The Green Knight's Quest

Ok, so I've submitted the hook for The Dreamer's Friend to Miss Snark's crapometer.

Gulp.

Oh well, it's all par for the course...

(can you tell I'm procrastinating?)

Watch out for #638

It seems I will be nowhere near a broadband-enabled computer when it comes up; and I'm getting timeouts on dialup...

(more about how I spent the day tomorrow <yawn> - it was great!)


My synopsis is around nine pages in 1.5 spaced Courier, for a 108K book - too long? too short? Just right? And would anyone mind reading it and telling me what they think?

100,000 / 108,000 (92.6%)

Hach, and it was looking so nice. Kinush sets up the final, tense interview situation. Kinush spends lots of time in library, swatting up. Kinush makes up with his boyhood friend Firtal (the rat!) and tries to set _him_ onto a better path. Then Kinush finishes his preparations, gets the permission he sought, and all is hunky-dory.
Only it isn't, because one of the things that happens is that Firtal is supposed to do something 'in a few days' time' - and that coincides with the major plotpoint.

So I need to change the chronology - first Kinush studies, then, at the last minute, Firtal is ready to talk, taking valuable time away from Kinush _but_ he's a friend in need - and I can end the whole thing on the dramatic note I want and leave Firtal's redemption for another book.

Firtal is a weak character, but he's not evil. I think. Firtal, on the other hand, is loyal only to Kinush, and might move in any direction at all, which makes him dangerous.

Heh.

'Respected member of the fashionable Rhiaton Crowd or vow-breaking maverick' was not a question KINUSH had expected to shape his career as a mage. Acceptance by the Crowd turns out to be not just a matter of testing young mages and teasing secrets from ancient battlefields; it comes at the price of accepting any joke against oneself, however vicious its form. Like his friend MERIOK, Kinush finds the thought unpalatable; unlike his friend, he is not willing to run.
To break the hold the Crowd has over his fellow mages Kinush must find allies among sworn enemies. The corruption of his vows seems not so great a price to pay to ensure the safe of all practitioners of magic, whichever fraction they belong to.

But first, some advice that I found useful. (As opposed to the many articles that made me go either 'I know that' or 'yes, but how do I actually _do_ this?')

Wise Advice from irysangel

The gist is keep it short, keep it interesting, keep it professional; but it goes into much greater detail. Recommended reading!


So... would you like to read the following book?

( Query for The Dreamer's Friend )

I've cheated slightly.

I have a subplot that I don't want to develop right now. I don't want to take it out completely - it's going to be the main plot of the next book - but I don't want to give it more screentime than necessary, so I covered the plothole with a brief piece along the lines of

'They neither wanted to risk taking on the Crowd, nor could they afford it.' <much glumness> and then they start making a list. Insert two chapters progressing at planned, ending with Farilin helping to compile the list, at which point I hope it becomes clear that Kinush won't have much to do with _that_ part of the plot any longer.

I think it works, that's my excuse, and I'll stick with it.

75,000 / 100,000 (75.0%)

65,000 / 100,000 (65.0%)

I'm hitting a part where I've got more holes than before - I'm slowly coming up to the climax, so that's only expected.

I can report with great gratification that I'm editing this in a somewhat distant mode - I'm in love with the book, even though I'm reading it for the second time in the past couple of weeks, I still think it works well, I still love it; but each individual event, each paragraph is examined, and if it doesn't work, it gets cut. Even when it's clever.

Currently stalled because I've found a missing link - I *hope* it got shuffled aside in the reordering and nothing worse; otherwise I'll just have to write a new scene, but there is a minor arc that needs to come to, well, not a resolution, but a breathing point, and right now it doesn't, so I need to stop the line-editing process and think what best fills the scene-shaped hole I've left behind.

And then, eventually, I'll need a query letter (ugh), and a title <quivers in fear>

My wordcount has shrunk!

96,061 / 96,061 (100.0%)

Err, oops. I had counted a chapter which I later cannibalised, so I counted some words twice, and counted others which did not make it into the draft.

( it's a book! No, really! )

I'm also thinking about queries again, and it's the same old same old UGH. How do I stuff that much story into a short query letter? Kinush's goals of a) being accepted and b) finding his friend sound terribly trite when I try to reduce them to two paragraphs.

... and I didn't have time to write it!

And probably won't have time later, either, so I can't finish the darn book tonight, boo hoo.

94,707 / 100,000 (94.7%)

The chapter that's missing is the one where Kinush goes and argues about the necessity for his apprenticeship with Valendon. It's a bit of an awkward thing - Kinush is of the White, Valendon of the Black, and Kinush is no beginner; so this needs special permission from another member of the White Ofran; and Harulik is making him work for it. Hard.

