What constitutes "Acting?"

Last night, I gave my first tour with a ghost tour company. Aside from memorizing my stories, this job involved dressing up in two layers of cotton and a bonnet and carrying around a lantern and a fan. Personally, I don't consider this "acting."
For me, acting involves a large shift in persona - when an actor is in character, you are talking to that character, not that actor. The actor may infuse a bit of their own personality into it, but the character and the actor are, ideally, two identities in the same brain. (This sounds very trippy because it is very trippy. Cool, but trippy.)
Ghost tours are a slightly different matter. On a tour, I'm projecting a slightly different persona than the one I'm projecting at this moment. There are more differences than there are similarities, however:  Right now, I'm sitting on my couch in sweatpants; I haven't showered or put my contact lenses in. This is the first productive thing I've done today, except for getting coffee. It's close, easy, and comfortable.
Ghost tours do involve a bit of a persona shift. It's impossible to feel like you're wearing sweatpants when you're in a petticoat and bonnet. It's hard to even feel fully of this century, even though I keep my cell phone on my person in case someone gets hurt. The only similarity in feeling is how much one would sweat if wearing either outfit (sweatpants or costume) in summer heat with humidity.
The difference between ghost tours and acting is, I guess, situational. When leading ghost tours, I am Wild Card In A Petticoat With A Lantern And Fan. When I'm blogging, I'm Wild Card In Sweatpants With Laptop. They're both Wild Card.
An Actor might be Actor In Period Dress or Actor In Sweatpants With Laptop, BUT they could also be Actor As Character In Period Dress or Actor As Character In Sweatpants With Laptop.

I've tried, but I can't hold a candle to what an actor can do with character development.

More Harry Potter

The Weasleys are a huge family. There are established interactions: Fred and George are definitely the jokesters; Percy is definitely the uptight academic. It's fairly clear throughout that the twins have potential that they direct towards joking, and few people in the family actually like Percy as a person. Part of me is curious about how the lesser-known Weasleys interact. How does Bill feel about Ginny, since he's the oldest and she's the youngest? Ginny might not have even been around when Bill left for boarding school - how does he view her, as someone who only interacted with his sister on holidays? How often do Charlie and Bill see the rest of the family? What does Charlie think of his sister joining the Quidditch team? How does he feel about Ron being a lousy Keeper in Quidditch? What do they think of Harry and Hermione marrying into the family?

I feel like J.K. Rowling knows all these things, and I would love to know these answers.

On Harry Potter characters

I'm really into audiobooks. Lately, I've been listening to the Harry Potter series again, and it's kind of interesting to go back and relive the experiences. Right now, I'm on book 3 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Since I've read the series multiple times, there may be spoilers in here. You have been warned.

The first two books, I've realized, are very structured within themselves. Each scene drops hints and clues, explicitly or implicitly, about what happens. The Mirror of Erised shows the deepest desire of one's heart, for example. As it turns out, if the Deepest Desire of Your Heart is to get the Philosopher's Stone and do nothing with it (as opposed to make the Elixir of Life, create gold, cause severe head injury to one's enemies, etc), then you can get the stone.
In the third book, however, there are a few more subplots, and I think this is an area where character development shows itself. I know that there are other characters that are far more frustrating, but Ron is really bugging me in Book Three. Admittedly, it's easy to get defensive when a cat seems to be intent on killing your rat in particular (especially if that rat is one of the only things you can call your own), but I feel like he shouldn't have been so annoyed at Hermione over it. I feel like he should have had someone make him take a step back and think about Hermione's feelings. If Hermione Granger, the know-it-all who gets perfect marks in everything, is so disoriented that she misses classes, that should be a heads up. It could be everything from a first period to time travel, but picking on someone in that situation is not going to make it better.
I know characters change over time, and I'm definitely not the person I was at 13 (if only because I have a pixie cut now, as opposed to waist-length hair). I'm starting to see, however, why J.K. Rowling said that Ron and Hermione would have a very tumultuous marriage.

Homeric Epithets

Soooo today we're going over the fascinating topic of epithets.

