Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Day 13 - Exploring a World

Not a lot of measurable progress today.  I did manage to make a long overdue eye-doctor appointment.  I think, though, that I might be cooking a silent migraine. I'm blind and groggy.

Today's Progress: Started the read-through and notes on In Flight.  A lot of what I've already written is Exploratory Writing.  Some people might call this "pantser" writing, but it isn't, because very often what comes out isn't the story. It's the background for a story, or variations on a theme.  I find out the hooks and interesting bits.  I get to know the characters and place.

I don't do it for every story (or at least not that much). When you're writing a short story, there isn't much difference between doing exploratory writing or writing by the seat of your pants.  You explore until you've got something and you're done.  But with a longer story, it's more about finding the stuff that makes the story interesting.  Finding the depth, the motives, the fun stuff.

And often you have to replace a lot of it.  You explore a world, you find all the boring parts.  So you have to delete them and take another path sometimes.  Other times you find the exact right great path to take.

Right now I find that the "flashback" to the tragedy in our heroine's past will work very well as the opening, rather than a flashback.  But the stuff that comes after, I need to recast it to get the right tone.  (I wrote it thinking it would be first and we wouldn't know the past.) And I really think that I could introduce Chef and Reef better, as well as the heroine's full work situation.  But I don't expect this to be difficult or long.

I'd like to do that rewrite now, though, because I think it sets up everything else.  (Now that I know what everything else is.)

Eating Reading Watching:  Today is Agents of SHIELD day.  For those who don't know, S.H.I.E.L.D. is the shadowy, government "men in black" support agency behind all the superheroes in the Marvel Universe.  They're the guys who clean up the mess and do the paperwork and make sure secrets are kept, etc.  Agent Coulson is a secondary character in most of the Avengers and Avengers-related movies. (He was originally created for the movies, but started gaining an underground fandom of his own.)
 
It's a magical cookie.
I am a huge fan of Agents of SHIELD.  I am a huge fan of Coulson -- because he is exactly the kind of character who punches my buttons.  He is like his hero, Captain America.  He is less colorful, less ego-centric than the lead characters.  A soft-spoken team leader and caretaker.  He is, in essence, a responsible grown up!  But he's also a geek.  He collects cool, esoteric stuff.  He gave his car a name, and he is as protective of that car as of his people, even though he seldom drives it.  ("Don't touch Lola," he says flatly to those who deign to caress the car's fender.)

We always make a dinner party of our Agents of SHIELD watching.  Sometimes I'll make SHIELD cookies (ultra chocolate cookies with the SHIELD logo impressed on them).  Or we'll drink Tahitian Treat pop (because Tahiti is "a magical place").  Today we decided to start our hunt for a new Thai restaurant.  Our favorite Thai cook went out of business a while back. And even though there are a number of places in town, it's really hard for any of them to match her cooking... and tonight's try didn't quite make it.  We shall persevere.

See you in the funny papers.

2 comments:

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

Hope the migraine is better soon!

Those are some cool-looking cookies!

Looking for the perfect Thai restaurant sounds like a fun chore. :)

The Daring Novelist said...

Those double chocolate cookies are the cure to all ills. Or maybe they are crack cocaine. It's hard to stop eating them.

(They are much more chocolaty than the picture shows -- I had to brighten it to show the details.)