Writing the Ending

I know this blog is a bit self-centered. I'm working on it but it seems to want to remain that way. It can't be a writing advice blog or a publishing advice blog. One would need some form of expertise in those areas. All I have is opinion, generally based on what I read in those types of writing blogs. All that remains is what I write and what I discover, sometimes just by playing with an idea.

"I don't plot," she said for what seemed like the hundredth time. "But it doesn't mean I don't know where I'm going, even if it takes me a couple of chapters to discover specifics."

So today I am going to play a little game. I'm going to write a couple of final scenes I already know. No character names included. It may be spoiler-ish but who knows? These are not final. They're rough drafts. Things could change.

Character Dossiers: What goes in my Character files

I've read a lot about character development and downloaded a boatload of questionnaires and other tools. Some of them boggle my mind. One hundred questions for your protagonist to answer? An MMPI (Multi-Phasic Personality Index) would be far more accurate and only take a couple of hours. I spent three days (on and off to be sure) doing that one for one of my characters.

Finally I came up with something of my own, with those things which helped me see the character clearer, hear their voice, know where they came from, and where they are going. Although not as detailed as those one hundred questions, it works for me and, yes, I plan on posting one of my actual dossiers later. Just for the fun of it. Care to take a look at the working file?

What's the Question?

I've already confessed I don't care much for the conscious development of theme and such here. It's on my list of current 'failings', I'm sure. I've gone to various writing boards and pages to ask questions. I've finally decided I'm a "special snowflake": I don't choose a theme before I start writing a story.

Oh, it isn't that I don't have a clue. OK, maybe I don't have a clue. But what I always have is a question, which leads to another question then another. The story begins.

For example, here are some of the questions I asked with some of the projects I'm working on.

1. Rain: The initial questions were: Is a one-night stand or getting picked up at a bar always a bad idea? Does anything like love ever come out of them? What if was romantic destiny? Yeah, pretty much very stupid, very risky questions to answer realistically. But why not?
2. Snow: This one came right out of Rain. What if Cheryl's old boss was not the kindly silver-haired gentleman so frequently associated with the job title of judge? What if he were young, unmarried, and attractive? How would Gerry respond when this man shows up? Why/How would the judge? What is he looking for?
3. Familiar Strangers: By this time I'm sure some of us (if not most) have met someone in real life (IRL) we first met online, both in a romantic sense and a friend sense. Can the 'friend' become a romantic partner? What happens when it's discovered they are not what they first appeared to be?
4. Dani's Song: Let's just ditch this worn-out cliché that only a woman can be the Beauty and only a man can be the Beast. Really! What if it was the other way around?

No, none of them will end up answering all of the initial questions. One question leads to another---always. Sometimes---OK, quite frequently--- the question becomes irrelevant or morphs into something totally different. One of the things I've discovered about questions is one must learn to ask the right questions. It makes all the difference in getting the right answers.

I sometimes think I ask too many questions but my characters seem bent on answering them.

The Perfect Question

I subscribe to a lot of blogs and writing sites. One of them I particularly like is Writers Write. Every day in my mailbox I find a writing-related comic, the latest blog posting,  a literary birthday,  a writing-related quote, and a writing prompt. All of them make me smile, think, and sometimes laugh out loud. The only thing I don't like--- they're in South Africa and when they send me an announcement about an upcoming class I growl. "I can't come! You're in South Africa!" Yes, I talk back to my computer screen, don't you?

I really like some of the prompts, though I don't really need them right now to get me writing,  Just as an example I'll share a few.

• List the gifts your protagonist received on his or her birthday. Which one did your hero like best?
• Make a list of five things your protagonist does not want to do.
• Write about missing a plane.
• Your hero and villain are on a train. Where are they going?

Sometimes one intrigues me to the point I want to use it so I do and end up stuffing it into a character's dossier. Today I'm going to take that up a notch and do a posting with a recent prompt. I thought I would apply it to each project just for fun. So here goes.

What is the perfect question to use as the opening line of your novel?

1. Rain: Cheryl's here at the club?

2. Snow: Get placed again in that trice-cursed area of the female psyche known as friend? Not only no but hell no!

3. Dani's Song: What do you suppose the story would be like if the Beauty was a king and the Beast his bride?

4. Troika: Didn't she know she was too small to be lifting weights like that without a spotter?

5. Familiar Strangers: What in the hell did she think she was doing waiting beside Buckingham Fountain in December for a man she had never met?

It's more difficult than it sounds. Only the question for Familiar Strangers and Troika come close to being acceptable. I cheated on Snow by adding Aaron's answer and the question for Dani's Song is in the old narrative voice which I am re-doing for the revision. All of them hold true to the beginning of the story though. Interesting.

Refrigerator Art or Who needs a Whiteboard?

