CHARACTER ARC

The character arc is fairly simple.

The character is morally deficient in some way, is “needful”, that is, needs something that will fill the gap. The character may well be unaware of his/her lack, or desperate to hide it.

The character WANTS something. This goal is not the same as his/her need. In fact the real story lies in the friction between what the character WANTS and what, for the purposes of growth, happiness, equilibrium etc, he/she NEEDS to fill his/her deficiency.

Between the Character and what he/she wants is the obstacle. If there was no obstacle, there is no story. In simple terms the obstacle is the opponent and on the bald face of it defeating the opponent and gaining the object of the hero/heroine's desire is the end of the story.

Ah, but...

It's not so simple.

Because the goal and the need are different, it is possible (nay, probable, in a properly constructed story) that obtaining the goal is the WORST POSSIBLE outcome for the character, morally. His/her heart's desire will be his/her undoing...or rather, his/her moral flaw will undo him/her if he/she hasn't filled the moral hole at his/her core, and obtaining what he/she wants without obtaining what he/she NEEDS is, from a story point of view, fatal. Consider Citizen Cane, for instance.

Very often, in the pursuit of the hero or heroine's heart's desire, the moral compass is lost and the “good guy” starts to behave like the “bad guy”. Pretty soon James Bond is impossible to distinguish from SMERSH, and you get Smiley vs Karla instead.

Another way to look at it is that the story is the universe testing the character flaw to destruction. Change or die, if not actually, then certainly metaphorically. Stories are all extended metaphors designed to explore one aspect of the human condition.

Anyway, the character arc.

So we have our hero or heroine wanting something but encountering an obstacle. So now he/she needs a plan. He/she needs to act. And as the universe in the form of his/her opponent reacts, we have the struggle. The plan and then the battle. The war, even.

And at some stage the hero or heroine has to realise the truth about him/herself. The central, undeniable, black and unpalatable truth.

Then it is time for that last moral decision. It comes down to this:

Gain your heart's desire. Win. Achieve your goal...but sell your soul to do it;

or

Give up the thing you have hungered for, turn your back on it, and retain/regain your self respect.

Quite often the hero or heroine giving up what they want leads to actually gaining it, if not in exactly the form he or she imagined it.

That's it.

Conflict

Okay. Currently reading The Comic Toolbox by John Vorhaus and I’ve had a bit of a lightbulb moment.

We already know, if we are sad writers seeking a blueprint, a template or even a toolbox, that stories are about characters, those characters want something (goals) and those goals are frustrated (conflict). We understand also that the conflict should escalate, that the stakes should get higher (for the character), things should look very bleak just before the end  and ultimately success depends upon a final decision by the character.

We have also come across the idea that the character has got two actual goals…what he (or she) WANTS and what (s)he NEEDS.

Thrown in there somewhere also are the ideas that the story has a theme, and is really about that theme rather than the stated story goal. So that a rags to riches story has to show that the hero/heroine deserves his/her rewards by the end. That’s where the moral viewpoint of the writer (and reader?) comes into play.

So here’s the lightbulb moment.

The conflict of the story is ultimately the conflict between the character’s WANT and the character’s NEED. Not just the conflict, but the theme too.

Mr Vorhaus points out that the default setting for the need is “Love”. And that’s what got me thinking.

In the Seven Basic Plots, Booker makes a strong case for stories all following that template where the main character has to negotiate the worldly traps that might turn him/her into a monster/miser/dragon whatever. And the secret ingredient is the Ego and The Self (Jungian version). In layman’s terms, selfishness (Ego) will win you earthly rewards but leave you lonely and bitter in old age. Selflessness might bring you less immediate reward but might save your soul. All a bit religious and fairy tale but convincing nonetheless.

More later…

Character arcs and plot points

Warning: none of this earth shaking revelation, just stuff I've been sorting out in my head.

You have probably read about character arc, if you've done any delving around the craft of writing at all, and you've also (I trust) stumbled upon the concept of milestones, or plot points, which are associated with screenplays as much (or more) than novels.

But how do the two overlap? You can have a good novel where not much happens and you can have a cracking story where the characters are simple as plasticine.

Character. I think it was Forster who came up with the concept of rounded and flat characters. I think we can define those two better. There is possibly three types of character, in fact.

The character who appears in the present, the character with a backstory and the third character type who changes during the story.

Let's label them something useful so I can refer to them.