This was inspired by the fact that we're holding the last quest in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign that has lasted almost two years, and my character has developed a lot. When she started the quest, she was a 19-year-old bard.  Now she's a 22-year-old bard/ sorcerer/ fire elemental with a raven familiar named Casca and... well...
When she first introduced herself, she basically said, "I'm Ana of Danger Fief." Her full name is technically Rowan Anaïs.
Now, if I want to refer to her full name and title, it would be Rowan Anaïs of Danger Fief, Queen of the Dead Kingdom, Single Half-Sybaran, Daughter of the Avatar of Chaos and Evil.

How does this relate to Homeric epithets?
Well, Homer does a little of that as well, depending on how many beats he has left in a line and whether he wants to start a new statement in the middle of it. Because of this, Achilles is called swift-footed even when sitting down; Circe and Calypso both have well-braided hair; Odysseus is ever-seeking or cunning; Athena is grey-eyed or wise; there are a bunch of others.

It's kind of interesting to think about what Homer would call Anaïs. Anaïs of the Fire-Hair? The One Born of Darkness? Singer of Tales? The One Doomed to Darkness? The Girl Who Is Really On Fire and Not Metaphorically On Fire Like Katniss Everdeen? 

What would you call your favorite character?

On King Arthur (again!) - Merlin

Yes, another post about King Arthur! HUZZAH!
I know that this is an easy way to do things because I'm writing similar things for class, but I find it kind of interesting - so I'm writing about Merlin today.

Right, so Merlin.  In the three accounts we have read so far - Geoffrey of Monmouth, Thomas Malory, and Lord Alfred Tennyson - Merlin has pretty much been Uther's wingman; his sole purpose seems to be to turn him into Gorlois (and, later, to whisk Arthur off to a humbler upbringing).  As far as we've gotten in Arthur's upbringing, that's Merlin's only relationship to Arthur.

Then we get to T. H. White's The Once and Future King.  If any of you have ever seen Disney's The Sword in the Stone, this is the same Merlin that shows up in the book (I'm pretty sure the movie is based on the first third of the book, in fact).  The Once and Future King is obviously more of a kid's book than the others - there's no mention of wingmen or sex of any level of consent - and the early pages focus more on Arthur's early life than the other works thus far. (this is probably because, again, it's a kid's book, and probably wants to relate to the target audience and everything).  Here, Merlin is Arthur's teacher, mentor, and the resident hooligan of the castle.  He's got powerful magic, turning Arthur into a fish and a hawk for various ordeals.  Outside of Uther's relationship with Ygerne, this is the first real mention of Merlin's magical abilities.

Merlin, in White's tale, gets a lot more description than in the earlier works; whatever classic Wizard trope you have in your head - that's what Merlin is in this book (also, look up The Sword in the Stone; they do a good job of animating him).  Interestingly, this is one of the only descriptions of the wizard we have - or any character, for that matter.  It shows a bit of the values for the time - White was writing a narrative story for kids in the 1930s, not a history of kings from a monastery in Wales in the 12th century, as Monmouth was.  White spends more time describing interests and places and things - the typical fare that you need to comprehend a novel.  Monmouth does the same, but focuses more on the battles than the people.  Merlin is more of a presence in T. H. White's novel as well - that could just be because Arthur hasn't properly pulled the sword out of the stone yet; maybe Merlin leaves after that.  I don't really know.

The third major thing that White added to Merlin's character is that he ages backwards.  As Merlin has only had a few lines of text among all three of the previous authors, it's a lot easier to expand on his character and his hobbies.  Here, White uses Merlin's backwards aging as a source for comedy and bringing in time-irrelevant things (Merlin tries to draw his pointed wizard hat from thin air, for example, and goes through several iterations, including a sailor's hat, before he gets it).  At the same time, there's so much potential for something darker - but, of course, remembering one's audience is important.  (Maybe White might go into that... but... we haven't gotten there yet).

On Character Building

I know I've talked about Dungeons and Dragons characters before, but the character-building aspect of it has come to my attention again. I'm doing a new campaign (which is a smaller and less regular campaign than the one I've been in for the last year and a half), and I'm trying out a new character class: one that is fighting-based, not magic-based. It's a rather large campaign, and we're all rather low-level characters; this makes it easier for the less-experienced people in the group.

My favorite part of the character building in D&D is that you have to have a weakness: you're not allowed to just re-roll your skill points until you get 18 for all six skills (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma). The way the classes are structured will show which skills are favored and which are you dump stats. For example, bards need a good Charisma and Intelligence score; the way the class is structured makes the bard less inclined towards Strength and Constitution. Certain kinds of armor interfere with their magic as well. As a result, Bards are a good choice if you're on an information-seeking RPG quest, and are complete shit if you're on a combat-based kill-the-bad-guys quest. (I speak from experience).