And then I have to stop with him celebrating with two friends who helped him with this.

I wanted to drag it out about half a chapter longer, but decided not to - Kinush with girlfriend and close friend celebrating his new adventure is a good enough ending.

The reason I had to leave out the next bit is that it will provide me with my hook for the next book.

Oh yes, I'm going to commit trilogy again, although not right now.
The next book will be Farilin's; and she's just about to drop a bombshell on Kinush. It would dangle a bit at the end of the book, and I really want the second one to be independent. Farilin's revelation that she's really of the Black and doing an independent bit of spying to find out who organises the Rhiaton Crowd should just do it.


Heh.

The wordcount I posted last time around was false, it included a couple of chapters I've decided to take out after all. So I spent the weekend typing up and scuttling back and forth to the computer.

87,084 / 100,000 (87.1%)

Two important things - Kinush has passed his trial, and he's asked Valendon for an apprenticeship. Before he's accepted, there'll be a grand hurdle - he needs to get permission - and Valendon told him bluntly that doing so might be the end of Kinush's career.

Kinush swallowed and said he was willing to risk it.

Go him. I'm proud of the lad.

And I'm happy to report that he and Meriok are talking again, so *that* part of the plot has been accomplished. 87K and I'm wrapping up - a brief scene travelling, some encounters in Rhiaton, Harulik's permission, and Kinush will ride out proudly towards Kenui.

And then, presumably, I can think about Farilin's story...

78,334 / 100,000 (78.3%)

(Which means I've pulled some files into the count that I had written out of order.)

I'm still on track for 100K, much to my surprise. Valendon is just about to take charge and I've got a tense scene ahead where Kinush and Meriok finally talk. _And_ I have half a clue what Kinush will say - it does not involve grovelling...

Grr. No time to write.

I've put the map of the five kingdoms on flickr - see entry at beyond_elechan. It's still a draft, and will need considerable work before I consider it publishable, but it's fun enough to share.

Words added: lots.

68,832 / 100,000 (68.8%)

I'm not entirely certain that I've got the character arc right for my friend Kinush - he seems to coast along a little too well, finding friendship left right and center - but there is a real test for his mettle ahead of him, so that's ok.

On the other hand, he's just been beaten up, so life is *exactly* a bed of roses. Ever tried to lie down in a rosebush?

The Wordcount first:

57,000 / 100,000 (57.0%)

(a combination of not having counted properly and writing more)

The Good:
I think I'm over the hump. I have a good idea how I'll get from here to the end of the book, what the end is like, what will happen and where; and what changes my character will go through. Mostly. The pacing feels right, and he's no longer the person he was at the beginning of the book.

The Bad:
I'm not certain how to thread a particular subthread into the story.

Right. One of the things that has interested Kinush in Neshen was Neshen's enthusiasm for exploration, in particular a dream to go and explore a particular cave system. (Does he need a reason?)
Other interpersonal stuff happened, they parted carrying grudges; Kinush parted with *his* grudge and apologised, they met again and bond. Other things happen, in which Kinush shows both skill and maturity. Exit Kinush back to Rhiaton and further adventures.

And finally, the Kitchen Sink:

In the draft right now, the expedition thing trickles through, and I'm doing what I'm always doing, throwing every possible interaction *and* the kitchen sink into it.

Now that I'm writing more about it, it is turning into a proper little arc of its own:

( wot happens, in detail )

Eventually, I want Kinush on that expedition. And here, I think, I've got the plot for book three, because he comes along as support staff - the guy who stays at the base camp, who does the paperwork, who'll catalogue specimens and notes, and all of that. It's going to be a big deal for Kinush to a) admit that there's something he's not suited for, b) to play second fiddle while his friends are doing the stuff that will get them into the history books and c) (of course!) overcome his fears and do the dangerous stuff when another man is needed.

Which completely distracts from the topic I wanted to write about because now I can see what my pacing should be like, and that the character interaction needs to change, and now I know why the fragment I have written doesn't work and why there's no point in trying to whip it into shape, so out it'll go again.

55,500 / 100,000 (55.5%)

Excuse me. I need to go away and write. Well, and other stuff, too, but we don't talk about that.

Errm, don't mind me. One project I've worked on for about three years on and off is something called Fontastico, which is a listing of every font I own.

And, errm, I own a lot of fonts. At the last count, twenty or thirty thousand. 5K here, 5K there... they add up.

A long time ago, I printed my fonts on paper and kept them in a folder.
Later, I stuck them on webpages.