The first type we meet and hear their voices, see what they look like, even smell them, note their idiosyncrasies, laugh at them or run from them or just buy a newspaper from them. They don’t change or have a backstory to motivate them, they just ARE. Dickens had hundreds of these little cameos, characters that spring out of the page and are gone, or reappear later fleetingly, just as alive but as comic as they are anything else. Let’s call them But they could be regulars in the cast too, a gang member with a set of characteristics and no backstory, say. Like Sleepy or Sneezy of the seven dwarves, defined by their names. In fact all the dwarves have no real backstory, and unless you define Grumpy’s conversion as some sort of character arcthey don’t change much either. Let’s call these people the CAST, because they are more than extras but they are not PLAYERS.

The PLAYERS have a backstory. One we find out. Motivation. A cruel childhood, or bitter divorce. Abandonment issues. Whatever you want to invent. We find out what makes them tick. They might even get some sort of resolution by learning to live with who they are. In a weak rom-com the we might have two players as the stars and there is minimal change, just resolution of a misunderstanding.

What separates a good rom-com from a bad rom-com (script-wise at least) is that in a good one the external misunderstanding or problem is resolved only when the hero and heroine overcome the character flaws that kept them apart.  This is true of all genres (and non-genres) too. This is the HERO (or the HEROINE, but please take that as read). The Hero has a flaw that needs resolving, and it is always resolved by self-sacrifice - unless of course the flaw is that he/she never thinks of themselves and must say NO and be a bit selfish, but let’s not overcomplicate this).

So we have the CAST, PLAYERS and HEROES.

Let’s concentrate on the opening of a story and talk a bit of screenplay language.

What happens in a story is we have an “inciting incident” and the first plot point. From a character point of view these are not the same thing.

Why?

Well in simple terms we are saying SOMETHING HAPPENS and then SOMEBODY REACTS.

The “something happens” can be anything at all from zombie invasion, death of a pet or just a low mark in a test. It triggers the story in that it changes the status quo.

But what is important, and where character comes in, is how the character reacts. What he/she does next. Whatever the decision it has consequences, they can’t turn back (or won’t), it is uniquely their decision and it a character reaction to a plot point.

Phew.

The One that I Want

If the story "form" is Want, Obstacle, Action, Resolution and the ingredients are Emotion and "show" (Jerry Cleaver), then we can pontificate some more about the nature of story.

The first thing is that if prerequisites are WANT and EMOTION, then the "want" that drives your story had better matter a lot, otherwise nobody, least of all your protagonist, is going to maintain interest. So the want might well loom up into the nature of obsession, a la Ahab and the whale.

But "WANT" isn't the same as "NEED" and that gives us another clue as to the nature of story. And the satisfying nature of the more complex version where what a character WANTS is not the same as WHAT IS GOOD FOR HIM or, perhaps, no hero can win until he has shown he deserves it. Or she, naturally.

But I digress.

Let's consider Jack and the Beanstalk and Cinderella.

They begin in poverty (and in the universal fairytale condition of either orphaned or down to one impoverished parent).

In the case of Jack the Beanstalk want and need arrive hand in hand, and Jack makes the (on the face of it) disastrous decision to trust some glib traveller and swap the last thing he and his mum have for some magic beans. But ultimately his decision is exonerated as the beans grow into the beanstalk and he climbs it, steals the golden goose and slays the giant. All it lacks is a Princess to marry and the throne of the Kingdom, but you get the gist.

But right at the start of the story we have two drivers...the change, impoverishment, and the action, going off to market to sell the cow and opting for magic beans. He appears to have been duped, but the beans really are magic.

Digressing, you could argue that the story is an allegory for those who raise herds to move over to raising crops. In a way all seeds are magic, even if they don't grow over night. But back to the point.

So having made the decision to trust the person, or thing, that sold him the beans, Jack is equally bold in his actions thereafter. He climbs the beanstalk. He makes an ally of the Giant's missis (that's a bit odd, ain't it?), but I suppose that's only one version of the story. Wasn't there also one where she is short-sighted? Anyway, in all versions he steals the goose that lays golden eggs and hares it, pursued by Giant, and chops down the beanstalk quick enough so the giant falls to his death.

Now the giant is obviously both cannibalistic and doesn't like Englishmen, but has he done anything else in the story to deserve this fate? In some ways he plays exactly the same role in the story as the Dragon who guards the hoard of gold and is slain by the Knight or whoever. It is just an obstacle to be overcome, whether by riddle, by magic sword, slingshot, subterfuge or maybe even tamed, it's just there to be gotten past to get the gold.

And we come to the want and the need. He needs to eat, but he gets untold riches. The WANT appears the moment he sets eyes on the Golden Goose. Another Mcguffin. He now wants the magic money machine and must slay or otherwise cheat its owner to get it.