On the other hand, a class like a Fighter or a Barbarian is the Bard's opposite. These classes, obviously, are combat-based; my Strength and Constitution scores are my highest scores for this character. I haven't fully fleshed her out yet, because it takes a really long time, but it's important to remember at least one way that Hollywood tends to lie to us: if a character is a fighter-type, their Charisma is often their dump stat (attractiveness falls under Charisma), and their armor is generally functional, not showy.  Sure, they may be attractive because they've spent years training to have a solid 18 in Strength and a 17 in Constitution, but that probably means that their Intelligence is more like a 12.

This is something I need to remember when drawing up my non-D&D characters. I can't have someone be smart (at least, not necessarily book-smart) and still have them train 8 hours a day in combat skills.  For most characters in the D&D universe, it's better to have an 18 and a 16 mixed in with a few tens and elevens, as opposed to having a character who has a 13 in every box.
Why?
If you have a good strength score, you can attack better. The higher your constitution, the more you can get hit before dying. If your dexterity is good, you'll be able to go earlier in battle and react more quickly. If you're more intelligent or wise, you'll succeed as a mage. If you're more charismatic, you can work crowds, intimidate people, and talk to people better because they'll think you're attractive.  Often you can be charming and gather information about how to defeat an enemy because you know what sort of questions to ask, and that can be your contribution to the actual battle, because all you can do during the fight is poke people with a rapier and sing songs to support people (protip: rapiers don't work).  Alternatively, it's probably unlikely that someone who has perfected their fighting skills also has good people skills. That's why groups are important.

On travel

Firstly, let me apologize that I have started writing this post at 10:30 PM on Friday, but better super-late on Friday than never, right?

Anyway, today's post is going to be a bit about traveling, as you probably guessed from the title.

As you faithful readers know (all two of you), I recently got back from a trip to Greece and Turkey, as part of a travel course. Half of it was choir tour, which was cool, and the other half was Early Christianity, which was also cool. The course was interesting because of the sites we went to; places like Delphi and the Parthenon have been on my bucket list since I was around 12.

  

(for those of you who want photographic evidence that yes, I was there)

Anyway, while being at the Parthenon was one of my favorite experiences of the trip, I think one of the more valuable experiences I got was how to deal with people. We were a varied group - extroverts, introverts, fraternity guys, sorority gals, fraternity gals (yes, hi, I do exist), people who are easy to travel with, people who have never left the US, and a bunch of other things that I don't feel like categorizing right now. Some people I didn't really feel like I could bond with; others were really nice but were solidly in another group.

This is not my first time out of the US; Greece is the seventh non-US country I've been to. (Canada, Guatemala, Switzerland, Italy, Peru, and Turkey are the others). I'd like to think that I've become a fairly decent traveler - there was a time in Switzerland where I was a jerk to everyone and irritated all the time, but there were a lot of factors going on in that (and do not attribute it to biology, because the trip managed to land on the three weeks I wasn't on my period); other than that, I think college has taught me a lot about how to work with people. 

But my college experience is far from over, and I don't think I've met every single personality in the world. This trip, however, has shown me several.

First is an extrovert that I didn't know how to handle at first. I've roomed with an extrovert before - I spent an entire year with that person in a fairly good and comfortable relationship, and we're still in touch though we don't room together. This extrovert, however, is constantly chatty - not necessarily in a bad way. Where I might write or think deep thoughts in order to process emotions, she talks aloud; my feelings are put down in pen, hers are put out . She's not necessarily a bad individual; the important thing to note here is that as an extrovert, talking is her emotional processor. It took me a few nights to realize that just because she was talking, she wasn't necessarily talking to me.

What I'm trying to say here is that a protip for introverts on working with chatty extroverts is that, unless their words are actually biting in nature, they don't really mean to annoy you. It's important for you to mention if you really need them to be quiet for a while; it may take a while to explain why you're so quiet or, like my roommate on the trip, they might have an introvert sibling and know exactly what to do when you ask for some head space.

