So long, and thanks for all the books
10 years ago
Good Reads
Geek the Library
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
A little while ago, I did a post on why Anne Bishop's recent writing hasn't worked for me. Yesterday I finished Patricia Brigg's new novel, Fair Game. It's a straightforward paranormal fantasy with a strong romantic line, and it's relatively short. But I enjoyed it, for a very simple reason: the story was well crafted.
A lot of author's try to cram too much stuff into a book. A friend of mine recently chalanged me to tell him what my book was about in one sentance or less. Granted, I took a moment or two to craft that sentance, but I could do it. I understand that virtually everything else I'm putting into that story is more or less window dressing for that one sentance. When editing time comes, I need to make sure that what I told my friend my story is about is communicated more than anything else. Sadly, I find that sometimes professional authors can make this mistake, and bury their plot in so much extraneous fluff than a reader can have a hard time finding it.
Happily, Briggs is not one of that kind of author, and that's why I tend to respond well to her work. Fair Game is ultimately about Anna and Charles tracking down a serial killer who specializes in supernatural prey. There's a subplot featuring Anna and Charles' relationship, because every relationship requires constant work. That's why romance novels can be so unrelatable: you don't get to walk off into a sunset forever. There's also an underlying theme of racism and intolerance, but that doesn't distract from the plot. Overall, the book is about as relastic as a paranormal fantasy with werewolves and faeries can be.
Now, I will grant you that one reason why Briggs can get away without a lot of window dressing on her latest books is because she's already done a lot of world building in previous novels. But even if you look at her earlier works, even the pre-Mercy Thompson ones, you see that she is an incredibly clean and concise writer. If something doesn't need to be there, you don't see even a hint of it. She built her incredibly detailed world over a number of novels, not in one foundational info drop. And over the course of her career, those tiny additions and explanations have served her very well.
In other words, she keeps it simple, in the best possible connotation. A well crafted story doesn't need a lot of bells and whistles to entertain.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
A little over a year ago, I attended
a panel on writing, and one of the panelists (herself a published and
successful author) warned that learning to write would for a while kill your
joy of reading. She warned that revisiting some of your old favorites while
wearing your writer's hat may mean that those books are no longer favorites. I
was confused by this. I was teaching myself how to write long form fiction
because I loved reading long form fiction. I wasn't at the point where I was
reading everything I picked up with a critical eye for that author's craft.
Now, a year later, I am starting
that part of my development. But for me, it hasn't been much about being aware
of these things for the first time. Instead, I find myself hyper aware of
things I was already aware of. "Ah, this author has a problem with
effectively building a scene," or "this author has a problem with
characterizations." I was aware of these things before, but now I have
names to put to them, and I understand better how these
weaknesses can affect the entire work. In turn, I can take that understanding
and apply it to my own work. Right now I feel like I need to work on
characterization and descriptions, and so my focus in reading is going to be on
those things and not on things like theme and pacing.
The key to my entering this phase
was twofold. First, I started picking up books because other authors had said
that this author did something extremely well. For example, in panel after
panel focusing on dialogue I've heard two names come up again and again. First
was Elmer Leonard, who writes primarily adventure suspense and mystery. While I
didn't find Leonard's dialogue to be to my taste (I tend to lean towards
characters that are a bit chattier than his), I did find that he is especially
skilled in inserting dialogue into text without having a high number of obvious
tags. Learning to do this transformed scenes I'd already written from choppy
and awkward to smooth, tight, and effective. The second name was Jos Whedon,
of Buffy and Firefly fame. While you can't really analyze
Whedon's work on the page, pay attention to how his characters talk and how
much Whedon tells you about them just in dialogue. No character will talk like
any other character, particularly in Firefly. Even without tags, you
know who’s talking. The dialogue is exceptionally tight and effective. The last
time I watched Serenity I was blown away by the subtext contained in the
dialogue. Learning that level of craft will take me quite a lot of time, but it
will be worth the effort when I get there.
Second, I started writing book
reviews again. When I first started this blog in 2010, I was looking to 'build
a platform' like so many agents and editors advise. If someone is already
reading my work, and I can market professional publications to those people,
then I'm more likely to get a professional publication. Now I'm actually using
this blog and my work at the Ranting Dragon to further my craft, which is a
huge difference. Now I'm talking much more knowledgeably about what an author
did well or poorly, why did I like something and why didn't I like something.