Now I'm not sure how the Giant got to own the Golden Goose but Jack doesn't have any claim to it, except that he stole it. Now historically speaking the guy in the castle on the hill owned everything and everybody and going to steal his money would have got you killed. But you could always have married the Squire's daughter. But that might be a digression too.

The point is that Jack started with a need and then it became a want and then he gets everything. And the only things remotely deserving that he does to get them are

• he trusts the magical tradesman or woman of fairy with the magic beans (faith or gullibility?)
• he is bold

Now Cinderella begins with a need...she's not exactly hungry (although Jack doesn't seem too hungry in his story either, most of the time), but she is downtrodden and badly treated. There's something about the spirit of her mum in a tree there somewhere, turned into a fairy godmother in other versions. But she wants to go to the Ball (not really a need) but she needs to be rescued.

She has to earn Prince Charming and as far as I can see she earns his love by:

• Being beautiful when decked out by the fairy godmother
• Not being cruel
• the shoe fits her; and
• possibly by leaving the party at the stroke of midnight as ordered

Now that last one is a bit contentious, but if you think about it, she leaves at midnight as ordered and by doing so she appears to have lost the Prince, when staying might have seemed the best decision. You could argue what the story is really getting at is she withheld her virginity from him, and thus earned his later proposal as a properly modest bride. But more likely, we have the more storylike motivation that he is fascinated by the one he can't have (absence makes his heart grow fonder). By leaving she appears to herself to have lost her heart's desire, but actually she becomes his WANT (obsession?), and he starts the shoe trying on search.

Okay these are simple stories but the wants and needs are already getting a wee bit complex (like fight and flight it's only when you look closer that you realise how complex motivations can be).

The thing about stories is that very often a WANT is as likely to destroy a character as save him or her, and very often a character needs to give up what they want to get it. This is especially true in love stories. The character has to see that the thing they wanted is an illusion, or delusion, and it won't bring them happiness. Only when the scales fall from the eyes and the truth is clear can happiness be found ...and they may or may not be what the character wanted in the first place.

Freedom

Freedom is about deciding what you want and giving up everything else. A alcoholic has given up his (or her) freedom...or maybe decided that only alcohol matters and slowly gives up everything else, family, friends, books...the things he chooses to "enjoy" come with a licensed bar, and soon he is not too bothered about the things so much as the bar.

I know this too well.

So. Magic. A long time ago when I was younger
(so much younger than today)
I read some books about magic and ritual, and also read some philosophy. Nietzsche was one of my favourites, mad as he was.

He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation is wrong": so say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the herd.
The voice of the herd will still echo in thee. And when thou sayest, "I have no longer a conscience in common with you," then will it be a plaint and a pain.
Lo, that pain itself did the same conscience produce; and the last gleam of that conscience still gloweth on thine affliction.
But thou wouldst go the way of thine affliction, which is the way unto thyself? Then show me thine authority and thy strength to do so!
Art thou a new strength and a new authority? A first motion? A self- rolling wheel? Canst thou also compel stars to revolve around thee?
Alas! there is so much lusting for loftiness! There are so many convulsions of the ambitions! Show me that thou art not a lusting and ambitious one!
Alas! there are so many great thoughts that do nothing more than the bellows: they inflate, and make emptier than ever.
Free, dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thought would I hear of, and not that thou hast escaped from a yoke.
Art thou one ENTITLED to escape from a yoke? Many a one hath cast away his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude.
Free from what? What doth that matter to Zarathustra! Clearly, however, shall thine eye show unto me: free FOR WHAT?
Canst thou give unto thyself thy bad and thy good, and set up thy will as a law over thee? Canst thou be judge for thyself, and avenger of thy law?
Terrible is aloneness with the judge and avenger of one's own law. Thus is a star projected into desert space, and into the icy breath of aloneness.

A ruling thought.

So...what makes a man free is his purpose, not a lack of purpose. And (in a slightly NLP-esque sidestep) all the things in your life should be part of your purpose (that ruling thought) or they are dead wood.

So does that mean that family and friends are dead wood? A writer should discard his or her social life and become a hermit with a keyboard as a pal and lover? The “icy breath of aloneness”?

Not for me, pal.

But purpose is about focus. Deciding what you want, how to spend your time. Making habit your friend and turning impulse into a tool.

So...what are you doing here, my friend, reading this? Haven’t you some higher purpose than hanging around here?

Reader Identification

What makes us keep reading? What makes us care about what happens to a character?

I think it ties in to the idea that a story (and a character) needs an agenda. A goal.

But why would a character needing a glass of water create identification? Well, apart from the fact that we've all been thirsty, what creates the tension is not the WANT it's the obstacle. Something or someone keeping a thirsty character from that cool, refreshing drink.

