Tag: plotting

Double Think

Seven triple four began doubting his mission. The Kazmo believed he had a special insight into where the other versions of him resided. The Kazmo were correct, although it wasn’t as easy as they perceived. The silver machines didn’t know or understand that many of his other versions were fakes. Usually existing for about fourteen minutes, triple four suspected these other versions existed to distract the Kazmo and their resources.

That fact scared triple four. If he was right, his other selves knew about the Kazmo and their project.

They probably also knew about him, too, then. But if they knew about him, it could be that the fake others might only exist in his perceptions.

What he needed was a way to figure this out. If he couldn’t, he didn’t have a reason to exist.

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I Notice

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.

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The Walls

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.

 

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During the Movie

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Today’s Theme Music

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’.

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