..is freaking hard. Originally, Kimber was just going to get a little glimpse of Cal, right as he died. But then the kid started talking, and now he's sweet and I don't want to kill him!
I made the mistake of telling Tom this as I was writing last night.
"The character you're killing off... who are they closest to?"
I thought about this for a moment. "Probably his sister."
"Have her be the one to kill him."
"WHAT!?"
...for dramatic purposes, he is, as usual, entirely correct. But I can't do that!!! It was going to be hard enough to let this poor little child die of some disease. But... to have that guilt cling to little Evelyn, would be a nice, if horribly sad, touch. Even if she just *thinks* she killed him, some coincidence or another. But... I still haven't thought of any way she could influence his death. I have no idea. We'll see if I can polish off this scene tonight... or if I'm going to weasel my way out of finishing it for another day. ^^;;
Showing posts with label plot possibilities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plot possibilities. Show all posts
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
flower meanings!
I'm keeping a running list of plants I call attention to, and will probably pull their meanings in at some point. I snagged a .txt copy of the oldest book (1885) referenced on my trusty language of flowers website, and am referring to that as I go along.
The scene I did yesterday... those are locust trees, specifically black locust trees. There were toooons of them by one of the houses I grew up in, and I was picturing a specific grove from the side of our yard as I wrote that bit. The flowers are an amazing thing, they'll come in later. But the meaning of the locust tree is "affection beyond the grave". This is the main reason the tree turns up in my Phisto stories as much as it does, but the more I think of it, the more I like the tree for its own sake. Oddly, I'd always thought of it as something of a scrub tree, but it's actually one of the hardest woods that grows in North America (though bugs eating it somewhat deters from that).
The little white flowers by the creek... I'm not entirely sure what they are, I've been nagging my poor floral genius of a mom with emailed questions about plants all week. I remember so many from my childhood, but, I don't always know the names. But one of the things those little flowers might be is Candytuft. Blooms at the right time of year I think, and the plant structure works...
The meaning? "Indifference".
I got happy chills when I read that, and instantly knew that, if it is candytuft growing there, it was planted after the locust trees, in snide rebuttal to their haunting message.
<333
The scene I did yesterday... those are locust trees, specifically black locust trees. There were toooons of them by one of the houses I grew up in, and I was picturing a specific grove from the side of our yard as I wrote that bit. The flowers are an amazing thing, they'll come in later. But the meaning of the locust tree is "affection beyond the grave". This is the main reason the tree turns up in my Phisto stories as much as it does, but the more I think of it, the more I like the tree for its own sake. Oddly, I'd always thought of it as something of a scrub tree, but it's actually one of the hardest woods that grows in North America (though bugs eating it somewhat deters from that).
The little white flowers by the creek... I'm not entirely sure what they are, I've been nagging my poor floral genius of a mom with emailed questions about plants all week. I remember so many from my childhood, but, I don't always know the names. But one of the things those little flowers might be is Candytuft. Blooms at the right time of year I think, and the plant structure works...
The meaning? "Indifference".
I got happy chills when I read that, and instantly knew that, if it is candytuft growing there, it was planted after the locust trees, in snide rebuttal to their haunting message.
<333
Sunday, November 1, 2009
plot point woo!
Tom is a miracle of plot. Anytime I have a dilemma, or don't know how something is going to work, or need some kind of dramatic thing - I just describe what's going on, he groans and rolls his eyes at how much he hates the topics of my writing, and then gives me some totally brilliant idea to run with.
I was trying to sort out how my character was going to discover the stories of the garden? Asked Tom about it, and he gave me the most BRILLIANT solution. Just enough actual cutting-edge physics to make it plausible, but still cutting-edge enough that I can adjust the actual effects to whatever the heck I need. And it'll work *perfectly* to do just the kind of Moberly-Jourdain thing I wanted.
...I have a bit of physics to go study, but not today. Today, I have to actually *start*. Since beginning a story is so hard, I'm just going to write whatever occurs to me first and go from there.