The second major type of person I learned to work with is very vocal in her opinions. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to speak up when you don't think something is working with you, but sometimes I could hear her negativity very easily. When she sat down and actually talked something out with people, she was fairly reasonable about trying to point out the positives - even if the only positive she could find was something like "well, I'm glad I tried, now I know I don't like this food," or something. Protip for everyone: try to bring in the positive and the negative into an analysis of something.

The third kind of person I encountered regularly was similar to the second, but far girlier. The second had been in the army for several years; when it comes down to it, the second girl knows how to tough things out. This third girl does too, but I only learned that through talking to her. She once wondered why people think she's stuck-up and rich when she grew up on a farm and has had several jobs over the past few years, often working a few over the summer in order to supplement her tuition. She's hardworking, but not necessarily in the army-strong way. I think the reason she often gets mistaken for being in the 'sorority trope,' for lack of a better term, is in the way she presents herself. When I say she has a full face of makeup on, I mean that she rarely leaves the room without foundation, concealer, blush, eyeliner, eyeshadow, lip gloss, and mascara. While I could easily learn a thing or two from her about how she get her eyeliner so damn precise, I think she's also someone from whom I learned a bit about self-presentation. People are going to make assumptions about you based on how you present yourself, and I'm glad that I realized that I present myself in about the way I want to be seen.

In all, I think this trip taught me as much, if not more, about how to deal with people as I did about ancient sites around the Aegean Sea. Both are important lessons.

Day 16: when in doubt, switch universes

Current Page: 84
Target Page: GAH!
Place in Story: Well, while I try and buy myself some time to figure out how to get Spencer out of the craphole I've dug her into, I'm revisiting Myrtle for the first time in a while.  I spent a week ignoring her, but I'm pretty sure she's actually useful now in padding my word count.  So, Myrtle is at a sorority party now (one she got dragged along to because she hadn't been out of the house in weeks because NOVELING!); she just got sat on by a drunk freshman who thinks that Myrtle is trans* because the freshman sat on Myrtle's pen while Myrtle was sneakily trying to write.

With regards to Spencer, I'm sure you're wondering what craphole she's gotten into.  Well, her navigation and communications systems are both down (she had an idea that didn't work; instead of successfully leading the enemy ship away from the base planet of the rebellion, the King's Stiletto was brought onto the enemy flagship and sabotaged); also, the base planet of the rebellion - the only definitively friendly planet in the only definitively friendly system within a range where navigation is simple - has been overtaken by beings of a malicious nature.  She found this out when getting the coordinates to the base planet (she was calling the commander of the rebellion on their backup communicator, which is kind old), and then the bad guy took over.

I have no idea what to do about this.  Suggestions?

On that note, I'm going to continue to write this awkward encounter in Myrtle's world, to the sounds of drunken frolicking outside.  (Since today was the game against our rivals, there's even more drunken frolicking than normal, even though we lost).

Day 15: halfway!

Current Page: 83
Pages written today: 7.5
Target Page: please, no.
Location in story: PLOT TWIST!  You thought the Mentor's death was the low point?  THINK AGAIN!!  EVERYTHING THAT SPENCER KNOWS AND LOVES IS ABOUT TO GO KAPUT, THANKS TO THAT CREEPY CALL THAT SHE JUST MADE!  Doesn't help that her navigation and her communicators are busted, so she can't really go anywhere accurately and she has to call on her backup communications.  Also, she has ten unconscious guards in her cargo hold.

Yes, that's where I am right now. I've gotten a lot done today, but I still need to keep up this pace if I want to make sure I can get my word count.

Day 13: when in doubt, go meta

Current Page: top of 71
Target Page: um...
Place in Story: um...

So the title of today's post is derived from the fact that I do, technically, have three planes of existence in one novel: Myrtle's level, Jess's level, and Spencer's level. I have barely touched Myrtle's level in the last week or so, but Jess and Spencer have been sharing the stage fairly regularly.
Anyway, in order to shamelessly pad my word count, I wrote a scene with Myrtle, Jenna (her flatmate), and Elijah (her good friend), as well as a brief reference to Myrtle's and Jenna's cats (Samwise and Quark).  The scene lasted only around a page, but it mostly involved Myrtle saying how she had writer's block, and Jenna and Elijah giving her ideas.

There are so many levels of this that I could write the sequel to Inception.

