Getting More Characters/ROW80 Update

Wow. Looks like I took a bit of a break there! Well. I've no excuses.

So. . . Looks like I won't win camp nano this month. I've only written about 15k and there's no way I'm going to catch up now. But, I have been trying to keep up with my ROW80 stuff and have been plotting and planning everyday for the last couple days. I've got to admit that I didn't do a lick of planning until a couple days ago. But! It's been awesome. I've expanded my cast of characters immensely! And this is good.

You see, before, I only had the MC, his sister, his dad, his mom, and one other character. That was it. No one else. It's a bit boring only having five characters and I didn't really know where I should put another character. So yesterday I decided that I would work on a family tree. The MC's family because there wasn't any other families to be had. I've now discovered that the MC has two uncles, two aunts and three cousins on his fathers side. As well as a great aunt and uncle and a grandmother and two first cousins once removed. Almost all family on the MC's mother's side is dead except for the great grandmother, and she's nearly dead herself.

And, thank goodness, I've given my poor MC some friends! I've got parts of their families figured out but not much passed the mothers and fathers (yet anyway). I am extrememly happy with what came out of this whole family tree thing. When I first started it I didn't think much would happen but now look, family and interesting characters abound! I can't wait to write about these people! Some of them are quite strange but that just makes it more fun right?

So, I'd say things are going well, and perhaps I'll be ready for Nano next month in just a couple of days?

I'd also like to say hello to my new followers who found me through the Gearin Up to Get an Agent blogfest! I hope you like it here :)

Breakthroughs! ROW80 Update 6/19

Hey look, I remembered this Sunday!

This week has been important for my book, I've gotten back to reading my how-to writing books that I had stopped reading for awhile and made two major breakthroughs on the plot! Breakthrough #1 has to do with the villain and I'm super excited about it because it gives him much more depth than he had before and because it's just the sort of emotionally confusing should-I-still-hate-him? thing that I love to read! Breakthrough #2 has to do with a part of MC's character arc which I'm so glad that I thought of it! I mean, that element was already in there but before I wasn't really giving it the attention it deserved. Now I know it's one of the huge things that will evolve my MC from who he is to who he will become. Exciting stuff!

At the moment, I'm focusing less on the writing and more on the planning, so I'm not reaching my daily wordcount goal, but I feel that the plotting is more necessary at this point than the writing is. I feel that I just need to work out a few more key things before I can start writing in earnest and actually know the plot lines and how the story will progress, not having to 'pants' a huge chunk of it.

Sometimes I like pantsing, but I've come to find out that when I'm truly serious I like to know where I'm going before I start.

So, all in all I think it's been a good week for me!

Oh. And it seems that the next check in on Wednesday will be the last for round two of A Round of Words in 80 Days. Round three will start on July 4th! That'll be my first real round, seeing as I joined in round two right in the middle of it. :p

Find other ROW80ers here!

The Other Side

I found this cool blog post over at Write-or-Die that talks about the antagonist of the story and how important they are because they're what's really driving the story by giving the protagonist something to do. And she had a cool idea.

Somehow it had never really occurred to me to really get into what my antagonist is doing while the story goes on centered on the protagonist. I mean, I have vague ideas on what my villain is doing behind the scenes, but most of the time it's really blurry. The stories not centered on the villain so why bother, right?

I'm starting to rethink this. Outlining what the villain is doing throughout the story could bring up some good stuff that I hadn't realized before, and could add more depth to the story when I know precisely what's going on with both sides. Not to mention it could be downright interesting. And fun.

I wouldn't let this take over into a book of it's own (try not to, anyway) cause it would only be for reference on what's going on over there.

So what do you guys think of this? Writing about what's going on on the other side, what they're doing to get at the protagonist, how they're planning they're stuff and just general stuff like that? Only to know what they're doing throughout the book while your protagonist is doing his/her thing?

The Mission of a Chapter

Something should happen in every single chapter to further the plot.

Now, I already knew this before, but it's quite easy to slip your mind when you're actually writing a story. You get caught up in your character, the world, the story and just the general awesomeness of writing your book, and totally forget that this chapter is supposed to have something important in it. Happens to me all the time, happened to me earlier today. I was writing along and then was all like "Oh, wait. What's furthering the plot here?"

Now, I went to one of my most favorite books of all time to scan through the chapters and see does something very important happen every single chapter. I went through Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. And something important does happen every single chapter. Something that furthers the plot. Now, when I was writing earlier I was pretty much just thinking, "Okay, introduce characters, setting etc. until I get to the first twist, however many chapters that takes."

I can't do that though. I can't have chapters there just to be there. They have to do something for the plot. I can't have a chapter in my book just because it's interesting or funny, unless it furthers the plot. It's a bit frustrating for me but at the same time it makes things easier cause I know that each chapter has their own individual mission of getting the plot a bit further, instead of just acting as separators within the book.