But what if the character just gives up. Strolls on and thinks, I'll get a drink later?

There's two issues there, I think. First you have to UP THE STAKES. Make them desperate for water...and not just because it's been a day and a half in the dried up drought of the desert, but also, maybe, they've got a sick, thirsty child to save. Or something.

Also very important (I think) is that the character does not give up. Boldness.

I think reader identification is as much envy of characters who attempt to take control of their lives as it is about recognising and sharing goals. Wish fulfilment.

Like those Twilight books where the teeneage girl wins the love of the cold marble-chested vampire.

So...let's have characters with a goal, with a lot at stake (no pun intended, vampire lovers) and who will go for it and not give up. Who can't afford to give up after that first step. No matter what the obstacle and what shit you throw at him or her.

And it's your duty (as writer) to throw a lot of shit.

A visitor

Last night I was visited by a ghost.
"I'm lost." He was just a shadow at the foot of the bed. I could not see his face.
"Who are you?" I asked, but I knew the answer. I knew who he was.
"I'm not anybody," he said. "Not now."
"What do you want?"
"I want to be somebody again."
"Do you want to be me?"
"Are you me?"
This was strange, talking to a shadow. I am locked away in an asylum and I am mad. The shadow was not quite a shape. The voice was an echo in my skull. Whose voice?
"I used to live here," said the ghost. "I escaped."
I wanted to explain to him. What I was doing here, in his cell. Why I was calling myself...
"They put me here." I said. "They think I'm you."
"Who do they think you are?" the ghost wanted to know. Was there desperation there?
Thomas Grimes.
"They think I'm him. Jack The Ripper."
"It that what happens to me?" the ghost asked. "Do I become you? Do I become a monster?"
"I'm not a monster," I said.
"You look like one," said the ghost. "That's enough for most people."

Try This

Ok…you have your character be he a he or a she. Mine’s a he.
What is he doing? Where is he going? What mood is he in?
Then you have a place. Wher he is. What can he see, hear, smell? What is he thinking? How does what he is doing and his mood affect these things?
What happens?
How does he react to this? What does feel? How does he react? What does he do? What does he say?
Then what happens as a result?
How does he react to this? What does feel? How does he react? What does he do? What does he say?
THEN what happens?
…and so on.
What you have just done is to get in the skin of the character and enabled the reader to live the scene with that character.
Give it a go. Try it with your opening scene.

Recipe For Generating Raw Material

350 words a day minimum. Before breakfast. Before anything, except coffee. don't worry about it being any good, at this time of day it's all about quantity not quality.

You can plot and edit any time, but this will give you a bulk of raw material to play with.

After ten days and 4000 words, read back what you've got. You'll be surprised.

But don't stop the 350 words a day.

Before breakfast.

Random House feedback

Here's what the Random House reader (Gary) said about The Shattered Mirror (did I mention the new working title?) after it finished in the top ten on You Write On in July:

The Shattered Mirror is voyage into Surreality...

Following the story of a deformed pirate, a fairy, an near-immortal witch, two characters of fictional legend and the mysterious Mr Bliss placed in a grim Victorian historic novel.

Very bizarre and yet very readable!

Every character is well conceived and voiced. Thomas Grimes is one of the most interesting characters I have read about in a while. A monster of a man who wears his bitterness on his sleeve; tortured, lonely, yet strong and compelling. It reminded me of a dark, David Gemmell style hero in the making! Also, at one point he is referred to as Tommy Grimes, while also discussing the slave trade to the Americas, and this reminded me of writing “The Death of Tommy Grimes” (A most disturbing piece of writing about Tommy killing his first Negro) and wondered if you were infusing another past fictional character in to the story, or if it was coincidence.

Mr Ebenezer Bliss is also a fantastic and well visualised character. I noticed that the author is good at helping the reader picture the character in great detail, not in huge lumps of descriptive text, but subtle through out the narrative.

There are also some very strong sections of dialogue all the way through, especially between Mr Grimes and Mr Bliss, until the meeting with the Sibyl. The prophecy section, with the supposedly cryptic riddle, were a little uncomfortable for me. I think it was a little forced and did not flow with the same quality as the rest of the piece. When done well this can be a powerful tool (Tolkien was the grand master) but I don’t think it is the author’s strength. I would have preferred more of that great dialog like we see everywhere else in the piece.