In other, related news, I have recently discovered that requiems are really good writing music. My two right now are Mozart's in D minor and John Rutter's.  GO LISTEN.  NOW.

Day 8: spaceship chases and strange coincidences

Current Page: 50
Target: 51 (current goal: not necessarily to do 2,000 words a day, but just to stay ahead of the curve, at least a bit)
Current Place in Story: Spencer is being a hooligan by trying to distract the Emperor's ship from the base of the rebellion.  Will it work?  No idea; I haven't written that bit yet.  (Spoiler alert: probably not).

In other news, I organized a bit of a writing session for four of us in my group of friends who are doing NaNo (there's at least one more, but he works at Starbucks, so he doesn't want to hang out at his workplace, because that's kind of weird).  Anyway, we somehow got distracted in conversation for a little bit, when we learned that both my roommate and my cousin have the same initials - BNM.  The weirdest thing is that the first two initials stand for the exact same name.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
My roommate is dating the guy she had a crush on in middle school.  My cousin is marrying her middle school crush in March.

Okay, the similarities end there, but I still think it's really weird how that worked out.

Day 7: Plot switch?

Current Page: 43
Target Page: shut up
Place in Novel: LOOKING FOR HELP! (the characters, I mean. Okay, and me too, kind of)

So many of you may realize that, before NaNo started this year, I had a pretty cool concept.  The issue is, as you may have noticed, that I didn't really have a plot to go with this cool world I had come up with. Thinking back on it, what I did have was way to isolated in one story - I could have followed Jess through all her tales, or something like that.

So my plot this year is in a weird spot. I'm keeping in the Players, to make sure I can use all the words possible, but I'm pretty much separated from what I initially planned. Instead, I'm ripping a bit off of Star Wars and making the novel-ception (because that's technically what it is, strictly speaking... I'll go back and fix it later) the main plot of the story.  From here on out, you'll hear fewer updates on Jess, Marcus, Leo, Tobias, Fabian, and Chelsea, and more updates on Spencer, Keegan, Arthur, Matthias, the Emperor, and Electra.  Just to let you know.

Day 6: on gender and stuff

Current Page: 39
Target Page: Please, no.
What's been happening: Second encounter with the villains. They have got a trace on the ship that a pirate captains, and which is harboring a 'fugitive' (and by 'fugitive,' I mean 'a prince who was being used as a pawn who has escaped from his cell and onto an escape pod and just happened to wind up on the King's Stiletto because that's where the other escapee was going.')
The trouble with going so slowly (and procrastinating so much) is that I can't get anywhere. It's royally frustrating. I'm going to try to boost my word count over the weekend, but I'm going to have to apologize for my lack of substance on the novel front today.

So, in other news, I'm going to do a Wild Card's Life Update today.
In the front of classes, I'm taking five next semester (six, if you're counting choir): two honors courses, a course in journalism, advanced Ancient Greek (eek!), and history 101: the sixties. I'm not sure whether to be excited or terrified. Maybe both?
In the juggling front, I have finally found success. I'm hitting a point that most people found a few weeks ago, but AS LONG AS I CAN DO STUFF FOR THE FINAL PERFORMANCE I'LL BE FINE. This point is the one where I'm not getting an epic workout from chasing my errant bean bags for half the class, and also the one where I can regularly catch more than ten times.  I also learned how to do cool things with a diabolo (photo here), which you spin really fast; one of the tricks I'm working on is to tighten the string so the diabolo goes in the air and then catch it on the string again.  I learned a cool way of starting it yesterday, as well as started (and by 'started' I mean 'tried a few times in the last twenty minutes of class and probably can't manage again because my teachers' son won't be there tomorrow') working on throwing it to a partner. This only works when we're facing each other because I'm left handed and he's right handed.