Yes, I've been having problems with my primary project the last couple of weeks.  As I wrote a few posts ago I accidently deleted a major part of a chapter. So I've spent the time since doing a reconstruction. Major pain! I thought I would never get it back together. OK, that was straight Eeyore thinking. I knew what was going in the chapter, where the last chapter ended, and where the next chapter started. It was difficult but I got it done.

Now I found myself facing the next two and final chapters. Things were going to start to get really hairy. Action-- more reveals---more action--- oh, excrement! (yes, I use the normal Anglo-Saxon word where needed but not here)---a little more action then resolution and aftermath. I discovered three different POV were needed to get everything down and on a very limited timeline. How??? The whole process started to get hairer by the paragraph. How I started wishing for a big whiteboard to write plot points/POV on!

I got up to get a cup of coffee and walked by my white refrigerator, a big monster more suited to a family with kids than a single woman. No refrigerator art of any kind. I looked at the blankness and wondered----would a whiteboard marker stain it? I got out a dry erase marker and a wet erase marker then drew with both. No problem. Both came off easily enough but the wet didn't smear when touched. Eureka!

 

 

 

It's not a good photograph but there are three columns with viewpoints A, B, and C then plot points listed beneath with their side of the story. I've blacked them out in the graphic because I didn't want them seen. (Sorry my dears!) . I can draw lines interconnecting them, scratch in specifics where needed, and literally see three POV's at once. I will also pass it frequently on my way to the coffee pot. This is good.

 

Now I will write one character at a time then combine. With steady effort (and some already written parts) I should finish within a week. WATCH THIS SPACE!

 

 



Just tell the story already!

I like stories. I like telling them and I like hearing them. I recall a college professor telling us that southerners are natural storytellers. I don't know about that but it seems to be genetic in my female line. My mother was always telling me stories. And I have found other folks in my family and acquaintance who tell me they have stories to tell.

But they are so reluctant to tell them. I sometimes exchange an email with a cousin who recently told me he had been trying to tell his life story for quite some time now but everything kept getting out of order. I could hear his frustration. Maybe I misread him but this is what I wrote:

I'll give you a couple of tips about writing to get you started.

• Just write like you talk and to heck with what your HS English teacher said.
• Use a tape recorder (if you can stand the sound of your own voice) and simply tell the story to it.
• You have grandchildren. Do you tell them stories? Have Lynn get out a video camera and let her tape the event. Your children and grandchildren would cherish the recording. . .and you can write something down after.

The point is. . .don't let those stories go untold. DON'T Mama told stories all the time. I wish I could remember half of them . A story doesn't have to be five pages long. Some stories are/were just a few short sentences. Like the one Mama used to tell on Grandpa (Papa) and Grandma: One time Grandpa got mad at Grandma about something. He started in on her, apparently something fierce. And kept on and on about it until he ran out of breath and stopped. At that point, Grandma stood up , started clapping and singing an old gospel song. Grandpa stared at her like she had lost her mind. "Frankie! What are you doing?!" "Oh," Grandma replied, "I thought the preaching was over and it was time for the singing."

I loved that story. It wasn't long but told me so much about my grandparents. I bet you could tell a few just like it or similiar anyway. It isn't long; it doesn't have to be. Now your turn----tell me one!

 

Life is so full of stories and people who want to tell them. And so many are afraid their stories just won't be good enough. I certainly can understand that. But it begs the question: good enough for what? Telling your children or grandchildren? Your best friend? A group of friends?  A very large group of strangers? The audience will decide the value or merit of the story. Just tell the story already!

 

 

Yes, this all sounds a little presumptious. I'm not an author yet but I've simply heard people tell stories then dismiss their ability to tell one. My cousin isn't the only one I've ragged on recently.

Writing Clutter and Quilting Pieces

I find it interesting to go through old document files. One can find all kinds of interesting tidbits: poems you've forgotten (sometimes with excellent reason!), old letters you've written and thankfully didn't send, and snippets of stories you started but, for whatever reason, simply never continued with.

Heaven knows, I  have enough on my 'writing' plate right now but I found at least five things I started but never worked on. What happened? I dunno. Perhaps they simply weren't working or going in a direction that led nowhere. They should be deleted from my files I suppose, like stained tee-shirts you  don't want to wear out in public anymore and you know you only need so many 'I'll need painting clothes' in your dresser drawer.

But, like some old clothes, you simply don't want to toss them out. There must be something to be done with them. Maybe I'll just pack them into a zip file and call them quilting pieces. My grandmother did that and my mother did it, too. They might just make a nice quilt some day. The pattern may simply not be apparent to me right now. Shall we look?

Quilt Scrap #1:

Of all her incarnations and forms this one had worked best for the job; she had to admit it to herself. Margaret Cochrane could have modeled for any one's grandmother: not too tall, round and plump, carefully waved silver hair with a touch of blue, and a peaches and cream complexion. With just the right amount of laugh lines, of course. But she couldn't say she really liked it, although people did seem to respect it. All right, except for that time in northern France during the witch hunts. Her resting quarters seemed to mirror her form. Comfortable, lived in, and filled with a hodgepodge of human artifacts.