My last comment is on the section with Sherlock Holmes. While Holmes and Watson were well voiced, I thought the way the legendary characters were introduced to the piece reminded me of a children’s novel, (the repeated use of 221b Baker Street, for example) as if you were grandly announcing them, which was disappointing. Done with more subtlety, so that the reader slowly realises that it is THE Holmes, would be better in my opinion. You have to be careful when using such established characters for accuracy and placement in that characters timeline. (For example, you set the story in 1888, but I believe Watson was married the year before and left Sherlock’s company for a couple of years before his wife’s death – though I could be wrong)

Still, overall, a very imaginative, bold and surreal story that I found very enjoyable to read. I wish the author luck in developing these characters, and Thomas Grimes adventures further.

Phew! Thanks Gary.

I think he's wrong about Sherlock Holmes timeline, but he's very right about not fanfaring him. Let the reader work it out. He's also right about the duff "prophecy" but I thought I'd rewrite that when the plot is fully worked out.

I love this writing malarkey, sometimes.

Larger Than Life

I've been puzzling for some time about how to include a fairy in a "real" setting. Without it being ridiculous, I mean.

I'm tempted to do two things:

Up the fantasy quotient considerably (as one Larry Harkrider advised some time ago)

Cut the fairy out altogether (as a certain Dave Wardale advised, also some time back)

I think my characters want to expand into the surreal anyway. So it's about time I gave Mr Bliss the white Top Hat and outrageous French/Carib accent he deserves. Who needs a fairy?

I'm back with the plot again. The framework is satisfying enough, and as old as the hills:

Boy is born of odd, dubious or unusual birth/parentage. His mother dies. His father becomes cruel.

He is unloved, ugly, powerless. But the boy makes friends amongst the lowly and downtrodden. He meets a fairy and falls in love. Things eventually things come to a crisis and the boy flees his childhood home and goes to a faraway place.

He grows up, acquires wealth, becomes a great warrior and meets a Princess. He defeats a rival to win her. But he is still not complete. He has not forgotten the fairy, nor has not faced the thing he fears most (his father). He must return home.

His father now casts a great shadow over the land. Our hero is not recognised at first, and is able to move unhindered. But finally he has to reveal himself and slay the Monster his father has become. Now he rules the kingdom and can choose to become a monster himself or not. He must also choose between the fantasy fairy and the real Princess.

That's the bones. I like it, but I can see that many might consider it a farrago of half digested old lumps of meat. So I am going to chew over the ingredients some more before spitting them back into the stew.

A conversation with Mr Ebenezer Bliss

“So, if I can only get to fairyland by falling to sleep or dying, how did the fairy get here? Did she wake up? Come to life?”

“Oh come now, I did not say such a thing.” Mr. Bliss was as impassive as ever, eyes closed against his personal smoke cloud, leaning back in his chair. “A fairy is a creature of dream, of fantasy. A wish, if you like. Somebody thought her up, or made a powerful wish. Perhaps the whole world began that way.”

“But I certainly didn’t make her up. I didn’t know enough about – that is, I wouldn’t have known what to wish for. I was only thirteen, after all.”

Mr. Bliss shook with a silent laugh. “You soon worked out what to do next though, didn’t you! Besides, you are wishing for her now, aren’t you?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Whoever said a wish is granted when you make it? It might be granted to suit somebody else, perhaps. Another plan. That’s assuming that wishes are ever granted.” He appeared to give this careful consideration. Finally he added: “Simple laws of chance would favour some wishes, I suppose. Wish for a girl, wish for a boy, wish to live long, live long in joy.”

Thomas stood up and walked to the window. Sunlight slitted in between the closed blinds. Sounds of carriages and passers-by came as from a distance, or through a filter. Thomas left the curtains closed. The gloomy, smoke-filled room seemed to suit the subject. He turned and peered through the miasma at the indistinct figure on the sofa.

“So are you saying that a fairy appeared ten years ago because I am wishing for her now? That doesn’t make sense. I wouldn’t be wishing for her now if she hadn’t appeared then. I wouldn’t have known what to wish for.”

“That’s what you said about then. Perhaps she appeared then, so that you would wish for her now. Perhaps to serve another purpose altogether. And don’t forget her wishes –"

“I thought you said she wasn’t real.”

“Now, Thomas. You really must stop that. Accusing me of utterances that I have not made.” He swung his legs off the sofa, and sat up, flicking a long stem of ash in the direction of table. “I said she was a creature of fantasy. Without getting too obscure, the question of what is real or unreal involves concepts that we really have not time to consider. You must decide for yourself whether your fairy was, and therefore presumably might still be, real. And dream, or wish or fairy-dish, she is very likely to have her own viewpoint on things. So whether you cast a penny in a well, or whether it was all a random cosmic joke, she would very likely have had her own reasons for making a possibly hazardous journey from one reality to another.”

“She said she crossed the Trembling Path.” Tommy said, remembering.

