“Yes.”
That satisfied the writer’s need for the day. I finished watching the movie without any further interruptions. This morning, then, I had to wake him up as I was walking to write. “Hey. Writer.”
“Hmmm?”
“Wake up. Time to get up. We’re going to go write. I need you to remind me what you were telling me during the movie yesterday.”
“What was I telling you?”
“About the eleven dimensions, chi as ice creating now, and, um, the phenasper and becoming telepathic?”
“Right, right.” The writer awoke.
Got my mocha. The writer is fully engaged.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
The big questions arise. Didn’t we just do this? Didn’t that just happen? Didn’t we learn anything? I feel like we’re going around in circles. Sing it with Billy Preston – ‘Will It Go Round in Circles’.
A character is pushing for this music. She screwed up. They accused her of trying to be a hero, which is wrong, which is not what it was about at all. They don’t care. They set the course of their perceptions long before her actions.
Now she needs a hero. So many offerings out there, musically, but went with David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’. Many renditions are available and Bowie always delivered an excellent show. I chose the recording of his Live Aid performance from 1985.
Again, so the lines follow the characters, or the characters follow the lines. First up is Pram, the Colossus, who is employed as a terraformer despite his wealth. That’s how he enjoys spending his time, turning uninhabitable planets into places where humans and animals can live and breed.
Brett has a separate story line, and we know how Pram and Brett’s paths cross. Now, we also know how Brett and Kimi originally interacted via virtual mail in ‘Returnee’, where Kimi explained their relationship to Brett as Brett coped with being shipwrecked on Earth, his lost memory and malfunctioning Backhand (who insisted on calling him Stephane, which actually made sense later). So that’s all understood. What must be sorted here and now (or sometime in the course of writing this mangled tangle) is what’s going on with Tauren and Kimi? (Keep in mind Tauren’s true identity, which Kimi suspects but can’t yet prove.) (Also keep in mind what Tauren did to Brett, although Brett doesn’t know that – yet, but that’s one of the things he’s to learn – need to define, refine and capture his learning process, too – do a snapshot.) What happens on Kimi’s mission on behalf of Tauren that takes him to Pram in search of Brett? (Oh, does he find out the truth? Interesting thought.)
Last, I must figure out the relationship between humanity’s increasing fear of death (even though they no longer die, because they’re continually resuscitated, thereby causing a proclamation that they’ve now conquered death and space (false and false)) and Tang, and his agenda.
(And what exactly did happen with Tauren? That must be clarified for myself. I need to write a Tauren snapshot. I see the need for several snapshots.)
And the next last is that other piece regarding Brett’s recovered knowledge (about the Willow Glen attack) and how that’s folded into the next sequel. (See, that’s another snapshot.)
What about the diamonds? Good question. Another snapshot is needed about them.
I think I’ll also create a snapshot of the terraforming process Pram follows so those details can be incorporated.
Okay, it’s all becoming clear-er-ish. Time to write like crazy, one more time, and see where these characters and their lines take me.
Giddy up.
Michael Seidel, writer 