When I forget this kind of stuff it makes me feel a lot like this:

Good day!

Magic

I've been working on my magic system and, though I've been doing well, I am beginning to wonder if I can really do this at all. I mean, magic is such a vast realm I don't think I would ever be able to explore every corner of it, even for just my world. I am thinking that I will plan the general rules of the magics that will appear in my books, and probably a bit further, but there will be much that I won't be able to touch on. Some will just have to be left to the imagination.

I mean, take Harry Potter for example. The magic in there is very ambiguous in my opinion. But it still works. The reader is given just enough rules and structure for this magic while leaving a vast majority of it to the imagination. Some fans who write fanfiction for Harry Potter have come up with detailed amounts of rules and structure to explain how and why the magic in their fanfic works the way it does or even how magic exist and all that. They give more depth, more possibilities, whole new realms to build on what are already in the books. And, well, lots of it are viable ways for magic to work, even in the Harry Potter books themselves.

And this is because J. K. Rowling left a lot to the readers imagination.

Maybe she does have detailed descriptions for exactly why and how her magic works in a journal of hers somewhere, but if she does I haven't heard anything about it and so it gives fans something to fill in with varying theories. And that's fun. That is something I would love to give to my readers, heck, even to myself.

I mean, if I were to give rules and structure to every little single thing there would be no flexibility, no ambiguity, and without those I believe the whole appeal of magic kinda goes away. Cause where's the magic in that? At that point, it would kinda be reduced to science, I think.

So I'm going to plan what needs to be planned, keep blank what can be left to the imagination and give space for there to be many theories and ideas abound to any reader who comes across my book.

What do you guys think about this? Do you think that some stuff about magic should be left to the imagination? How far is too far when it comes to planning magic, in your opinion?

Planning Progress

I have made much progress since deciding to get down and actually try to plan The Chronicles. I have finally - finally - figured out why the villain guy is after the MC specifically and not just finding someone else, that's been one of the largest holes in my plot that I've found so far and I had absolutely no idea how to fix it.

What's funny though is that I did not figure it out while actively trying to figure out that particular plot hole. I had been trying to figure out the process the villain used to become the villain that he is. Doing this has resulted in a new kind of magic for the book (one which I am excited about) and a whole system of stuff that has filled another small plot hole that I know of. While I was writing about this new kind of magic it suddenly hit me that this new kind of magic is what makes the MC so special and why the villain is after him and not someone else.

I really wish that I could tell you guys everything about this book because I'm so excited about it but I'm afraid to because I wish for this stuff to be published some day. And I'm a little bit wary about sharing my ideas on the vast interwebs where anyone in the world can see them. I hope you guys understand :]

Anyways, so far planning has been going good, still have tons of other things to plan though, like where in the fantasy world the events of this story take place but. . . I'm a little less daunted now! Though due to a certain fanfic that someone pointed out, the planning may go a bit slower because that story is just so addicting and hilarious! If anyone likes Harry Potter fanfic, try reading that, it's one of the best I've read in a long while.

And thank you guys for the advice last post! It helped me out and kept me from mentally drowning in the innumerable things about this story that are just overwhelming my mind :)

I am DROWNING

Well, I have to say I thought I would've been ready to start writing by the beginning of this month but I'm not. And while I would like to say this sorta sucks, well. . . it kinda doesn't. Because were I to start writing now the resulting story wouldn't nearly be what I wanted it to be.

I mean, I did plan. Really, I did. Maybe not as much as I was supposed to but I had a beginning to end plan on paper. At first I was happy. But then I looked at it, really looked at it and thought, "This is not the story I was supposed to tell." And that was a bad realization because what I had written down wasn't better than the way I see it in my mind, in fact I think it was way worse.

I wonder how that might have happened and I think it was because the planning was done too quick and was too forced. Yet on the other hand I didn't spend nearly enough time planning which I believe was largely the reason for this result. So, I am giving myself this rest of this month to do some serious planning.

I think the hardest part of all this is not knowing where to start. I know I need to create the back stories of all my major characters at least, and that I need to plan out the plot and the character arc of this book, and figure out exactly who my characters are down to their bare instincts, and the world itself needs to be figured out still. Does this story take place in a hot place? A cold place? What is the society and culture like there? What sort of things might be ingrained in my character from growing up in such place? And then there's the magic system, or lack thereof. And it's just a bit overwhelming. How do I plan this out? Do I start small and then go big? Do I start with what I know and then ponder the things I don't or do I figure out what I don't know first? And just which part of this whole mess do I start with first?

It's all just burying me alive and I feel very small and useless.

But I know I'll get through this mess. Somehow. I think I might start with some back stories and some magic structure. I've been working on the cultures some, but still not enough. For this whole month I've got to focus on nothing other than planning this thing so I can write it. Even if I don't have much of a clue where to start.

How many of you feel this way sometimes?