“Did she now?” That near smile again. “Well, that certainly sounds hazardous enough. Did she anything else about it?”

Tommy frowned. He could picture her clear as sunlight in the forest, and later, hair dank, shut in the dark of the foetid cellar …

”I’ll have to think about it. Mostly we told stories about our different worlds. I got the impression that not many of the inhabitants of fairyland ever left. Maybe she was bored.”

“Her mother warned her at the gate,
When finally she left, to seek a mate,
Marry soon ‘fore it gets too late,
Lest Spinsterhood should be your fate …”

Mr. Bliss brushed some white ash from his knee. “There are worse fates than staying childless and unmarried, eh, Thomas?”

Thomas looked at Mr. Bliss. How much did this enigmatic dark figure know about him? Could he know about Sarah and Ruth? Or was he having a jibe that the fairy's fate had been worse than death?

“Is this getting us anywhere, Mr. Bliss? Can you help me find her, or not? So far you haven’t offered anything useful whatsoever.”

“May I remind you that it was you who sought an audience with me. Hunting high and low, including some very squalid places.” Mr Bliss produced a small silver box. A snap of his hand and it flared up into a plume of orange flame. He puffed another acrid cigarillo into billowing life. “Can I help you find this fairy? Possibly. These things are not entirely decided by determination. The three Sisters are not called Cruel lightly. They weave patterns that overlap across very existences, as you have seen. However, I have occasionally remarked that they also have a sort of warped sense of humour, if you could call it that. They like to complexify, as well as terminate.”

“You mean it might amuse the gods if find her? Why should they care?”

“Why indeed? Why bother at all, when after all they are gods, as you say. I suppose that depends upon your definitions of gods, or upon the purpose of things. One either assumes a meaning or meanings to one’s small personal dramas, which seems a ridiculous hubris, or one plunges into the abyss, falling through eternity. Life becomes a messy cycle of birth, breeding and death. The seasons follow one after another, until the moon falls into the sun, and the universe falls back into darkness. There is a kind of story there too …and who knows how the parts would evolve? One can postulate gods, and after all the fates are only personifications, are they not?
“And what do you represent, Thomas Grimes? What are you for? Why would the gods intervene in your shabby affairs?” Mr. Bliss pondered this for a while, and Thomas stayed silent. “Perhaps you met a fairy because you met a fairy. A meaningless event, even sordid. You seek to find said fairy again. Why? Ah! Perhaps to make amends. Perhaps to see what your actions have wrought. Perhaps, perhaps …to give meaning back to your life! Is that it, Thomas Grimes? Has life without your fairy been too grey? Too mundane?”

“I have my reasons. If I believe in a God, it is in Him, one god, not a thousand. But maybe there are a whole host of angels and demons. Perhaps we all have a guardian angel, who knows?”

“And is your fairy an angel or a demon? Do you think she might fall more towards the demonic side, after you schooled her so well?”

“She changed. She became more … real, I suppose. Can a fairy become human? For that matter, can an angel become a devil?”

“The oldest stories insist that that is precisely what happened. As for a fairy, that depends on your sources. There are a thousand tales of dealings between man and Fay. Odysseus had a whole brood with Circe - was she a fairy queen? Men visit fairies in their mounds; mischievous imps play nasty tricks on country folk – the traffic continues in a motley host of colourful tales. Birds talk, frogs are princes, wolves are, well, wolves! Things transform, but the consistent message is, actions have consequences. So, whatever else you can say, your fairy will have been changed by her interaction with you. As you have been, by her. Time changes things, actions alter things. Time in the human realm, they say, moves at a different rate than in Fairyland. Maybe nothing changes in fairyland without interaction with this sphere. Stories need change, they need action, they need time to pass. If Fairyland is a land of stories, then the stories need an injection of mortality to keep them vital.”

“It’s all a bit, well, theoretical, isn’t it? Am I supposed to seek her in a storybook? If she crossed the Trembling Bridge, can’t I just cross in the opposite direction?”

“Possibly. Did she tell you where it is?”

“No, of course not! Why do you think I came to you? Although I’m beginning to think this whole conversation a waste of time.”

“Can you waste time? Is it yours then to fritter away?” Mr. Bliss came over to where Tommy was standing. He was perhaps an inch smaller than Tommy, with skin so black that it either gleamed, or absorbed the light utterly, like a silhouette.

“Thomas.” Mr. Bliss spoke his name carefully. “You need to decide where you wish to go with this. You can pursue your quest without my help. Or you can abandon the whole fantastic idea. These are decisions for you. But if you want to consult me, then understand this: I have no patience for your cynicism or your jibes. If you think our conversation a waste of time, if such a thing is possible, then end it. Go back and reconstruct your life from whatever wreckage you have left.” He turned and walked unhurriedly to door. “There is a school of thought that says that if you have any further part to play in the unfolding of this drama, then somehow the tentacles of the plot will reach out and embroil you anyway.”