When I was reading a book in order to review it, I was paying closer attention
to the details of craft than when I was just reading for fun.
So far I’d say I've been lucky. I
haven't picked up any old loves and gone "This is trash! Why did I like
this?! What was I thinking?!" But at the same time, I'm finding it harder
to find new loves. The bar for loving an author is so much higher than it was
in the past. It's no longer just about giving me a few hours of entertainment,
now it has to be highly crafted fun.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Once upon a time, I stumbled accross The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop. I thought it was dark, gritty, well written, compelling, and just all around awesome. So I lent copies to friends, bought them copies for their birthdays, and just promoted the hell out of the series in my social network. Not that we thought of it that way then, in the days before Facebook. Every book of Bishop's that I've picked up since then has in some way dissapointed me, with the exception of The Invisible Ring. Her most recent books I've actually been disdainful of. I just picked up Bridge of Dreams (sequel to Sebastian and Belladonna) and had to fight with myself to try and like this book.
It's not badly written. The mechanics are top notch, no complaints. The characters are thoroughly fleshed out and believable. The world building is also fully fleshed out and consistant accross all three books in this series. Why then was I not connecting? Why was I just waiting for the book to be over? Why did I think the book needed to be over about at least fifty pages earlier than it was? Maybe even a hundred, if you edited out unnessary plot lines.
My first realization is that Bishop has decided to pull her punches. It looks like something horrible is going to happen, but wait! It's either not as bad as advertised, or it's mendable in some way that takes little effort. Or both. For example, the main character Lee is held captive by the villians, tortured, and blinded. This is hefty stuff! But almost all of the details aside from his blindness are glossed over. What happened to all the bruises, cuts, infections, malnutrition, and other physical trauma? He also appears to not be suffering from PTSD after this experience, and he should be! This book should be littered with his mental issues stemming from the first quarter of the tale, and it's not. In fact, they are so seldom there that the few times they are mentioned they've lost believability. Finally, there's this magical potion that can reverse his blindness! Huzzah! Bad things happened, and then they all got cleaned up. By the time we get to the point of no return in the story, he's even regained enough sight to wander around by himself. Subconciously, I've pulled away from the story by this point because I know that nothing bad is really going to happen. And if bad things happen, the suffering will be temporary, and at the end everyone walks away into the sunset. The conflict needs to be real, needs to matter to me, the stakes need to be suitably high (and I need to believe that they are high and that victory is not garanteed), and I need to have doubts as to how the characters are going to pull it all off. I have to want to know just how they possibly could.
Another problem is that Bridge of Dreams doesn't really have a main villian. It's a group of villians who are never directly on the page long, those who are are flunkies who are then gone longe before the point of no return, and are given no motivation beyond their action other than 'this is what they do.' I don't care about Lee's struggle against them because I don't care enough about the villians. For that I need at least basic characterization done.
Finally, sheer predictability. By the time we've reached the point in the book where the characters are piecing everything together, I already know how they are going to solve it. There's a few curveballs, but nothing I'm deeply surprised about. The first two books in this series set up the world so well that I found myself reading along, adding everything up, and getting the correct answer. As a reader, I shouldn't be able to do this. If I know what's going to happen, and mostly how it's going to happen, why would I finish reading it?
Finally, sheer predictability. By the time we've reached the point in the book where the characters are piecing everything together, I already know how they are going to solve it. There's a few curveballs, but nothing I'm deeply surprised about. The first two books in this series set up the world so well that I found myself reading along, adding everything up, and getting the correct answer. As a reader, I shouldn't be able to do this. If I know what's going to happen, and mostly how it's going to happen, why would I finish reading it?
A Bridge of Dreams is a weird little love story trying to be dark fantasy. It doesn't committ enough to either tale to be really successful. On one hand, it's mechanically well written. Descriptions are well done and even compelling. On the other, there are so many basic, amateur mistakes in the storytelling that I'm really dissapointed. I know Bishop can do better; her debut book was better! If she had tried to debut with this, I'm not sure she'd have made it out of the slush pile. Not because it's badly written, but because the story is poorly set up. It's missing too many of the hallmarks of craftsmenship that I expect a writer at her level to do all the time, every time.
Please, Ms. Bishop. Take some time to really craft your next tale. I'll love you for it! Because at some point I'm going to stop hoping you've remembered how to write, and just leave your books on the shelf.