On Saturday when I was working at Train Day (because this small college town started out as a train town). For the last hour and a half I was there, I was giving a little talk inside a fake caboose - what happened where, who stayed back there, why the seats were elevated (so, when checking to make sure the cargo hadn't fallen off, the crew's heads wouldn't get lopped off by a tree branch. Yes, really), that kind of thing. I started off one group of people by asking if they had any questions. One girl asked if I was a boy or a girl.
I'm not surprised she asked that - I have short hair and I'm not as well-endowed as some girls (I'm just fine with my cup size, thanks), and my style can be very boyish at times. That day, my loose green jacket hid my v-neck shirt and orange hi-tops tend to be gender-neutral. Also, my voice was probably in a weirdly ambiguous range after talking for an hour and a half.
At the same time, I'm glad she asked. She could learn to phrase it better - 'what pronouns would you like?' rather than a question that directly correlates to the gender binary - but I'm willing to concede that point on account of the fact that she looked to be around seven. At age seven, girls can be 'tomboys' and boys can be 'girlish;' the terms 'agender' or 'genderqueer' aren't really in the common vocabulary when a kid is seven. I'm glad she asked because it meant that she knew to ask questions if she wasn't sure about something, and asking about gender is something that's important. Why? There are people who don't strictly identify as male or female. This is different from trans* individuals; in the case of trans* individuals, they tend to identify as gender A when their birth certificate and chromosomes tell the world that their sex is B. Someone who is genderqueer can be assigned the sex of A or B, but can identify as the gender AB, A+B, AAAAABBBABABAABA, or 0 (or any combination).

So that's my tangent for today. The only reason I bring the last point up (aside from the fact that it's something I've been thinking about in regards to my own life) is that I've noticed that the two leads in the Novel-Ception (the Star Wars type novel, which is turning out to be the primary story line here) tend to follow interesting gender lines. The captain of the King's Stiletto is Spencer Watkins, who runs the show now that the old captain has officially given her the title; she's probably gotten laid more times than anyone on the ship combined (her standards: 1. your gravity must not kill me; 2. you must not have any deadly viruses or bacteria; 3. you must ask politely and accept a rejection, should Spencer choose to issue one). On the other hand, the love interest, Prince Art Pennington (SHUT UP ABOUT THE PRISSY SOUNDING NAME) is... okay, he is kind of prissy. His first impression of the ship was that the cockpit needed some decoration. In his defense, it's a cramped pirate vessel and he's used to, like, palaces and stuff.

Anyhoo, that's all for tonight. Need to go to bed. Farewell.

Day 5: Suddenly, BACKSTORY!

Current Page: 35
Target Page: can we just not do this bit? It's kind of embarrassing... okay, it's 38.  MAY I WARN YOU, HOWEVER, THAT 38 WILL PUT ME AT OVER 10,000 WORDS. TECHNICALLY I'M WELL ON MY WAY TO 50,000 WORDS.
Pages to go: none, because I'm going to bed soon and waking up early.
What's happened so far: there's been character development and relationship development!  HUZZAH!  Accompanied by the soundtrack of Star Wars: A New Hope (what was available in one YouTube playlist, anyway), as well as the sounds of ThePianoGuys (whom you should all go look up on YouTube RIGHT NOW), my characters have discussed the loneliness of space and the fact that there is ridiculously cool life on other planets. They also discussed rebellions and the fact that the love interest has the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a twelve-year-old in the body of...
I just realized I haven't assigned anyone an age yet. Well, this is plenty awkward.
I mean, I know that the characters are all in their late teens or early twenties, but still.
You know what?  That's good enough.  I'm going to bed.

Day 3: When my idea shifts

Current Page: 23
Target Page (counting the number shifts I did today): 23
Point In Story: well...

So I had a minor panic earlier today. Not necessarily about anything homework related (though you should not get me started on how much honors homework I have to do, and with Econ, at this point, I'm just hoping that my pretty graphs will be enough for a decent grade on the homework this week), but because it's day three and I'm already running out of character drama. Myrtle's world is very bland, and I didn't really know how to introduce drama to the Players without writing the Player novel. In other words, NOVELCEPTION! (as opposed to INCEPTION.)
I've done bits and pieces of Myrtle's Novel, and then done scenes where the Players react to what happen. I've only kept it to bits instead of really important scenes because I wanted to focus more on the Players and Myrtle, but now I'm realizing that Myrtle might not be as big a part of this as I thought she might be. Right now, a good chunk of the last few pages has been the introduction of Myrtle's novel - the actual writing of it.

This may turn into just writing the sci-fi novel, but I don't know. We'll see how this goes.

