Tag Archives: fiction writing

by

This weekend wasn’t a total loss after all – Progress Report

sail-73790_1280

Saturday was an early day, no doubt. I got into Anchorage about 7:15, collected a colleague, and headed for downtown. In spite of the time of year, it was pouring rain, and about 45F and blowing 30mph. The weather was much more like that of late spring or mid-fall than late winter. We crossed 4th Avenue on foot, sloshing through the slushy mess of a track the race volunteers had set for the mushers. The conference broke for lunch early as well, so we were able to bop the next block up and watch a few of the mushers go past. One of them was wearing shorts. It feels like I’ve seen that before, but this time it actually felt like it was appropriate attire.

Anyhow, I went to a friends house after and had a grand old time eating too much and playing the dirtiest game in the whole universe. It was good fun. Of course, this morning it was time to pay the piper. Much of the week’s housework was awaiting. No time to do it the day before. I cracked away on that until about 1, before finally getting a chance to sit down at my computer.

Turns out with the sun-room in a cleaner state, it was easier to concentrate. The whole point of this story is that in spite of an action-packed weekend, I managed to knock out the chapter I’ve been struggling with. It’s not great at the moment, but it is a draft, and that’s something. The most interesting thing about it is that it’s shorter than expected and is begging to be followed by another chapter. I had thought this would be it, but when I started getting into the dialogue, it took an unexpected twist. A completely logical and necessary twist, but also completely outside of the plan. Anyhow, I’m sitting at just about 75,000 words, and the anticipated end-length for the draft is now sitting between 85K and 90K words.

by

Distractions

Pencil

I finally gave up on rehearsing my presentation. Provided I can see my slides, I’ll be able to talk about them for 15 minutes, easy. The trouble will be trying to stay under 20! Anyhow, this week has been full of distractions. For lunch today, my wife and I popped down to the coffee shop in Palmer. I brought my notebook, and got to work. She commented that she couldn’t concentrate in a place like that – Too many distractions. It’s the best place for me though. Yeah, it’s full of distractions, but they’re all minor and not particularly engaging anyhow. A barista flitting by to wipe down a table, an elderly couple talking with their pastor about what’s going on in church this Sunday, the woman with too tight pants sauntering by to get her double tall quad-shot skinny late. It goes on like this for hours. This past fall I was stuck. For whatever reason, I couldn’t conjure the words to describe my way past the first few paragraphs on the second chapter of my sub-plot. My solution? Go to the coffee shop and break the jam. It worked, within a few hours, I had the entire chapter knocked out. It may have been rough, but it was there and something I could work with, and it felt good.

For me, the real distractions are work, home-life and TV. We don’t have cable, nor do we live in a place where broadcast is a realistic option, but we do have Netflix. It’s my wife’s one weakness. I don’t complain though, she needs it to wind down. We both do. The problem is that even when I really don’t care much for the show, I find myself distracted by the story-line unfolding in living color on the other side of the room. It would be easy enough to wander off to the sun room and quietly click-clack away, I do that sometimes, but I just can’t do it all the time. My wife and I work off-schedules so those two or three hours in the evening are all we get, well that and the exasperated glances over the children’s glacial routine each morning. If I don’t spend those few moments, we wouldn’t have any moments.

The past few weeks I’ve been in a bit of a rut with my current chapter, which happens to be the last chapter in the sub-plot. What I’d like to do is go to the coffee shop and spend the day with a cup and type a way, oblivious to the random happenings all around, but it’s just not possible at the moment. I suppose until I can make that a reality I’m going to continue to scratch out a sentence here and there in the cracks between responsibilities and family – and TV.

photo credit: Tapping a Pencil via photopin (license)

by

Creepy in fantasy

Wharlock

On a bit of a lark, this weekend, I sat down with my children to watch Jim Henson’s the Labyrinth. When I was a kid, I loved that movie, and even though I haven’t seen it since I threw out my VCR, I still love it. No, the acting isn’t great, but it’s alright. David Bowie’s character is so hard-core 80’s that it would be funny, if it didn’t scare the hell out of me. Okay, it doesn’t actually scare the hell out of me, but the movie IS creepy. The whole thing. It’s not horror movie scary, it just makes you feel vaguely uncomfortable.

For the entire movie, I sat there wondering how he does that. Labyrinth isn’t even the best example of a creepy as heck fantasy by Jim Henson. The Dark Crystal comes to mind. If you didn’t think it was creepy, then you probably didn’t see it, and if you did see it, right now you’re saying Hmmmmmmm Hmmmmm in that high pitched voice. What about Jim Henson’s the Story Teller? If you’ve seen those, I’ll bet the hair on the back of your neck is already standing up. If you haven’t seen them, check them out.

That guy is the master of making fantasy feel uncomfortable. I’m not saying its a requirement that fantasy flex a little horror muscle, but in my case, it’s what the story is missing. I have written a world and a situation where a little bit of creepy would give the story the punch it needs to move it from a pretty good tale, to a damn good book. What Jim Henson does is makes the world, the setting, dark and unnerving, and the characters light and even funny. It’s a good trick because it makes the characters, even the bad guys, engaging and likable in spite of the circumstances. Unfortunately, most of the effect Jim Henson gets comes from the visuals, and so there’s not much by way of technique to lift directly. Instead, I have to figure out a way to make the setting vaguely unsettling with words.

The series that comes into my mind as having something like the ‘feel’ I’m going for is the Phillip Pullman series His Dark Materials. It was more dark than creepy, but it had its moments. I listened to this one on Audio Book a few years ago now, and so I don’t recall quite how he did it. Really though, my book is going to need to have it’s own feel, and I suppose I know what it needs to look like, but I still lack the skill to pull it off. Anyhow, this is one more thing to work on when I start the re-write, and it’s going to require a lot of research (reading). Any suggestions?

Also, I’m not done with this topic. It will be rolling around in my mind quite a lot before this is all said and done.

photo credit: Wharlock DOF via photopin (license)