Please, Ms. Bishop. Take some time to really craft your next tale. I'll love you for it! Because at some point I'm going to stop hoping you've remembered how to write, and just leave your books on the shelf.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
As a reader, my imagination is often caught by an author's work. When the story finishes, my head is off running far away, asking a lot of 'what if' questions. What if this had happened? What if this character had made a different choice? This is the basis of all fanfiction, and can be the basis of original works. But how do you make the jump from one to the other as a writer?
For the purposes of this post, I'm going to outline my strategies for that using a well known work. If you find this useful, by all means, use to your hearts content. I'm not scared of posting what in the end will be a proposed story for one reason: execution is easier said than done. Even should one of you take the ideas outlined here and write out the story, it will be completely different from what I would write from this same set of ideas. We'd use different details, which if done properly would result in different characters, choices, events, and outcomes. A different story.
So, perhaps one of the works with the biggest fanfiction community currently is Twilight. A basic summary of the first book is that Bella, a female teenager, goes to live with her single father after her mother's remarriage. At her new school she meets a male teenaged vampire named Edward. Edward and Bella fall in love and start dating as Bella learns more about the culture of Edward's vampire family and his way of life. A trio of new vampires to the area challenge Edward's family's control of the area, and use Bella against Edward during the conflict. Edward saves Bella, and they happily go to prom in celebration. In the rest of the post, I'm going to still refer to these characters as Bella and Edward even though by the end of the post, they shouldn't resemble the originals. Changing just their names won't change anything at all. They will still be the same people, doing the same things, in the same story. In order to change the story, and the characters, the changes must be more extensive than surface details.
An easy first thing to change about Bella is that in the original her parents are no longer together and are even living in separate states. A teenager who's parents are still married, or still have a close relationship, or still live in nearby areas, will have a very different relationship with their parents. In the original, Bella and her father aren't close, and her mother isn't present. This leaves Bella free to do a lot of things a teenager might not otherwise be able to do, including manipulate a father who doesn't know her well. If Charlie knew his daughter better, would she be able to mislead him as much as she did in the original? Would he stand by as much when Bella fell apart in the beginning of the second book? Notice that simply changing Bella's family dynamic will change her relationships with them. It will also shift her personality. If she's no longer the child of single parents, would she be as independent of them? Would she rely on them more for things like dinner, gas, or even approval? Adding in Bella's mother is a huge step, because she's almost completely absent from all four Twilight books. You essentially have a new character, because Meyer hasn't given you much to go on. If you make Bella's mom be still married to Charlie and acting as a mature adult, you've completely negated almost everything Meyer has given you. What happens to Bella if she is no longer the adult in that mother/daughter relationship? If Charlie is making pro-active and effective choices, you've also negated much of Meyer's original character. Your changes to characters must be more than skin deep. You've changed their backstory, which is going to change them. Pay attention when your changes to characters negate some other part of their backstory, resolve any conflicts between new and original, and allow those things to express themselves as changes to the characters personality and actions. If your goal is something that can be sold as an original work, find things to negate. The more the better.
How would you deal with vampirism differently? Every vampire book you pick up uses a different set of circumstances. Some are based in old mythology, and some are utterly unique. Meyer uses a very unique vampire, so I'd be tempted to pull back into something more traditional. No sparkles, but to keep the young adult genre and the high school setting, my Edward is going to need lots of sunblock. Maybe he's goth or punk of some flavor and wears a hooded jacket with the hood up no matter the weather. I also don't particularly like the idea of someone who is a hundred years old (more or less) falling for a seventeen year old girl. There's a certain creep factor to it, and I also have trouble believing that someone who is a hundred is going to find much in common with a teenager. I'll grant you they'll feel lust, but I'm unsure of long lasting love. So what if Edward is older, but maybe only in his mid-twenties. Maybe he was still turned as a teenager, but he had to leave school in order to learn control. Now he's back and wants to finish his education. We still have an older male love interest who values education, who wants a normal life, who can hopefully be a positive and mature influence. But he's going to be wearing his scars from his turning a bit more obviously. He's going to be a bit more vulnerable, more tentative. He's going to be more attuned to modern youth culture. He's going to have more in common with Bella. He's also going to be easier to write, because he's going to need to do more obvious growth than someone who is a hundred years old. The more he needs to find his way, the more distance you've put between new Edward and original Edward.
