In The Garden Living an RPG Life

Yes, I said 33 days.  I started in earnest today doing the prep work.  The next few days will be dedicated to collecting notes from wherever and making sure I know where they are.  Today, I collected all my “how to write” notes into a Freemind file on my laptop.  Tomorrow, I’ll be putting them all on a second drive: backing up the novel early!

I’ve started wondering what the actual structure of this year’s story will be.  I know what story I want to tell.  I just don’t know all the twists and turns.  One trick I play on myself got formalized today.  It’s the word count building strategy.  Generally, we have strategies to build our word count when we run out of steam.  For example, instructions from one character to another is a good way to build word count.  In one of my novels, I used my need to research geography by sumarizing the research as a presentation of several arguments in the field.  Another time, I used my need to study for the FCC exam to fill out word count.  I just put a lot of the elements I had to learn into a context.  Which leads to how I formalized my strategy.

In a file called “word count” I made a list of things I will need to pay attention to in my story.  There is a wonderful short story called “The Things They Carried”.  When in need of word count, show don’t tell, what is being carried in a ladies’ purse, for example.  Far from being filler, it can become a way to show character, setting, culture.  It happens that the world I’m building is based on the fabric trade so what is carried as a purse can be important to the story.  Again, it’s also a way to fill the word count well when the story stream runs low.

I found a great book on drawing costumes and that helped me think about how to organize what they are wearing.  What I like about doing these kinds of lists, the preparatory ones, is that I find myself asking when or why a list might be used in the story.  It gives me material for a scene that builds character and culture.  I now have a scene planned that has a young girl seeing a town in the throes of a market convention for the first time.   I knew what her role in the story would be and it’s important. She is after all the title character. What I didn’t have was the lead up and revealing kind of story bits.

That’s what I use word count padding for: to help me fill in the necessary parts of the story.

In all the advice about worldbuilding, having a sketch of the important bits is more important than knowing all the details.  My online writing “mentor” Holly Lisle has a method that she’s come up with after creating a couple of world bibles before writing the novel.  I like my lists of things the story needs.  Like weather, landscape, economics. Why? Because in this novel these things are important.  That was the lesson Lisle learned: create only as much world as you need to tell the story effectively.

Remember, I said I wrote this out in Freemind.  That means that there are lots of sublists.  One of those sublists is from a special episode of the Shakespeare and Dragons podcast, Monsters.  That episode, which was created to help raise support funds for the podcast, gave me an important concept for not just this novel but for the whole series.  So, I used the monsters character sheet to make a list in my lists.  In the process I discovered that role playing character sheets can be useful in making characters for novels.

I don’t take the categories literally sometimes.  There is a category called “reach/space”.  When my characters encounter the “monsters” how will I express “reach/space” for them.  They are a couple of women who know little about the world.  At this point I don’t really know.  This is what makes it fun: the intrigue and the puzzle.  Oh, and “saving throw”… How is that going to be expressed in the novel.  While this kind of thing might not generate a lot of word count, it is such an intriguing question that I am sure it will keep me writing.  It might turn out that I write it and don’t use it in the final novel.  That’s what revision is for after all, isn’t it.

I’m yawning. Time for bed.  Early start tomorrow.

Oh! Almost forgot.  Got my Catrina fabric in the mail today.  Slightly disappointed with it.  Why? I didn’t get the measurements right.  Didn’t notice that until last night when I was redoing it. I posted the pattern as 18″x24″ rather than 18″x21″, a proper “fat quarter” yard of fabric.  It’s my first doll panel.  My first contest.  My first fat quarter.

There are a lot of good things though.  I absolutely love the sound and feel of the fabric itself.  I love the scale of the image. I bought a yard of the fabric: one panel for myself and one for Gretchen.  I will figure out what to do with the leftovers another time.  Did I say how much I love the fabric itself?  The sound of the scissors cutting through it, the sound of it as I flap it to straighten it out, the texture.  I didn’t get the same feeling with the samples.  Too small to make that big sound.  I think I’ll like the fat quarters though.  Could really get to like them a lot.  Enough to run my hand over.

Hmm… I know what I’ll do with the misprinted parts of the yard I bought.  Will share later.  Bed time now.

Listening to Shakespeare and Dragons again. Stark’s finally not only sorted out what the hell teachers meant when they asked for the theme of a piece, but he’s also helped me see how to describe my story and its world.

When teacher’s asked for the theme of a story or an essay, they seemed happy when the student came up with some kind of statement. Love is Blind. Love Conquers All. Stark starts by defining “thematic subject”, an abstract concept that the story revolves around. “Love” is the thematic subject of the previous statements. It’s the distinction between the theme and the subject of the theme that helps me out enormously.

The Power of the Spirit, or the Power or Dangers of Technology, are the thematic subjects of Star Wars. The characters respond to this subject according to their characters or personalities. The theme is revealed by the reactions and responses of the characters, especially by how the individual characters align themselves with and away from the thematic subject. It’s this alignment through which the story is told. The theme of Star Wars is The Spirit Conquers Technology. Thus the theme is what the author feels or thinks about the thematic subject.

Think of an anthology of essays and stories on a particular topic, say Nature. Within each piece on the inside each author reveals her theme. Some of them may be the same. These we would group together. If we were looking for movies that discussed Technology we would be looking for the author’s, or director’s or even photography director’s response to the topic. These words—discussion, and topic—are useful to maintain the distinction between theme and thematic subject. What is the piece about? This is the thematic subject. What does the creator say through the characters and situations in the story about the subject? This is the theme, the result of the discussion. The deepest, most satisfying stories might be the ones that examine their thematic subjects from a variety of perspectives, that yield a bouquet of themes, complementary and revealing.

So, what does this have to do with my story? What are the thematic subjects of my stories, of my world? I don’t know. I think there is a position, a topic. I just haven’t yet found the statement that defines it. I’m discovering this through the characters… I hope. Maybe there doesn’t have to be one at the start of the piece. Maybe it comes in the revision process. I’m writing to discover the characters and their setting. Hmm. This suggests that one thematic subject is Relationship. Specifically the characters have a relationship with the earth. I am beginning to believe that their relationship with each other depends on that first, primal relationship with the earth. This is what is showing up in this novel. Because of who she is, and she has no name yet, she has one relationship with the earth. Since that relationship has changed, she has changed and that change affects the marriage relationship.

Wow! That’s the most intelligence I’ve applied to this NaNo process. Now, the other characters can be shaped based on the subject, choosing along those lines. Well, I don’t know that I will be shaping them. My characters usually just reveal themselves and I shape their stories to work together. I might also be able to create better opposition to the hero, whoever that is. I don’t seem to have one in my stories. I usually write about victims. I wonder what that’s about. No time to consider. He’s talking about how to build the world and the story through the characters, character design, while keeping things like thematic subject in mind.