No. I’m not going to spend yet another blog complaining about my kid. She’s a great kid, just annoying the hell out of me right now. So what else is new. I’m annoying the hell out of her too (no, I won’t clean her room, I didn’t make the mess) so we’re even.
9,742 is the word count this morning. That’s a not-insignificant jump, especially considering how I’ve been floundering around doing nothing since the end of the fanfic. (which, btw, is at 2,469 viewings ::grin::) I wrote a great little bit I’m very proud of, and a longer bit I think will probably be chopped, and oh yeah, chopped a lot of other stuff, so it’s even more progress than it sounds like.
I also worked out my outline a bit more. I’ll call it that, though any writer who really outlines would laugh themselves into spasms on sight of it. Other writers might do pages of detailed notes. I have (for example, I’m not giving up the plot for real) (sorry, got distracted, Hope is suddenly a turtle) Umm, where was I?
Sample “outline.” Right. That’s what I love about writing. You can get distracted and as long as you don’t tell anyone, they’ll never know.
Umm…sample outline. “Luke’s robots insist they belong to a beautiful princess who needs help, Luke drops everything to go save her. Bad guys try to stop him, mercenary half-heartedly helps, space station, yeah, all sounds good.” (recognize the plot, anyone? ::grin::) That would be my starting point. Well, not quite, Luke would be my starting point, I’d know him pretty well before I tried to build a plot around him. I’d know Leia at least a little, too, my characters usually come in pairs.
So I’d have that, and I’d start writing. And knowing me, I’d start with the scene where Biggs left (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, what the heck kind of Star Wars fan are you!?! Get off my blog! 😉 and try to stumble on, show you just how dull Luke’s life is, and what a good person he is, before things got going. Then, of course, I’d dump the droids into his life, realize that was where my story really started, and trash the last 5,000 words as good for nothing but backstory. (but, you see, Biggs would be in there, and Obi-wan Kenobi, and the fact that Luke is adopted–most of this I would not have known before starting!)
Despite that, Star Wars would be a very different story if I’d written it. Especially since I tend not to use the little steps out of POV that George Lucas likes. The way he followed the droids before they met up with Luke, and dropped in on the Star Destroyer to introduce Vader? Not if I’d written it. Not so far, anyway. I’m too stuck on my characters, I guess. If they can’t know it, neither can you. Though you’re welcome to figure things out ahead of them, since you’re sitting in your nice comfy chair and they’ve got horrible things flying at them every five pages or so…
It’s funny when I think about it. I think Star Wars is awesome, and if I had the chance to change anything about it, I would not dare to lift a hand. But in my own writing, I see such things as cheats. Too easy. Sure I can show you a bad guy laughing evilly and taking candy from babies and up the suspense by letting you know that’s what my folks are up against. But I won’t. I’ll write in a storm and a reason for my SF character to be wearing a cloak just so I can have them look properly heroic on a hill (okay, I haven’t actually done that yet, but I’ve been sorely tempted) but I won’t turn my bad guys into your classic villain.
Because my ‘villains’ mostly aren’t all that evil?
::snicker:: No, I wouldn’t say that. Let’s just put it that they’re not all-out focused on smearing my characters into little slicks of Jello, for the most part. My people get in the way of big plans, and while I do give them personal enemies, they don’t get to fight the big guy. Not yet, anyway, and I’m not sure there is a ‘big guy.’ (hmm, me smells a need for further plotting? Sigh…) So it’s a long fight with the Hydra, and my poor people keep trying to get on with their lives, but those damn heads keep popping up…
Why yes, I do intend the series to go on forever. As long as I’m writing I’ll be having too much fun to die, so I do need to keep things open. ::grin::