Category Archives: writing

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Writer’s improvement hell – developing themes.

Notes Mess

I have precious few hours remaining before Sunday is over, concluding my week off for writing. I didn’t manage to accomplish my goal of having a first full draft. I just stacked too many other things on to the week. It’s not that I didn’t make progress, because I did, I just didn’t make it as far as I wanted to. Part of the problem though wasn’t life, it’s that I continue to get hung up on things that need to be fixed. As I’m some 82K words into the book, going back to make some edits that work in various elements every time I think about them is no longer practical. I’m better off writing the idea down and setting it aside to include for the next pass-through of the draft.

One of the things that has begun to really take hold of my mind is theme – or themes, I suppose. In writing the War of Shadows so far, I haven’t been focused on theme, instead concentrating on hitting plot elements, character development, and increasing tension. Theme hasn’t been at the front of my mind. Now that I can go back and think about the story as it is, I can start to pick out weak threads of theme that are running through the book. In moving toward the climax and resolution, as well as set-up for book 2, I’m finding that theme is becoming an essential component for the story to hang together.

In every literature class I’ve ever taken (you can count this on one hand, I’m a computer programmer by training, and research analyst by profession), I’ve hated the discussion of theme. This originates, I think, from high school lit. classes where a book is read and discussed with inadequate context. Now that I’m older and can combine much more knowledge of history and politics, I can now better see what some of these books were trying to do. However, as a young person, they made little sense, and digging out any sort of meaning was a tedious and sometimes painful experience.

So if I hate discussing theme so much, why have I brought it up?

Because, as a writer it’s important. It’s important for the reader too, even if they don’t realize it. For the writer, the themes you choose help to guide the characters and plot. It acts as a bit of glue for the story as it progresses, themes also give a ‘feel’ to the story. I’ll offer up all of the Middle-Earth work by Tolkien as an example. A theme of change or diminishing of the world is present throughout all of those stories. This theme helps to tie the stories together, and also helps to make the change feel vaguely sad, but not tragic – much in the same way that we wish we could go back to places and times that are gone, like a child that has grown and left the house.

For the War of Shadows, and it’s associated series, I’ve got a few themes in mind that I’m looking at developing. There are several options at this point, because it’s still a fairly early draft. The one that’s at the front of my mind right now is the concept of ‘perception of choice.’ I suppose you could call it destiny, but it’s not quite like that, it’s not a pre-ordained sort of situation, it’s more that the characters are being pulled into a much larger conflict, while believing they are acting in their own interest for much more limited goals. It’s less along the lines of the chosen one, and more like the situation in Star Wars Episodes 1-3. Each side believes they are fighting a war for their own interests, but it’s not like that at all. The Chancellor is acting the puppet-master to reach his own goals. Really what’s going on is that the protagonist believes s/he has a choice, or is somehow in control of events, but in reality there is no choice. Another example comes from  the Harry Potter series, though it’s really a very minor theme. An example of how it shows up is near the end of book 7. Harry has the choice of chasing the horacruxes or uniting the deathly hallows. He chooses the horacruxes. In the book, you have the sense that this is a real choice, but it’s not. Harry will still have to destroy all of the horacruxes and face Voldamort. It’s only an illusion that he might have a choice.

The question that comes up for me as I consider this and attempt to work out how to go back and include it, is how do I pull this off? First off, I’m going to try and be subtle about it. The theme is generally present, but a few conversations muck it up a bit. I need to go back and revise those so that they don’t tread on this concept. It’s not anything like a major revision, just modification of dialogue, and motivation. The next thing that needs to happen is that I need to play the concept up a little bit in places where it’s missing. In those places where it’s not present, it will result in a certain amount of discontinuity in the story.

The next question, I suppose is why am I picking this theme and expanding it? Does it even matter? Yes, it does matter, the main reason I’m expanding this theme is because it’s going to be the backbone for the plot across the books. It’s not going to be spoken to directly, but the motivation of certain characters and the reactions of others will depend on this theme. It provides a framework for the plot and characters. So, I may dislike the discussion of theme, but it’s starting to seem so essential to me that I’ve got to master it, and understand how to use it in my favor as a writer.

 

photo credit: Spring via photopin (license)

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The ruggedly handsome rogue hero.