Going Back

This month, I want to work on typing up and editing my NaNo2011 novel (the one I wrote during November of my senior year; it is, in my opinion, one of the better novels I have written.  It is also the only one that has an ending that is connected to the rest of the story.  NaNo2012 has an end, but I have a scene or two to add before that).  It is going to be rather interesting, I have to admit.  I have not seen most of this novel in quite a long time - the middle bits tend to get ignored in the grand scheme of typing when there are a lot of false-starts.  Since this novel is in roughly the 100,000-115,000 word range, this is going to take a long time, and I hope I can get through it.

I think there are three important things I will need to focus on when I start editing:
1. Work out characters' back-stories more, especially the principal characters.  It is probably going to take a while, but if I know their stories better, I will be able to work out whether they would actually do or say something, or whether I was just putting a certain statement in to be punny or tack onto my word count (it's been known to happen).
2. Work on general plot arc/ subplot arc.  General plot arc comes first, then the subplots.  I made a list the other day: there are five plots in this novel (one main and four subplots).  I need to work out which should stay and which should go (or perhaps should just fade, but not leave entirely).  From there, I need to...
3. ... Work on scene selection.  I think this is going to be the hardest part of the entire thing, which is why I'm going to be doing it last (it's also last because I can't really do it well if I don't have 1 and 2 sorted out properly).  This step is where I add and subtract scenes to make sure it's actually going to work in the general plot.  I predict that my word count will shrink rapidly if I work on this step for a long time, and go thoroughly through step 2 (though step 1 might add a few scenes).

At this point, I need to stop thinking in terms of word count and start thinking in terms of MAKE THIS A BETTER NOVEL.  I am no longer in NaNoWriMo: I'm in WiCaEdMo (Wild Card Editing Month), in which word count and word quality are not the same thing (they never were, but the NaNo mindset tends to force you to ignore that).

Also, this is not an April Fool's Joke.

How to Defeat a Dragon

I've discovered something that can be kind of interesting if used right.

My play for FYEC is going to involve dragons and people who contemplate suicide.  I know that much for certain.  However, I making my main character, who attempted suicide multiple times, also fluent in Old Draconic (like Old English for dragons), which brings up the interesting point: will she kill the dragon, negotiate with the dragon, or talk to the dragon in Old Draconic and win it over?  (I'm not telling you this.  I already know.  I've already written that part).

But this proposes an interesting alternative to dragon-slaying.

Yes, yes, I know, fantasy is supposed to teach us that dragons can be beaten.  But 'beaten' does not mean 'killed.'  'Beaten' means foiled, quashed, clobbered - not killed.

As the (modified) saying goes, there's more than one way to clobber a dragon.  Just some of the ways are more difficult than others.  The easy way out is just to kill it (though, considering it's twelve times your size and can breathe fire, might not be that easy); the more difficult way is to talk it out with the dragon; this may be only more difficult because the dragon is older and larger and smarter than you, and a battle of the wits is one of many situations where a Dragon of Old benefits from having a larger brain than you (it means it has plenty of room to think about gold and also clobbering humans).

Of course, talking to the dragon is dumb, according to every movie and fairy tale ever.   Who talks to dragons?  Who gets along with dragons?  WHO CARES ABOUT THE DRAGON'S OPINION?
The dragons care about their opinion, thanks very much.

On Grittiness

Earlier this week, my boyfriend suggested an article for me to read (you can read it here); it was by an author that neither of us had read, but my boyfriend is intending to.  The article deals with grittiness in fantasy, and, from what I read, I quite like his point - that getting into the gross, honest, painful details of the story is one of the best ways to make the tale compelling.  I do like, however, that he notes that including gory details of death scenes isn't always necessary, but those scenes should be included if that is what drives the story - the fights, the deaths, the moral ambiguity, the pain of doing unpleasant things.

I think that America in general, especially in politics, is starting to get rather polarized - black and white, good and bad, they're-not-my-party-so-they're-an-unenlightened-moron kind of deal.  I'd like to use more grittiness, but, to be quite frank, none of my writing demands gory death scenes.

What all stories demand, though, is honesty.  Telling things like they are.  Though there is some sort of poetic way to imply some things without saying, "That night, these two characters had passionate sex, and it was great," I do think that you should only use implications if the words that would have been said in the scene don't directly forward the story - if it isn't critical that someone's self-esteem is built or broken in bed, then the scene should simply be, "THEN THEY HAD SEX," and then cut to the next morning.

I believe honesty is necessary in fiction, but sometimes honesty and straightforwardness can be simply boiled down to someone saying that the sex was great last night.