While having conflict between competing vampire groups happens in multiple books featuring vampires, it's worth considering loosing it completely. Again, key and recognizable piece. On the other hand, it can be utterly transformed by simply letting Bella be a protagonist and not a princess in the tower waiting to be rescued. If Bella saves the day instead of running away, we have a completely different story. In order for new Bella to be strong enough to do this, she's going to be radically different from the original Bella. If you choose this path, be sure to backtrack and make sure that your Bella has everything in her backstory that she'll need to be the heroine. Original Bella does not have a great deal of things in her backstory that would let her play, survive, and thrive in Edward's world as a human. That's why in Breaking Dawn she becomes a vampire herself. It's not just because she loves Edward and wants to spend eternity with him, it's because she wants to survive. Giving her those things without turning her into a vampire will transform her as a character. This new Bella will make fundamentally different choices, so the story will go in new directions as a reflection of those choices.
To sum everything up, with a few changes, we've gone from Twilight to something new. I have new female and male protagonists, who have different strengths and weaknesses. They have different familial relationships. They have different problems to solve. They will find different answers to the questions of how to fall in love (and why), and how to defend against violent outside aggression. However, it's still deeply similar to Twilight, and legitimately pulls a lot of inspiration from it without being fanfiction. When shifting a story like this, identify key recognizable elements. Anything that suggests deep seated ties to the original work must go. These changes need to be more than surface ones; they need to go all the way down to the foundations of your story. With something like a teenage love story with vampires, you're going to be compared to Meyer no matter what you do. That's fine, and in some cases my actually help you sell more copies of your work. But your work needs to be different enough that agents and editors will be intrigued instead of bored. It must be different enough that Meyer cannot sue you (and your potential agent, editor, and publisher) for copyright infringement.
Virtually every author does this process, consciously or unconsciously, at some point in their lives. I liked this, but what happens when I change that? It's the amount of and level of changes that take another person's story and makes it your story. You can also take inspiration from multiple sources. Like, what if Bella and Edward had to fight Blade or Buffy in order to win the day? At the same time, I find that proposing these changes is far easier than writing them. Writing fanfiction is writing with characters you already know on some level. Without being able to read new Bella first and write her later, I have to write as I get to know her. I have to figure it out as I go, and I need to think about her long and hard. It's how I execute that thinking, planning, and writing that will ultimately determine whether I have a successful piece of fiction or not.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Over at Jami Gold's blog there's been a discussion about fanfiction and plagiarism raging for the past few days. In reading the comments, I noticed a lot of authors and perspective authors who were completely dismissive of fanfiction and those who write it. I decided that I wanted to add my two cents, but I decided to do it here instead of in Ms. Gold's comment threads.
First of all, anyone who tries to monetarily profit from fanfiction is guilty of copyright infringement within the United States. I can't speak for other country's copyright laws, as I have a hard enough time keeping up with my own. United States copyright allows for derivative works to exist, but there's a very fine limit for derivative works (works that are based on other works) to be able to make money. In the writing world, those limits are exceedingly strict, and fanfiction never fulfills them. Any money (or goods) a fanfiction author makes from their fanfiction is legally viewed as belonging to the original author, at least in part. This includes 'gifts' from fanfiction fans. Differing authors have differing amounts of care about fanfiction, and are more or less likely to sue for their fair share if a fanfiction author becomes known for profiting from their fanfiction. But keep in mind that an author's agent, editor, and publishing house may all also push for a lawsuit. They also put in a lot of elbow grease on the original work, and aren't going to want to give the monetary value of that work away to someone they don't know. That's the legalities of fanfiction.
Now, why would anyone want to write fanfiction if they are planning or hoping on a career in fictional writing? Well, I see several reasons.
First, some people just need to start out working with writing mechanics. How do I write description? How do I write dialogue? Simple, basic things that must be mastered. For some people, using an existing world, concept, and characters means that they can concentrate on those mechanics without having to juggle all of the balls they eventually need to keep in the air in order to be professionally published.
Second, communities like fanfiction.net provide an ever expanding cheerleading squad for fanfiction authors. Many people in the initial stages of learning any craft find positive feedback to be helpful and motivating. Some fanfiction readers are better than others at giving constructive critiques, but that's not what the author is usually looking for at this point, but merely acceptance of and liking of their writing. Some critique is welcome, but not necessarily sought. In my experience, about the time a writer is starting to look for heavy duty critique, they're graduating out of fanfiction writing. Or at least no longer putting a large degree of emphasis on it.