Patti's Link

A special mention for the blog of Patricia J Delois, author of Bufflehead Sisters and (work in progress) Penguins In Amsterdam.



She is Queen of the BookShed. Long may she reign.

You Write On Book Of The Year 2008 Long List

Yes, here's the YWO Book of the Year 2008 Long List - 12 adult openings and 8 Children's. Look carefully in the Adult category and you'll find - yep! A Monster In The Mirror.

I am still stunned at this. Just the boost a writer needs.

Pleased to see World of Sprot's Dave Wardale, Patti Delois, Mo Fanning and Ben Twemlow, all founder members of the Bookshed in there too. As well as other Bookshed members Perry Iles and Edwain Gorty.

Backstory

Ok this is about Tommy Grimes. He is fearless, reckless even, or certainly was in his pirating days. Why is he fearless? What has he got to lose? What if he has got nothing to lose?
Let's hunt down some backstory:
His mother Mina (?) was a loving woman. Problem was, she tended to spread the love around a bit too much. Her husband Daniel Grimes was a bad choice. Gothicly passionate and inclined to deep glooms and soaring ecstasies, it is probably the passion that attracted her. He was Byronesque as a younger man, but as a father he became more settled and, er, boring. Which was bad news for our butterfly. So she entered into an affair with the bad and dangerous Sir Jasper Despere. Or did she? What if she was used in another way?
So I will need to know about Mina, Daniel and Jasper. I think Jasper's brother is Bishop and a friend of Daniel's. I think they were all pretty wild in their day (even having their own Hell-Fire Club). They dabbled in Black Magic and in Sex. And in cruelty. Which is how they know Mr Bliss.
So this Hellfire Club (“Abaddon”?) pre-dates the Golden Dawn...perhaps gives birth to it. Maybe the Ripper is a member. Sherlock Holmes. Gladstone? Rich and dangerous people. This is where gentlemen get their kicks. A dungeon downstairs and a bordello up. There is an altar and strange costumes.
So they dabble. But what the magic is mostly is ritual disguising sadism and sex. But in there amongst the charlatans is some serious magicking, perhaps. And lots of books.
Tommy Grimes is the ugly duckling and Pinocchio. Possibly Frankenstein's monster chucked in for good measure.
He is ugly, certainly. His face is unsymmetrical, as though put together hurriedly by an impatient craftsman. His jawline leans one side. An ear protrudes (but not the other). One eye set too far away from his nose. The other eye, darker than its errant companion, is more mobile too. The nose, as compensation perhaps, leans the other way like the mast of a listing boat.
Later, a massive unkempt beard hides the worst aspects of his disfigurement. And his sheer size (he is big, as befits a monster), coupled to his fearlessness, makes others careful of how they treat him. Not a swan, perhaps, but a man to be feared and respected.
But as a boy he is an outsider. There is also a mystery about his birth.
What if?
What if his mother has lost a baby, either before, at or shortly after birth? His flighty mother, possibly a bit mad and certainly very spoilt, she cannot cope without the baby she wants. The doctors says her womb is out of whack and so the Abaddon crew set about making a new one? These are charlatans and chancers, mind, and Sir Jasper sees it as an opportunity to get access to Mina's delectable body. His trump card to gain her cooperation is the mysterious Mr Bliss.
If Abaddon has any real magic, then surely it comes from him. Black, bald, and with strange burning eyes shielded by dark glasses (one lens permanently cracked and starred – the left eye?). A tendency to over-dress, a pimp ahead of his time, he fits into the world view of the Victorian “magician”, half-shaman, half savage, nearer to “animal senses”, but at the same time well schooled in the writings of Eliphas Levi, Paracelsus and all the other the alchemists and wonder workers that had contributed to then paranormal canon. He can be utterly convincing putting together his rituals and more to the point, his magic works. Or seems to.
I've just thought of a great scene to describe Tommy's cruel conception! And the plot starts to fall together too.
What if Tommy's dad is forced to take Tommy in? This is after Tommy's mad mum commits suicide after suckling the thing that she has produced?

Parallel Plots?

Okay. Strictly speaking the next step is to begin a breakdown of each character's storyline. However the extended paragraph has many holes in it and it doesn't really solve many of the plotting problems I have.

The first thing is, I would like there to be two distinct, but equally plausible, interpretations. The first is the rational one, where there were no fairies, homunculi, sea monsters or anything else except as part of Tommy's dream-version of reality. And the other of course is that all of those things happened. So really I need two parallel plots.