Recently, I've finally designed a Filemaker database after remembering that FM will do references rather than pasting 30MB of samples.

Any road, I've got a nice little system of rating my fonts:

- oddness (from ordinary text fonts to very whacky indeed)
- variation (difference of letters - some fonts have upper and lowercase identical, in some fonts every letter is a different typeface)
- weight
- textflow
- roundness
- variation of strokes (some are uniform, calligraphic fonts use different thicknesses)
(apparently this is known as 'contrast' and something the designers at Adobe think useful. Heh. I shall amend the database accordingly)

I know this is highly ideosynchractic, but it works to characterise fonts.

I'm also using an extensive list of categories - equally ideosynchratic.


And suddenly I find that my skills of describing fonts is lacking.

Luckily,

https://istore.adobe.com/type/main.html#

is of help (and I don't have to say how many pages I've trawled through in order to find a description that's useful, eh?)

Overall, I'm happy that the categorisation will help me to find fonts from this collection. Eventually. Using the new scheme etc, I've entered about two hundred, which is not a whole lot, but when you're changing the database and working your way around, that's not too bad.

Just the things one does when the cat needs to be vaccuumed, you understand...



I'm coming to the conclusion that I can't write. The current stretch of The Dreamer's Friend is boring, boring, boring - I might have hit 43K (yay!) but almost everything that happens is internal stuff, and I still haven't worked out how to use scenes - encounters with random people, if necessary, to _show_ this change rather than dump it all in internalisation.

I am slowly reaching the stage where I can see that it is necessary; and I don't _want_ to write internalisation - I guess that counts as progress - but I can't see what I can do instead.

For much of the plot (wagh!) Kinush travels on his own, and he's propelled by drawing conclusions.

I *want* to write more lively prose, *want* to illustrate things with little scenes that move the reader along with the character rather than having most of the plot happening inside Kinush's head - but I don't even know where to start.

In the meantime, I feel that I'm simply collecting plot coupons - he needs to cover X territory and meet Y new people and come to Z conclusions before the next important scene happens.

And I am not happy with the result, but I'm not going to abandon it in mid-mss, because I've got too many half manuscripts lieing about and I need to bloody well learn how to write.

Does anyone on my f-list know good sources - historical, 19th century novels, current novels - for getting into the mind of a dandy? Kinush turns out to be a bit of one.

( not all is fine and dandy with this book )

It's important because it gives people the wrong impression. Kinush's problem is that at the beginning of the book he has achieved all he has striven for for the past few years - he's mastered the level of magic he thought he would reach, he has status in the city, one of the girls of his circle takes him to her bed reguarly enough - now he wants to go out and party!

Life doesn't quite work like that, though, and the longer he's out in the world, the less important society becomes to him. He's got some tough choices to make, and they'll be even tougher if he thinks his old life is open to him. And in a way it is; he even gets sucked into it a bit again before he kicks the habit and decides to look for his missing friend.

There's a lot of motivation I have to juggle there, and I think I made it a bit too easy for him to leave the dandy lifestyle.

32,785 / 100,000 (32.8%)

Hard work. Harder than I anticipated, and this one does *not* write itself, but I'm learning a lot about writing.

I think I have worked out at least part of the reason why the pacing in the fragment I've got is off.

I thought long and high and deep and across and came to the conviction that there was something fundamentally flawed about the pacing, something I cannot seem to fix. And I looked at my main character in particular, and at the journey that lay ahead of him, and came to the conclusion that I've started in *entirely* the wrong place.

If I start earlier, the whole arc about Meriok can be drawn out. As it is, Kinush turns up on his alleged doorstep in chapter one, and is back complaining to his friends about his absence in chapter two, and then sets out to find him. If I go back in time I'm starting with Kinush in a different place.

<unravels> ( behind cut )


The pacing problem wouldn't be a problem if I was writing in my natural habitat - the epic - because then there could have been a whole lot more development in that case and the baddies could be really bad - the trouble I sketched in my fragment would only have been the beginning. As it cannot be, I have to rearrange the arc somehow, start earlier, tell a smaller story without making it less relevant.

I am proud of myself. I feel like a writer - not just that I finally seem to get a handle on pacing, and the shape of a novel, but because I've had an idea I feel was workable. I wrote as much of that novel as wanted to attack; and then I stalled. Instead of pushing on - I could easily have written out of order or bulled my way through the bits I knew would happen next - I stopped and took stock, identified the problem, and found a solution.

Go me!

21,439 / 100,000 (21.4%)

I've just written up to the end of the beginning on something I never wanted to write.

( Not another attack novel? )