As soon as I name my main character. ^^;; Thank you Internet for your stacks of reference material - like lists of most popular baby names in any year of the last century. <3
I was trying to sort out how my character was going to discover the stories of the garden? Asked Tom about it, and he gave me the most BRILLIANT solution. Just enough actual cutting-edge physics to make it plausible, but still cutting-edge enough that I can adjust the actual effects to whatever the heck I need. And it'll work *perfectly* to do just the kind of Moberly-Jourdain thing I wanted.
...I have a bit of physics to go study, but not today. Today, I have to actually *start*. Since beginning a story is so hard, I'm just going to write whatever occurs to me first and go from there.
As soon as I name my main character. ^^;; Thank you Internet for your stacks of reference material - like lists of most popular baby names in any year of the last century. <3
Thursday, October 29, 2009
plot...maybe. a character, at least.
There might be one. Okay, not really, anyone reading this knows my writing better than that. BUT! I wasn't really as in love with the idea of doing a series of short stories as I was a month ago, it's just not really exciting me. Coming up with eight gazillion new characters all month, and not having a chance to really dig in to any of them...just felt like a chore. So, we're going Requiem for a Princess with this (I realized last NaNo that that is the novel I want to write), and getting a main character, who somehow or another is going to learn the stories of this garden.
In Requiem (which is by Ruth M. Arthur, and if ANYONE can find me another one of her books - written mostly in the '60s and '70s, nothing left in print now - I will bake you so many cookies in gratitude you'll think it's Christmas), the main character learns the story of a girl from centuries earlier via a series of dreams. They're incredibly vivid dreams, but that's still a pretty plausible thing, and the main girl finds juuust enough traces around the house to find proof of the dreams.
I ran into this problem last NaNo, too - finding a way to reveal the secrets of a location. Tom refused to let me have my main character find an old journal or diary or anything, and I grudgingly agreed to think of something else. Going on the fact that cameras, by their very nature, "see" things differently than human eyes, I let things show up in the girl's photographs that she didn't see herself. That worked. This time around, I have no idea. I really like the idea of psychic imprints in locations, and I'm totally fascinated by the Moberly-Jourdain incident... but getting "a feeling" about a place is far too vague for my purposes, and out-and-out seeing things will make my character sound completely crazy.
I have... oh, three days to figure this out. Good times.
In terms of plot... there should really be some issue in my main character's life that the garden's stories resolve. I'm trying to decide if artistic burnout is dramatic enough - I don't think it is, but it feels dramatic enough when I've had it so much lately. I have a few story elements sketched out, but we'll see what happens.
In Requiem (which is by Ruth M. Arthur, and if ANYONE can find me another one of her books - written mostly in the '60s and '70s, nothing left in print now - I will bake you so many cookies in gratitude you'll think it's Christmas), the main character learns the story of a girl from centuries earlier via a series of dreams. They're incredibly vivid dreams, but that's still a pretty plausible thing, and the main girl finds juuust enough traces around the house to find proof of the dreams.
I ran into this problem last NaNo, too - finding a way to reveal the secrets of a location. Tom refused to let me have my main character find an old journal or diary or anything, and I grudgingly agreed to think of something else. Going on the fact that cameras, by their very nature, "see" things differently than human eyes, I let things show up in the girl's photographs that she didn't see herself. That worked. This time around, I have no idea. I really like the idea of psychic imprints in locations, and I'm totally fascinated by the Moberly-Jourdain incident... but getting "a feeling" about a place is far too vague for my purposes, and out-and-out seeing things will make my character sound completely crazy.
I have... oh, three days to figure this out. Good times.
In terms of plot... there should really be some issue in my main character's life that the garden's stories resolve. I'm trying to decide if artistic burnout is dramatic enough - I don't think it is, but it feels dramatic enough when I've had it so much lately. I have a few story elements sketched out, but we'll see what happens.
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