New Goal
I had a week off from the story last week by helping a kid in the ward with his Eagle Project. This week, even though that was going on again, I totally spaced it until I was at UVU to start writing for the day. I will confess, I barely had a twinge of regret. In selfish disclosure, I felt like I had helped him a great deal the week before, and I couldn't countenance going another week without some time at the keyboard. I don't regret it, though I do regret not being able to do two things at once. (Of course, if I could do two things at once, I would have so many books written and read it isn't even funny.)
Anyway, I decided that, by the time my birthday rolls around in April, I'd like to have 250,000 words in the book--or to have finished it. So that's my new goal, and I took a pretty large chunk out of it today: Over 5,000 words done. Today I wrote a chapter from Saldrae's point of view and then Olvia, a new character who may or may not show up again. She's part of the interlude bunch, who are minor characters that I use to show that the effects of the main story are impacting people all over the place. I probably should do one from Jajiin, now that I think about it.
Saldrae
I wanted to document a little bit about how I came up with the different characters, especially since I've been living with these creations for nearly two years now, and it'd be good to have a little bit of history on each one. I'll try to make this 'spoiler free' in case anyone ever stumbles upon the blog before reading the book, but there really aren't any promises.
Saldrae Truesong comes from Meleah (the little circle on the southeast is her hometown, a place called Clearwater), and her history is pretty well documented in the story. But how she ended up being a main character is a little bit serendipitous. See, I had had Nic (the real main character) and Calistar (the second main character) bump into a woman inside of a chophouse. I got the idea of a chophouse because I had, when I first created the place, been knee deep in (or just finished, I can't remember) Les Miserables. In Victor Hugo's incredible book, Cosette stays with the Thenardiers in a chophouse, a little quasi-restaurant that serves as a passing backdrop for part of the book. The idea of a restaurant as we know it isn't known to the people of Coratha, and a chophouse that provides a meal--whatever's cooking--for a price was a necessary and logical outgrowth of the book I was writing.
Saldrae, then, was a charming and interesting Meleahan girl who helped run the chophouse and managed to interact with the other two main characters a couple of times. The writing group made some comments about her--perhaps that they liked her, or that they thought I'd put a lot of detail into describing her--and I decided that it would work well to have a third main point of view character. In part to get an idea of the scope of this book, I introduced Saldrae as a POV character in chapter 16, which is approximately 60,000 words in. Generally, a major character ought to have more page time before that, though, since this is writing, after all, it isn't absolutely necessary. Still, for me personally, this was a bit of a departure. With 60,000 words already committed, I felt like it was a bit of a stretch to take someone who seemed coincidental and turn her into one of the main stars.
But it was a good decision. Not only did she provide a very needed cultural balance (with Calistar being from Jajiin and Nicomachus from Coratha, I needed a character from the third major continent, especially since Sal's culture is so distinctly different from ours), but she also became a surprise motivator for one of the other important characters in the story. Add to that the fact that I like having strong female protagonists, and you've got a perfect addition to the book.
Interestingly, because she was from Meleah, I wrote her first few appearances with a more relaxed, Southern-drawl type of pronunciation. But as she became more and more a focus of the story, I decided to drop the accent writing--which is a pain to write anyway--and let her voice sound different from Nic's and Cal's by being a little more thoughtful. She isn't as emotionally varied as Calistar, for example, and she isn't as brooding as Nic. Her steadiness is her main virtue, and every time I think of how she's going to react to a situation, I remind myself that she is a strong woman--not physically, though she goes through some major crap--and it changes the way that I conceive of the scene.
For example, today's scene has Saldrae deciding she needs to help someone. Originally, I expected her to just sit down (she'd been through a bit of an ordeal before this point, and rightly deserved some rest) and wait for others to take care of the problem. But, as I got to the end of the scene, I realized that she was too strong to sit this out. So she stood up, despite all the baggage she was dealing with, and pressed on. To me, it was an admirable action, one that I don't know if I would be able to do myself if I were in her position.
Part of what I love about writing is that very experience. Characters are not born fully formed into my mind, though other writers confess that that's the case for them. For me, I get a basic idea and then as I write I learn more and more about them. Sometimes I make conscious choices (like that of Saldrae's strength, considering the matriarchal society from which she comes) and then have to force myself to remain consistent. Other times, it simply comes out naturally.
One example of this comes from a much older book, The Terra Campaign. I wrote this book over the course of probably 5 or 6 years, going all the way back to my first year in college. I started it then, stewed on it during my mission, then wrote it for the first two or three years of marriage. In that book, I had a plan of taking my characters across the Continent on their quest to find out the truth about the main character, Christie. When Christie comes across one particular character, I expected her to say, "You're right, let's go on this quest!" or words to that effect. Instead, I was fully surprised when she started screaming and attacking this new character. What I had failed to realize was, if the new character were to talk to her, she would immediately go ballistic, because that was the character who had murdered her parents at the beginning of the book. Looking back, her response was totally natural--not only for the way that I had developed Christie, but also because it's human nature. I don't know why Christie would have gone on a quest with her parents' killer, yet that was my original thought. Fortunately, Christie was real enough to avoid that sort of plot compulsion.
The same is true for Writ in Blood. What makes the process of writing (not editing) so rewarding is that surprise, that unexpected twist when characters behave in a way that is natural for them and not from my machinations. Saldrae is by far the most spontaneous of my characters, and I think that her inclusion has been absolutely instrumental in the development of this story. What her ultimate fate will be and where she'll end after the dust settles is still in the future--which is where I like it.