I suppose the ruggedly handsome rogue hero, is technically more appropriately called the lovable rogue, but I like my description better. I could try to write a how-to here, but that’s pointless, because there’s a lot of that out there and everything I’ve seen I generally disagree with to a certain extent. I’m also not out here to pick a fight with other bloggers or advice givers, so picking apart someone else’s analysis isn’t worth the time. Instead, I thought I’d rather muse on three of my favorite lovable rogues. These would be Han Solo, Malcom (Mal) Reynolds from Firefly, and Uhtred of Bebbanburg from the Saxon Stories series*.

First question – Who would win in a fight if they were all pitted against each other at the same time? Uhtred is from the 800s, and only has a sword. I expect he would go down first. Both Mal and Han have firearms. Then Mal would go down because (Wait for it … ) Han shoots first.

Now that’s sorted out, who is the most roguish? Before I can tackle this question, I need to discount the killing of bad-guys. It’s an occupational hazard of the stories these characters appear in. Let’s start with Han. Turns’ out he’s actually a scoundrel. Yes, he comes back to save Luke at the end of movie 1, and he sticks it out through the series, even leading a dangerous expedition on Endor, but his back story is one of real crime, and his motives throughout the rest of the movies aren’t clear – I suppose it’s for the love of Leia. What about Uhtred? The most notable bit of roguishness involves the double-crossing and sacking of a Welsh village. Most of the rest of his exploits involve fighting with Danes, and as it’s part of a war between the Saxons and Danes so I’m not sure that counts as roguish behavior. His back-story has him turned out from a noble Saxon family to be brought up by Danes. Now for Mal. His day job involves running illegal cargo, BUT he’s got a strict set of rules about what that cargo is. He gives up jobs that directly hurt regular folk. His back story involves being on the wrong side of a war. I hardly count this as roguish. Once again Han comes out on top.

What about the strict set of rules this character lives by? In my opinion, Mal really has the best and most idealistic set of rules, generally centered on letting people live their lives. I can’t tell you what sort of rules Han lives by – he’s a scoundrel. Uhtred lives by the sword, and the oath. I’d put him second in the strong belief’s category.

Who’s the most ruggedly handsome? I don’t care.

I could go on, but I think that’s enough. What’s the point of this musing? To be honest, this is some rubber-ducking to help me work out a main character. I hadn’t initially imagined him as a lovable rogue, but that’s where it’s landed. This is one of the reasons I’m having trouble making the character really pop (because I’m fighting against this characterization). Now that I’ve accepted the reality of who this character needs to be in order to make the story work, I need to make sure that I do it right. There are a whole lot of ways to achieve this type of character, I just need to settle on one and go with it. I’m thinking of placing him just outside the not a lovable rogue sphere, but slightly more on the soldier quadrant.

 

LovableRogue

Do you have a lovable rogue? Where does s/he belong on this chart?

 

* By Bernard Cornwell. You need to read this.

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Milestone

I took the week off (most of the week – I have a budget meeting on Thursday) to work on finishing a first full draft. It was a fairly lofty goal given that I’m trying to squeeze in the rest of life during this period. I’m not sure I’ll quite hit the end of a full first draft by Sunday evening next week, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility either. Here’s what I’ve accomplished so far since Friday night:

  • Finished the third re-write of chapter 10, which is much better now.
  • Rewrote chapter 17 to fit changes in plot better (this was actually a pretty major rewrite)
  • Wrote chapter 18 – this rounds out a major sub-plot with a brother.
  • Started chapter 19 – I have 1000 words written as of right now.

All of the work I’ve completed above is not in what I would call a polished format, it’s very much draft. Chapter 17 still needs some major work, but I’m going to save it until I go back through the book again. The issues are largely related to character development and I want to try and address all of those problems in one or two passes. Chapter 18 is very short, and will probably need more detail, but it’s plenty good for a first draft, and chapter 10 still needs a considerable amount of polishing. My target, right now, is 21 chapters, meaning I’ve got to finish up 19, with two more to follow (this alone is likely to be 10K-12K words). I haven’t ruled out the possibility of inserting as much as a chapters worth of material earlier in the book to explore some character elements a bit more.

If you’ve read to this point, I suppose you’re wondering what the milestone was, after all I didn’t finish the book or anything. Well, the original target was 80K words. With the start of Chapter 19, I’ve hit that mark. Given the direction I want to go, and the additions I know I need to make, the new target is looking more like 90-100K words.