Observing development

I was looking back over old art and was thinking about all the changes my story and characters have gone through. Some are radically different than their concept stage others look the same on the outside but changed on the inside, still others no longer exist at all! I was thinking of doing a blog series about my different characters/Curses and the development process they've gone through to this point. Would that be interesting to anyone?

Progress

It's been a while since I updated so here goes.

I've launched rewrite number3. I like the place it's at a lot better, it leaves less to the characters to figure out by themselves, meaning they can focus more purposefully on the task at hand and having relationship moments. No bamboo traps for me, only exposition as exposition requires.

I got myself a tumblr account: http://threadcaster.tumblr.com/ Where random art and discarded excerpts go up every so often.

I'll try to cross-post every so often to spread the love around, but if anyone out there has a tumblr and wants to share thoughts, art, encouragement, likes and reblogs I would love the company :) Writing a book is sometimes tough work. I spent all yesterday writing an argument between my mains and could use some commiseration. Thankfully my biggest fan @SassyDetective is over there, you can see her artistic cheerleading on tumblr as well, its far too cute.

I'm looking at writing Water Town by next week. I've got some paid work to do for a change - I do so much pro-bono art getting a check seems like a novelty - so that might delay it. We'll see.

I'm also half a month into the Insanity workout program to counter-act all the sitting/staringatthescreen/frustratedlipgnawing I do. Maybe by the time I'm done with I'll have a book AND a set of rockin' abs!

Book Review: The Hunger Games

So I finished the Hunger Games the other day. I'll start by acknowledging that the main characters names are Katniss and Peeta... which make Cat and Peter very nervous. They're different people though, so hopefully the similarities don't start any problems. Other than that the stories aren't very much alike, I hope that works to my advantage.

my interpretation of the two main characters

stolen from my tumbler: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/jameson9101322

As for the book itself; it was alright, I really enjoyed the middle part where it was exciting adventure all the time... the rest just turned my stomach. I feel bad enjoying something as wholly off-putting and disgusting as blood sport between children. I mean kids as young as twelve years old were killed in those games! The thought of it and watching the audience accept it as something to be celebrated just grossed me out. It was barbaric. Good job Suzanne Collins for getting me in your world and stirring those emotions but it leads me to my big kinda complaint about the book and why I didn't love it as much as others did.

Spoilers btw.








I wanted more revolution by the end; more action or at least more reaction. I didn't feel like Katniss was ever really emoting the whole time - oh she talked about her thoughts on the subject but very rarely did those thoughts translate to emotional or physical reactions. There were a couple shining moments when she did: Rue for example. And when she and Peeta were separated at the end in the hovercraft; those two moments were great because she behaved like a real person would in those instances. The rest was more of her trying to pick apart other people's gameplay and not trusting people - which is the kind of girl she is, so I guess I can't fault her, but that kind of protagonist kept me from fully enjoying the book. For instance, I couldn't really get invested in the romance between Katniss and Peeta because Katniss wouldn't get invested in it. I was riding her like a vehicle and since she was stubbornly refusing to fall for the guy even though blind people could see he was being honest, I couldn't really fall for him either. I was waiting for Katniss to go first I guess.

That's the thing about first-person stories, when the tale is told by the point of view of one person we as readers are left to accept their opinions as our truths. We can disagree if we want, but in the end it's HER story and we're living in HER shoes. I guess what I really wanted from the Hunger Games was a more dynamic protagonist, because by the end Katniss felt so stagnant and stoic, I wasn't sure if she'd had an arc at all, and that ruined it for me.

That said I do recommend it for people to read. I enjoyed the ride, just not as much as everyone else in the world seemed to, and that's okay. I'm still going to see the movie when it comes out but I don't think I'll be reading books 2 and 3.

More Rewrites

I'm sure you're all tired of hearing me talk about rewrites, but I promise this is the last one.

I've gone through a rewrite of 30-60 explaining the whole prophecy and mission and everyone's roles in more direct and deliberate terms. At this time I wanted to share a kernel of wisdom.

Simpler is better.

Is there an easier way to say things? Are you using fifteen words when five will suffice? Passive voice, purple prose and long windedness slows your plot down and confuses your reader. Here's my anecdote for the situation.

In Threadcaster God is gone. Like, he left - vanished - caught the last train for the coast, all that jazz. As a result people are getting cursed. In the book I explain this one sentence: God left and the people were cursed. with three paragraphs of flowery prose and two pages of explanation making sure my audience and my characters understood what I wanted them to without drawing false conclusions. So for this rewrite I went back in and explained the whole thing as "God left and the people were Cursed and this is how you fix it" and suddenly both Cat and the audience understood without the pages and paragraphs! Everything's better, everyone's happy.

So yeah, there's my wisdom. Use the fancy language if you have to, but don't overindulge, it will get out of hand and then you'll need to do four rewrites. Peace out.

Back on Track

Whew... okay! Everything is back how it was. I kept the good additions, the tweaks in character and pacing, and nixed that annoying contrivance set to establish false urgency; because that's what it was: FALSE urgency. I spent more time making my characters remind each other how urgent it was than I spent developing their relationship. It drove a wedge between my mains and kept everyone unhappy including me. I'm better off without it.