Character Stuff!

So, over the course of Winter Break, my character sheet for the Dungeons and Dragons campaign that I'm doing at school went missing.  This is rather irritating - not only do I have to re-invent my character from memory, I also lose valuable points (we started at a high level, and I had really good bonuses for my basic stats, which I lost).

This is also an opportunity, however, to reinvent my character.  I have learned through the course of the first episode of the campaign that Bards can be useless in fights and easy to hit (and one of the irritating things is that, in the course of re-doing my character's stats, I lost some Hit Points, so she's easier to hit).  Saturday's session was the last of this episode (think Star Wars), and our DM has said that the characters will have three years between the end of this episode and the start of the next one (the characters will do their own thing for three years; the actual group is going to meet up again in a few weeks).

In that time, we'll have the chance to level up our characters and give them any items we want.  We'll also have the chance to budge around our classes and feats if we want to - this means that my character, Anaïs, is going to get a new job, essentially, in addition to being a Bard, and will learn how to do a lot of cool things.

I used to hate character building, because it's a very tedious process (involving, among other things, a crap-ton of dice rolls and adding those rolls together, and that's just the beginning).  Maybe it's gotten easier because I'm not working from scratch on Anaïs, but it's a lot more fun now that I know a bit more about what I'm doing.

There are several books you can use for character building, but those normally just cover the basic classes, skills, feats, armor, and equipment that you can use.  The Player's Handbook is designed for the new kids who don't know how to set up a character.

Once you start getting the hang of what number gets what bonus on what, you can actually start looking into the cool things on the DnD wiki page, which is actually a lot of fun.

For example, now that I have the ability to cross-class my Bard with something, I decided that I was going to give her a few levels in Fighter - a warrior that's not as stupid as a Barbarian, but will still let me use more weapons and get cooler feats and class skills.  Then, however, I found out that the important stats to a Fighter were the stats that the Bards tended to do without.  Bards rely a lot on Charisma and Intelligence, and can do without Strength and Constitution; Fighters tend to rely more on Strength and Constitution than Charisma.

After looking on the DnD Wiki, I found a homebrew class that I really liked (homebrew means that Wizards of the Coast didn't invent it, but it's developed to work in a DnD-type campaign and available for public use).  It's called a Songblade, and it's a tactician/ fighter; it gives me the weapon usage I need while still using my good stat.

I'm starting to like character work. :)

another week of writing

I'm halfway through the second week of J-term now, and, for the record, J-term has come with a few surprises, not all of them bad.

Good things:
1. I have way more free time than I do during the normal semester.  If I don't want to go to the gym in the morning, I don't have to wake up until 9:30 or 10:00.  After maybe 1:45 or 2:00, when I'm done with class and lunch, I have almost nothing to do except homework until 6:00, which is our normal dinner time.
2. The spare time has led me to actually get to the gym, which is always nice (except when I get scared of judgement from the actual athletes).  Also, I actually have time to write for my class, which is nice, but I also tend to procrastinate on my own writing because of podcasts and yarn.  Nevertheless, J-term has been fun so far because of all the time I can actually use now.
3. Since I actually have time to do homework during the day and I don't have to wake up early, the evenings can be spent doing things other than sleeping (sleeping does get involved).  These new activities include Apples to Apples, Capture the Flag, Marco Polo (played on the football field and not in the pool), and Hide and Seek.  All of these activities have commenced at around 10:00 PM and proceeded until midnight or later, which is fine, because I can still get sleep.
4. The course itself is really interesting - though it is a workshop class, the feedback really helps with what I'm writing.

Bad things:
1. Though the class is fun and I like that I get to write, sometimes the peer editing aspect can get kind of irritating.  Don't get me wrong: I do like to read and comment on other people's writing, as well as receive feedback on my own.  However, quite a few people in my class seem to be unaware that Spelling and Grammar check is correct on many occasions (there are times when it is incorrect, but when one is in college, one should be able to tell the difference).  Sometimes I have to edit my classmates' grammar and spelling as I read their work because it can get rather distracting.
2. Sometimes having all of the extra time can get kind of boring.  Though it's easy to find ways to pass the time, afternoons can get long, tedious, and unproductive.


In all, though, I'm glad I took the J-term class that I chose: at the very least, it shows me how not to write a script.