The other is I would like Tommy to be a homunculus (and this is also a version of Pinocchio, the boy without a soul). And I VERY MUCH like the idea that Mr Bliss shows up as the boy's tutor.

Hmmm. Back to previous step.

Snowflake - next step

Step 2 of the snowflake method says:

Take another hour and expand that sentence to a full paragraph describing the story setup, major disasters, and ending of the novel.

Well, this is where I've got hung up. A paragraph! Roughly speaking, this is what I know about the story:

We begin with a dreamlike sequence in the forest when the boy Tommy Grimes sees a beautiful fairy in the forest. The main story begins with the adult Thomas Grimes returning from overseas to seek a fairy. He enlists the aid of the mysterious Ebenezer Bliss, proprietor of a "gentleman's" club, Abaddon. They consult the last Sibyl in her dilapidated caravan.

In the caravan, in drugged chunks, we learn:

Thomas lost his mother early and his father started to loathe him. The circumstances of his mother leaving and then dying are mysterious. Thomas discovers a book in his father's library with strange properties ("The Grimoire of Ebenezer Bliss"). We read two stories, both to some extent erotic and allegorical. Other mysteries: Tommy's disfigured face (like it has been put together wrong). Sir Jasper Despere - why is he interested in Tommy? What does Sir Jasper know about the Grimoire? The series of flashbacks end with the seduction/rape of the fairy.

Emerging from the caravan, Thomas and Mr Bliss seek out the great Sherlock Holmes. The great detective is at least as interested in Mr Bliss's origins as he is in Thomas's story of capturing a fairy. They set off for Pysketon to unravel the mystery and find the fairy (the game really is afoot.) The sinister Sir Jasper is delighted to see Thomas again. Sir Jasper relates some stories about his own exploits and those of Thomas's father. He alludes to Kate the servant and to Thomas's mother. The section ends when Sir Jasper introduces an Asian woman who claims to be Thomas's wife and states that she has come thousands of miles to finally kill him.

Now we get to Thomas's Memoires...in which he tells us what happened and seeks to reconcile truth and memory. Here we meet Kate and watch the ritual of the jam and the bread. We also meet Donovan the gypsy boy and his mother. Thomas discovers evidence that he is an alchemical homunculus, made from Sir Jasper's sperm in a laboratory beneath his castle. Thomas flees the unloving home with the gypsies and joins a ship bound for adventure. In fact, it's David Copperfield with some awful unstated secret lurking in the shadows.

Now we are off to Far East to watch Thomas Grimes become a fully fledged monster like the Blackbeard he has read about in his his father's library. And we meet the exotic prostitute that he makes his wife. And the terrible circumstances that lead to the death of Thomas's twins.

Now we rejoin Sherlock Holmes, but with Dr Watson narrating. The unpublished, and unpublishable, story. Holmes, as always, solves the case...but only by deducing his own fictional status and the skewed nature of reality. Thomas's father Daniel Grimes has murdered Thomas's mother, after an affair with Sir Jasper. Sir Jasper is revealed as Thomas's biological father (but with the usual use of sperm, involving Thomas's mother). Kate is tracked down and rescued from Bliss's Abaddon. She relates the horrible rape she has underwent - but not by Sir Jasper, who let her go, but by Thomas.

Holmes finds the fairy too. A picture of Nausicaa in the Grimoire. Which is now just a tawdry book. The seduction of the fairy was a masturbatory construct of Thomas's mind.

The resolution has Thomas now king of the castle, with both his bereaved, mad wife and Kate and the child born as a result of the rape all in his care. They all hate him. But, as Mr Bliss says, "there is no hell, save that we make for ourselves, as punishment meted out for our own sins."

Try to fit that into a paragraph?

Plotting

Here's a piece I wrote about plotting on the Shed.

Back soon with thoughts about step 3 on the snowflake. Not sure it would be much help without some understanding of the building blocks.

Why Victorian? continued

The other thing is, things move so fast in the modern world, even if you write in the HERE AND NOW you are going to be fixed in time. Pubs are disappearing...smoking is no longer ubiquitous...phone boxes are vanishing. Plot staples are changing and so are settings. Just as you couldn't keep star-crossed lovers apart by having them married to someone else or not permitted by parents any more, so if you want to send spies or soldiers out to do their duty in modern stories, you will have one hell of a confused historical background to set it in.

Modern settings are changing too fast for the writer.

Also I prefer the myth. The Wild West of gunfighters and Red Indians. Pirates and Privateers. Ninja and Assassins.

Sure there are modern Myths. Maybe I'll come to them one day.