Ms. Gold also pointed out that simply changing the name of a character, where they're from, and other informational aspects of a character does not make them your own. You can not take a fanfiction story, change a few surface details, and then sell it as an original work. If you're making this mistake, there are a few things you have fundamentally misunderstood about writing, particularly about characterization. I'll cover that in an upcoming post. Also, by posting to a site like fanfiction.net and admitting openly and publicly that your work is fanfiction, you can not copyright that work, and therefore cannot publish it in professional or semi-professional avenues. In order to reuse that fanfiction work, you have to utterly transform the work into something inherently different from the fanfiction piece AND the work the fanfiction was based on.
For me, fanfiction is amateur work. I say this as someone who has dabbled in fanfiction. I moved on after a time, because I was more interested in writing the stories in my head rather being constrained by the foundations of someone else's work. You could say I graduated to journeyman level work (or I'm at least attempting to, depending on where your markers for journeyman and master are). But even the best fanfiction is amateur on some level. The author has not created something that is completely their own. They're still copying a master. Just as in the art world, there's something to be learned by copying someone else's work. You learn their style, their techniques, their voice, their quirks. The next step is to take these lessons, internalize them, and make them your own. Fanfiction is work that hasn't taken that next step. Again, I'll post my ideas for doing this in the future.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Well, once upon a time I let this blog go. I had originally started it on some advice I'd read on the web from writers and agents that having a blog is a wonderful thing when you start sending out queries. While I was nowhere near that stage yet (and still am a long ways off), I thought gathering an audience would be a good thing to start on. Except that my blog, which was to support the fiction writing, began to take up a large amount of my time for said writing, which was defeating the purpose.
Fast forward a year and a half: I've moved twice, gotten a promotion, and stumbled across a wonderful site called the Ranting Dragon. It's a SFF review site that is submitted to by several people. They were accepting new guest and staff reviewers, and I thought this might be a nice thing. I can write reviews, still have an audience, but not have to keep a schedule, maintain the site, and all while having someone edit my work. I seem to have made the 'mistake' of telling them about my old blog, however, and now my staff bio links back here. So I suppose I should update once in a while, huh?
Don't get me wrong, I am NOT going to be updating regularly. You'll mostly see links to my reviews and articles when they are posted on RD, as well as any rants I feel like sharing. It'll be hit or miss, but I'll try to stay active. I will not be totally reposting the work I've done for RD, only posting links.
Anywho, on to the reviews posted over at the RD to date:
These last two are old friends. No one had written any reviews of Gail Carriger, so I rewrote mine to match RD's format. Reviews of Blameless and Heartless are making their way through the publication process.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
So, I haven't really added to my word count since my last post. Instead, I've been pondering the question 'where do I go from here?'
While those who have known me for any length of time are very familiar with the act of me writing, I've never gotten farther on a book than I have thus far. It's fair to say that this is the farthest I've ever come on a manuscript. This is good, excellent progress. I've also been doing a lot of research into the publishing industry, and figuring out just what I need to do to get a finished manuscript published.
But...that still doesn't help me get from the introduction to the wrap up section of the book. I'm fairly solidly into the 'building up' area of the book, reaching for the climax. But I still only had vague ideas of how the next 60-70 thousand words were going to work themselves out. Not good. So I sat down and started thinking. What happened before the book opened? Where do I want to end up?
Now I need to figure out how I'm getting from here to the end. Who knows, maybe I'll write the end first, and then connect the two. I've never outlined a creative writing project before, mostly because this is just something I've done on my own and not something anyone's taught me to do. I outline my non-fiction writing all the time, but those are a) shorter and b) follow a very standard, solid format. Intro, thesis, arguments, conclusion. Somewhere in there, there may be explanations and background information, but other than that it's very straight forward and driven. Fiction is rarely like this, and I'm still learning what questions I need to ask myself that my brain will go 'oh! I know that answer!' instead of 'umm....?'
And on top of all of this, I have to keep editing and re-editing.
Monday, February 22, 2010
26714 / 100000 words. 27% done!
So, in spite of being busy, doing lots of thinking and plotting, and then getting sick, progress is still being made. Huzzah!
So, for the past week it's been blessedly slow at the library, which I think everyone but the info desk people were grateful for (the info desk people sit and wait for patrons to help...if there are no patrons it's a lot of waiting.) It allowed those of us who slave away in the dungeon time to catch up, and if it stays slow another week or so we might get the shelves upstairs into a neater order. The bowling tournament has been going well, with two weeks to go. I've been asked to leave my contact info for future opportunities like this one, which I like. I get paid to sit, watch people bowl, write down their scores, trouble shoot, and otherwise think deep thoughts and write in my handy dandy old school notebook. Huzzah!