 

"Margaret!" The call was getting shrill now.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" She called back at it. The glass surface of the antique mirror was mottled to begin with; now, it was swirling and twisting with all shades of gray and a touch of purple. Really, Max had such an old fashioned approach to communication. The last time in the office she had tried to talk him into getting on the Internet or maybe just a fax machine.


Quilt Scrap #2:
 

The screeching howl was ear-shattering, an angry, full-throated note that cleaved through the air and seemed to hang there for several seconds. Daria cowered beneath the rocks, unable to move and unable to look. Her eardrums rang despite the hands she clasped over her ears. Above the ringing came another sound. . .speech. No, not a speech. A word, a single word.

“NO!”

The timbre of the voice was unlike any other. It was almost human with an underlying hiss and vibration that coated her skin with terror. It was a shout. Sheer volume told her that but the words were human.

 “INVADERS! MURDERERS! DAMN YOU ALL!”

 Daria opened her eyes at the epithets. Cowering under the rocks was no longer an option. She didn’t care what Philippe had said; she didn’t care about the terror crawling over her skin. The one who was shouting those words was a threat. Fear and shame coated her inside. Phillipe was in danger and here she was cowering in the rocks like a coney, leaving her brother to face whatever it was with only the semi-useless Mark at his back. She was the trained one, not him.

“NO!” Daria shouted, a faint echo of the booming voice. She ran out of the cover of the rocks, slipping a steel-tipped arrow into her bow. Her eyes really didn’t start to focus until she drew back and sighted along the arrow’s shaft. Phillipe was no where to be seen but a dark figure loomed on the mountain’s edge, a winged figure with a tremendous span. Where was the owner of that voice? She glanced swiftly left and then right. Phillipe’s fallen figure laid deadly still with a simple dagger next to him. Idiot! Where was Mark?

“NO!” She shouted again, sighting down the shaft once more. The creature started to turn. Daria let the arrow loose and had another one ready to fly without even thinking of it. A sudden gust of wind threw up a cloud of dust and small gravel. Daria’s vision was cut off as the dust stung her eyes. For a few seconds there was nothing but darkness shot with only brief spears of light. It was enough. A pair of large strong hands seized her wrists, striking her bow from her hands. Daria strained against the thumbs but was only partially successful as her free hand was immediately grabbed again and her arm twisted painfully behind her back. There seemed to be a dark wind rushing all around her.

“Let her go!” It was Mark’s voice. “You don’t want her! You want us!”

“No! I want you to suffer as you made her suffer. Men! The Storyteller was right. You are killers of life and hope. You took mine from me now I will take yours!”

 

 

Scrap or quilting blocks? I'm not quite sure.

An Almost Never-Ending Writing List

So I'm writing, that's been established. I thought I would actually write a list to keep myself honest and on track. Do I know what I'm doing? That is a question I don't know the answer to right now. Who knows?

Writing projects (as of December 2012)

StClare Chronicles (all are "working" titles)

·                 "Rain" first draft completed April 2, 2013

·                 "Breaking Precedent"

·                 "Fatherhood"

·                 "Couples and Pairs"

·                 "Scenes from a Wedding"

·                 "Snow"

·                 "Summer Heat"

·                 "Evelyn and Alexander"

·                 "Spring Break"

            Of all those, only one is complete and it's a short story which will probably never be published or even submitted for consideration. Two are being written right now; three have only been started. The last three are just ideas with titles and principals in my head. I don't know if I dare even begin them right now. "Snow" really doesn't belong here but it started here so I'm keeping here.

Fairy Tales

            "Dani's Song" is complete; actually has been completed for some time now. It was written back in the 90's. Two laboriously printed copies were given away to the ones I dedicated the story to. It was a birthday present, you see. Currently I brought it back out, decided it wasn't too bad. So I've teamed up with my friend Tasha,an artist who likes fairy tales and fantasy, and we (she, actually) are working on some illustrations. When the illustrations and editing are done, "Dani's Song" will go up on Kindle.

            "Dragon in the Snow" is another one. I have started writing snippets but have put it on the back burner, so to speak.

Other Projects

            "Familiar Strangers" is the third major story I'm working on. Like "Rain" and "Snow", it's a romance, aka 'love story', too. Heck, all of them are. Some are just more traditonally romances than others. But that's another posting.

Future Ideas

·                 "Taste of a Man"

·                 "Troika"

 

            I think I'm going to stop now before even more pop up in my mind. Now to get the bloody things written and some characters (who shall not named--nags, the lot of you!) off my back. Enough, wouldn't you say?

 

 

 

 

 

Today's Quote:

 

The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly.- Corra Harris