Robyn’s Writing

I’m toying with a new idea for ‘Whispers’.  Currently the story is told from four main POVs, with a few sections told from a minor character’s POV.

It’s a challenging style to pull off successfully. George R. R. Martin does, Robert Jordan did, Steven King does, just to name a few.

But think of it. Each character has to be compelling and interesting enough to draw the reader into their story.  If one character is more sympathetic to readers than another, readers will be tempted to skip all chapters from another POV and just read their ‘favorite’ character’s sections.  Not what we want.

I’ve been playing ‘what if’ with my novel.  What if I concentrate on one main character per book, adding to what I already have written in their POV, fleshing them and the story out more. I would need some chapters or scenes from other minor characters’ POV, to keep the story moving but overall it would focus on one person.  Book One - Kalea.  Book Two - Jala.  Book Three - Lacent.

The beauty of it all is that they would all be included in the other’s stories, but it wouldn’t be told from their POV. It would be their combined story according to Kalea for the first book, etc.

It would be easy to do. I have the whole story written, for all practical purposes and I could use that as a very big outline for my actual novels.

Like I said, it’s an idea.

Dredd tricked her.

After one jug of wine, she agreed to go.

KALEA IS BEING STUBBON AND PRISSY.

I don’t know what’s come over her. She’s supposed to cooperate with Dredd and go for the meeting at Lobar and meet up with Jala, but so far she’s just plain refusing!  I’m going to write more tonight, and see if she comes around. Ugh!  I don’t like it when they have a mind of their own like this.  Well, I do. But….

So far we’re at a bit of a standstill, here’s an excerpt from last night. Kalea speaks first.

“I’m tired Dredd and it’s cold and wet, and a very bad time for traveling anywhere. I want to stay here for a while, live a normal life.”

Dredd’s eyes flashed with anger. He pounded his clenched fist down onto the table. “And leave Jonthor to do what he wills with Hespar?” The room went silent. Kalea felt eyes burning into the back of her neck. A flush rose over her face, starting at her neck. How could he yell at her in front of a room full of people?

Dredd ran his fingers through his hair, and shook his head. “I’m sorry Kalea, I didn’t mean to get upset. Forgive me, please.” He smiled.

Kalea pursed her lips. She could still feel the heat of her face. To think she had once liked the man, he was awful. Still, she had to forgive him. “I forgive you,” she said, with as chill a tone in her voice as she could muster. “But I have no intention of traveling to Lobar. You can go if you want. I’m not. I’m staying here.”

Let’s see what a night of writing brings forth. 

Perhaps it will be ready to upload by the end of the weekend. Hard to say, we’re very busy with Christmas this and Christmas that. But I will see what I can do.

It’s coming along nicely. No new twists, just grappling with getting Kalea to a meeting Jala is holding in Lobar. She’s out of the bath, at least, and heading off down the stairs to meet with Dredd and discuss whether she needs to go to the meeting; if she should contend with Jonthor to take Grainor’s place; and whether her velvet dress is too low cut or not. :-)  In my opinion, it is.

I have to admit, I haven’t done much with the “Whispers” during November as I was totally absorbed in other writing.  Just the other day I pulled up the next chapter, and decided I needed to add a bit more to the story, to bridge the final scenes of the book from Kalea’s perspective to Jala’s perspective.

Currently, Kalea’s story stops a bit abruptly and only hints at things that I now realize would be better to bring out more fully.  So, that’s what I’ll do, and maybe have her meet up with Jala.  How?  Well now, you’ll have to wait for the end of the story to find out, won’t you?

Yesterday Chris, Gabe and myself met up with a couple other NaNoWrimers at a cafe. It was great to finally meet up.  We’d been talking about it all through November, and finally decided on a post-November meet up, once the novel-writing cram was over.  Unfortunately, not everyone who wanted to come was able to attend, but the good news is we’ve decided to make them a once-a-month happening.

We’re still deciding exactly what we’ll do when we meet together, but it will be to discuss the craft of writing, and quite likely read and critique each other’s writing.  Yesterday was more a ‘getting to know you’ meeting, lots of fun and talking and, well, getting to know each other.

It was very refreshing to meet other (foreign) writers. I don’t have anything against Chinese writers, of course, just that I can’t communicate very well with them, and I wouldn’t be able to read or review anything they wrote. So a nice American-Australian-South African-British mix seemed just right.

I have a plan.

1. Finish the rough draft, tidy it up a bit, fill in any story lines that aren’t complete.

2. Put it away for a month or so.  This is highly recommended. Why? So you can distance yourself from the novel and come back to it with a fresh new perspective.  Reading it as you would someone else’s writing, helps you to more clearly see what needs work.   During this time, I will write new stories, rework the last few chapters of Whispers etc.

3. Research: I’m also going to research some of the things I wrote about. For example, why are alien crafts often sighted near power stations?  How easy would it be to take over a Tasmanian Hydroelectric power plant?  Investigate current conservation issues in Tasmania, and familiarize myself with the remote South West areas of Tasmania (no, not by traveling there, although…I wouldn’t mind.)

My plot has to be waterproof, and make sense. As it’s science-fiction this time, I can world-make but it has to have solid reason to it.

Someone recently explained the following to me:

“When you write SF, you have to think everything out, plan things out, and whatever it is you put together MUST make sense; it must have an internal logic and an external logic; i.e., a sensible — and scientific, thus the “S” in “SF” — explanation for the way things work in your story’s universe.”

That’s what I’ll be figuring out too in this interim period, while my novel is ’sitting’ nicely on my hard-drive, waiting to invited up to the screen again.

But I’ve had a desperately busy week, lots of kids going here and there, and general life busy-ness.

Now that NaNo is over, I’ll get back to ‘regular’ writing, which means another chapter of Whispers posted soon.

I also have an idea for a short story, Christmas related, and not fantasy which I’m going to work on over the next weeks.

I have a few projects starting to come together, collaboration on some writing, and some ideas for re-editing and re-publishing the Denith stories.  All for the new year. For now it’s Christmas, which generally means little time for writing.  But lots of time for fun.