Progress wise I'm back in the realm of 60-90... that dreaded pie slice that has dogged me for so long. I'll tell you all when I get back to Kindle parts and have to snip her out again. My Betas tell me they don't miss her at all from the previous pages where she was summarily amputated. Just goes to show you that I didn't really need her to start with. I plan to write an obituary on her later when she's 100% gone.

For those friends who keep track of me on facebook and instant messenger I'm sorry I've been so absent. I've been keeping my chat streams off so I can get down to writing. I never make any progress when it's on - too choppy. I'll be back later when this stuff is sorted out.

If I don't post another blog I wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! You can keep up with me on Twitter (@threadcaster , @jenniferstolzer ) facebook and tumblr (jameson9101322)

Crisis, breakdown and an emotional low

I have ruined my book.

It was doing fine. I loved it. I believed in the characters then suddenly I get some feedback.

"It needs urgency" my reviewer said. So I devised a plan... include a day in which things take place. Suddenly everything sucks.

I no longer know what's happening or what to do. I'm "fixing" things with patches I haven't preplotted out and messing with things I swore I'd never again touch. I'm at a crippling emotional low as I reconsider the value of everything I've made.

This book sucks, it'll never sell, It's a wasted effort, I'm a horrible author.

Why did this happen? Why have I fallen into this hole and how can I get back out of it?

First question I have to ask myself is was the edit worth it? Do I believe in the concept of the new story element? Well yes... on paper I believe in it fine. Utilizing it, however, has thrown me for a loop. I've edited it fifteen times... how can I use the same idea with less invasion?

Maybe I just namedrop it like it's not a big deal? No, it's a story thread... ugh...

Maybe I leave it out of the part that's confusing - aka the prophecy. We learn about the Brushcaster betrayal later in the game. Build it back up about the Curses again like I did last time.

Maybe I put this goddamn book on a shelf for another three years and rewrite it then.

I'm really miserable right now, you guys, I'm seriously considering abandoning ship and going to a previous draft where this addition didn't exist... at least to write ahead. I'm so tired of being stuck in the same ninety pages.

This blog post is more for my own frustration because my previous strategies haven't helped. I tried to talk it out but my sounding board didn't care. I tried to write it on paper and failed. I tried putting it together in the draft and sucked desperately.

All I ask from my audience right now is prayer - God's the only guidance I can trust at this point.

A sense of urgency

So I share 30 pages of Threadcaster at a time with a few close friends and mentors. They are all extremely patient with me - especially since I keep rewriting and rewriting things they've already seen, but it's their feedback that makes it necessary possible. Yesterday I got such a piece of feedback from fellow author Peter H Green. He said "Everything flows fine but there is no sense of urgency. You've got the pull toward the goal, but I don't feel any push."

Sense of Urgency huh? This posed a dilemma. My story has plenty of conflict starting around page 65... but up to that point it's getting to know the characters and getting used to the world they live in. I 100% believe this is a good thing - my world is complicated, it has rules and traditions the reader must understand to follow the rest of the story. Still a lack of urgency is a very real problem and it does not a good writer make if you ignore the input of your betas just because it's a little work.

So I thought about ways to build urgency - how about a villain actively working against the players through the plot? No... I do have villains but they are very powerful people who's leverage on the beginning of the book would probably keep our reluctant hero from agreeing to go without three pages of combatant dialog. No, the Brushcasters need to stay where they are.

What about a ticking clock? A time limit would impose some urgency and up Cat and Peter's emotional dilemma because a rush to save the world is a rush to put poor Pete in an early grave. That could do... it can't just be contrived though. I need to find a way to get it in without it creating an audience perceived False Urgency. Otherwise known as the "Just'cuz"es.

A "Just'cuz" is when an author's fingers start to show. "Why did he do that?" Author - "Just because." "Why did he decide to go there?" Author -"Just 'cause". "It was extremely lucky that he went to that town to run into the next action scene." - "Yeah, I needed him there for the plot"

The Just'cuzzes are as bad a disease as the Yes-mans and the Bamboo Traps. These things pander to the audience and insult their intelligence. I needed to find an integrated way to up the intensity that isn't Lady Creven saying "'By the way, I'd like you to complete this dangerous journey in about a week... Thursday's my only free day, you see. Does that fit in your schedule?" So what solution did I decide to employ? Well... it's all a matter of festivity.

I've had an elaborate backstory for a while now, but I took it out of the book because a large part of it had nothing to do with Cat. It still doesn't, really, but it has a lot to do with the rest of her world. I used the backstory as a stage and invented this great big huge festival in which the people of the Valley try to fulfill the same prophecy Cat and Peter are trying to fulfill in the book. This festival takes place on a specific day and time - the only day and time that "success" can take place. Unfortunately that festival day is a week away. Cat's going to have to hurry to keep the world from dying.

This solution is super. I can use the festival theme throughout as Cat moves from town to town. We see the decorations going up; the signs and festivities and how hopeful the people are that this will finally work. Little do they know that Cat's the one REALLY trying to fulfill the prophecy and the Brushcasters are actively trying to stop her. It gives us a C story that is separate from Cat's main quest but parallel so I don't have to cut away to any sidescenes. I've already implemented it up to a point. I have a little more rewriting to do before it's done... but I think I'm content. It definitely gets the beginning of the quest to go a bit faster.