I had a week off from the story last week by helping a kid in the ward with his Eagle Project. This week, even though that was going on again, I totally spaced it until I was at UVU to start writing for the day. I will confess, I barely had a twinge of regret. In selfish disclosure, I felt like I had helped him a great deal the week before, and I couldn't countenance going another week without some time at the keyboard. I don't regret it, though I do regret not being able to do two things at once. (Of course, if I could do two things at once, I would have so many books written and read it isn't even funny.)
Anyway, I decided that, by the time my birthday rolls around in April, I'd like to have 250,000 words in the book--or to have finished it. So that's my new goal, and I took a pretty large chunk out of it today: Over 5,000 words done. Today I wrote a chapter from Saldrae's point of view and then Olvia, a new character who may or may not show up again. She's part of the interlude bunch, who are minor characters that I use to show that the effects of the main story are impacting people all over the place. I probably should do one from Jajiin, now that I think about it.
Saldrae
I wanted to document a little bit about how I came up with the different characters, especially since I've been living with these creations for nearly two years now, and it'd be good to have a little bit of history on each one. I'll try to make this 'spoiler free' in case anyone ever stumbles upon the blog before reading the book, but there really aren't any promises.
Saldrae Truesong comes from Meleah (the little circle on the southeast is her hometown, a place called Clearwater), and her history is pretty well documented in the story. But how she ended up being a main character is a little bit serendipitous. See, I had had Nic (the real main character) and Calistar (the second main character) bump into a woman inside of a chophouse. I got the idea of a chophouse because I had, when I first created the place, been knee deep in (or just finished, I can't remember) Les Miserables. In Victor Hugo's incredible book, Cosette stays with the Thenardiers in a chophouse, a little quasi-restaurant that serves as a passing backdrop for part of the book. The idea of a restaurant as we know it isn't known to the people of Coratha, and a chophouse that provides a meal--whatever's cooking--for a price was a necessary and logical outgrowth of the book I was writing.
Saldrae, then, was a charming and interesting Meleahan girl who helped run the chophouse and managed to interact with the other two main characters a couple of times. The writing group made some comments about her--perhaps that they liked her, or that they thought I'd put a lot of detail into describing her--and I decided that it would work well to have a third main point of view character. In part to get an idea of the scope of this book, I introduced Saldrae as a POV character in chapter 16, which is approximately 60,000 words in. Generally, a major character ought to have more page time before that, though, since this is writing, after all, it isn't absolutely necessary. Still, for me personally, this was a bit of a departure. With 60,000 words already committed, I felt like it was a bit of a stretch to take someone who seemed coincidental and turn her into one of the main stars.
But it was a good decision. Not only did she provide a very needed cultural balance (with Calistar being from Jajiin and Nicomachus from Coratha, I needed a character from the third major continent, especially since Sal's culture is so distinctly different from ours), but she also became a surprise motivator for one of the other important characters in the story. Add to that the fact that I like having strong female protagonists, and you've got a perfect addition to the book.
Interestingly, because she was from Meleah, I wrote her first few appearances with a more relaxed, Southern-drawl type of pronunciation. But as she became more and more a focus of the story, I decided to drop the accent writing--which is a pain to write anyway--and let her voice sound different from Nic's and Cal's by being a little more thoughtful. She isn't as emotionally varied as Calistar, for example, and she isn't as brooding as Nic. Her steadiness is her main virtue, and every time I think of how she's going to react to a situation, I remind myself that she is a strong woman--not physically, though she goes through some major crap--and it changes the way that I conceive of the scene.
For example, today's scene has Saldrae deciding she needs to help someone. Originally, I expected her to just sit down (she'd been through a bit of an ordeal before this point, and rightly deserved some rest) and wait for others to take care of the problem. But, as I got to the end of the scene, I realized that she was too strong to sit this out. So she stood up, despite all the baggage she was dealing with, and pressed on. To me, it was an admirable action, one that I don't know if I would be able to do myself if I were in her position.
Part of what I love about writing is that very experience. Characters are not born fully formed into my mind, though other writers confess that that's the case for them. For me, I get a basic idea and then as I write I learn more and more about them. Sometimes I make conscious choices (like that of Saldrae's strength, considering the matriarchal society from which she comes) and then have to force myself to remain consistent. Other times, it simply comes out naturally.
One example of this comes from a much older book, The Terra Campaign. I wrote this book over the course of probably 5 or 6 years, going all the way back to my first year in college. I started it then, stewed on it during my mission, then wrote it for the first two or three years of marriage. In that book, I had a plan of taking my characters across the Continent on their quest to find out the truth about the main character, Christie. When Christie comes across one particular character, I expected her to say, "You're right, let's go on this quest!" or words to that effect. Instead, I was fully surprised when she started screaming and attacking this new character. What I had failed to realize was, if the new character were to talk to her, she would immediately go ballistic, because that was the character who had murdered her parents at the beginning of the book. Looking back, her response was totally natural--not only for the way that I had developed Christie, but also because it's human nature. I don't know why Christie would have gone on a quest with her parents' killer, yet that was my original thought. Fortunately, Christie was real enough to avoid that sort of plot compulsion.
The same is true for Writ in Blood. What makes the process of writing (not editing) so rewarding is that surprise, that unexpected twist when characters behave in a way that is natural for them and not from my machinations. Saldrae is by far the most spontaneous of my characters, and I think that her inclusion has been absolutely instrumental in the development of this story. What her ultimate fate will be and where she'll end after the dust settles is still in the future--which is where I like it.
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