While I find writing in notebook filled with lined paper to be a) reminisent of old times, when I carried around a three ring binder filled with Story and b) relaxing, since I don't have Facebook or Google Reader to distract me, it has caused some interesting skips in my narrative. For example, I may not want to jump right in where I know I left off on my laptop because then I have issues with connecting the two sections together. I have to verbally sew them up, and that's sometimes awkward. More often, I move on to something else I have floating in my head, which has now left me with a sketched prologued (I may make it chapter 1 just to avoid the evils of a prologue), chapters one through four solidly drafted, chapters six through nine solidly drafted, and chapter eleven nearly done.
If you're any good at counting you'll realize that I've left out chapters five and ten. I seem to be jumping forward and back in my writing, which I haven't done before. I'm not adverse to this new development, I'm just slightly bemused by it. However, since I am at this point convinced that this is a) the farthest into a work I've yet gotten and b) the best effort I've put forth thus far and c) the best work I've done thus far, I'm not going to complain. However, at this point the demon child that is chapter 5 has been ongoing for months and I'm wondering when it will make itself clear and coherent.
I think part of my problem with it is that I HATE writing villains. I don't understand them. I don't find them provocative as such. I intellectually know and acknowledge that villans are integral to any good story, and that they need to be fleshed out just as fully as the main characters. I just unconsciously avoid them. Chapter Five is my first real chance for my protagonist to meet a villain, and I need to take advantage of that and do it. Of course, the question is how, and which one?
I also need to start figuring out what the next ten chapters might/should be, because at this point I need to really start building to the climax.
In other news, the Gecko stopped by yesterday with the best 'feel-better-soon' present: my City map is almost done. **bouts of authorial glee in between blowing the nose**
So, in spite of being busy, doing lots of thinking and plotting, and then getting sick, progress is still being made. Huzzah!
So, for the past week it's been blessedly slow at the library, which I think everyone but the info desk people were grateful for (the info desk people sit and wait for patrons to help...if there are no patrons it's a lot of waiting.) It allowed those of us who slave away in the dungeon time to catch up, and if it stays slow another week or so we might get the shelves upstairs into a neater order. The bowling tournament has been going well, with two weeks to go. I've been asked to leave my contact info for future opportunities like this one, which I like. I get paid to sit, watch people bowl, write down their scores, trouble shoot, and otherwise think deep thoughts and write in my handy dandy old school notebook. Huzzah!
While I find writing in notebook filled with lined paper to be a) reminisent of old times, when I carried around a three ring binder filled with Story and b) relaxing, since I don't have Facebook or Google Reader to distract me, it has caused some interesting skips in my narrative. For example, I may not want to jump right in where I know I left off on my laptop because then I have issues with connecting the two sections together. I have to verbally sew them up, and that's sometimes awkward. More often, I move on to something else I have floating in my head, which has now left me with a sketched prologued (I may make it chapter 1 just to avoid the evils of a prologue), chapters one through four solidly drafted, chapters six through nine solidly drafted, and chapter eleven nearly done.
If you're any good at counting you'll realize that I've left out chapters five and ten. I seem to be jumping forward and back in my writing, which I haven't done before. I'm not adverse to this new development, I'm just slightly bemused by it. However, since I am at this point convinced that this is a) the farthest into a work I've yet gotten and b) the best effort I've put forth thus far and c) the best work I've done thus far, I'm not going to complain. However, at this point the demon child that is chapter 5 has been ongoing for months and I'm wondering when it will make itself clear and coherent.
I think part of my problem with it is that I HATE writing villains. I don't understand them. I don't find them provocative as such. I intellectually know and acknowledge that villans are integral to any good story, and that they need to be fleshed out just as fully as the main characters. I just unconsciously avoid them. Chapter Five is my first real chance for my protagonist to meet a villain, and I need to take advantage of that and do it. Of course, the question is how, and which one?
I also need to start figuring out what the next ten chapters might/should be, because at this point I need to really start building to the climax.
In other news, the Gecko stopped by yesterday with the best 'feel-better-soon' present: my City map is almost done. **bouts of authorial glee in between blowing the nose**
;;
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