Think of it as going on your own personal MapQuest.

It doesn't have to look like this ^^^

Today's post is about one of my favorite parts of the novel writing process: story world mapping.

If there's one thing that most writers of genres outside of fantasy tend to ignore, it's the importance of drawing up a map of your story world. Sure, it's important to form an image of the layout of your world if you literally have an entirely different world, but it's just as useful to draw a little map of all of the normal, everyday settings that show up in your novel.

You know, like a character's bedroom, or the diner where most of the scenes take place...you get the picture. Mapping can actually be a valuable part of your brainstorming process, even if you're a non-otherworldly writer. Just try it out and see whether or not it influences how you picture the scenes in your head and how vividly you write them.

Now, I'm not saying that you have to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. My mountains are, to this day, nothing but triangles, and my trees look like chicken feet. I'm a writer, definitely not an artist. It doesn't matter if your people are stick figures, or if your dragons look like squiggly lines with crudely drawn feet. It's still a perfectly respectable story world outline either way, and you should be pretty damn proud of it if you ask me.

When I was little I did nothing but draw maps of the places I wanted to write about sometime in the future, sometimes having them set up so that to see the whole thing you had to piece several notebook pages together. My mother thought I was insane, especially because I wrote in mostly first person back then. I actually believe that her reaction to finding my writing notebooks is just the reason I have such an aversion to first person writing: she accused me of being schizophrenic and threatened to commit me.

I would suggest carrying your writing notebooks around like they're a treasure box full of gems that everyone would rip away from  you and steal forever if you were to let a single person catch a glimpse of what's inside. Nobody likes to know you're writing something unless you've been published. Once you have, everyone wants to know, and I hear it gets pretty freaking annoying.

Try drawing a map your main character's bedroom. If nothing else, it'll at least be fun. Then, feel free to go map-crazy, even if they're all just simple aerial views.

Novel Ramblings

They say the number one rule for writing your first novel is not to tell anyone you're writing it and keep it your little secret.

Whelp, blew that one already.

I'm dying to put up some stuff from my story, but at the moment it's nothing but poorly punctuated pre-writing before I begin the first draft. I literally have around 30,000 words of nothing but free writing trying to form my story world and develop the characters. If this thing were a novella it would be long enough for publication already. I'm obsessed. Good thing I didn't sign up for this to be normal.

Anyone ever seen a first draft? Most of them look like they were written by a kinder-gardener.

If they're mine, they're cringe-worthy. I've heard and found it true that you're supposed to just write and iron it all out in the rewrite, which means that going back over it to stomp out typos may be counterproductive. Second guessing yourself is for technical writers. Let your story be alive. I don't want anybody to think that I'm just blowing smoke here, so I'm going to try and get at least something up soon.

I'm beginning to worry that an anthropomorphic dragon wizard might be too crazy of a character for comfort, even though I believe the fantasy genre is in dire need of some spicing up. Translation: there are so many Lord of the Rings clones floating around out there that the literary world just may drown in them.

I also know that a main character who goes insane by the end of the story isn't a new idea, either, but the one thing that sort of makes mine different could be just causes it to be a controversial story. My intent was to follow a child's descent into madness. While I have plenty of other crazy people in my story, I wanted Muriel's transformation into one of these crazy people to be particularly unsettling. People just cringe at the thought of anything unsettling involving children, even though thirteen isn't exactly a childish age. The problem, I guess you could say, is that most people assume it's a much more childish age than it really is. At thirteen you know a lot more than people give you credit for.

I'm also trying to make it look like her 'descent' into adulthood accompanied her descent into madness to the point that some people might take it to mean that I believe it's wrong to grow up.

Nah, not wrong...just impractical :P

Never Get too Attached to the Magic Man

Image via Wikipedia

 While my sporadicly available internet connection insists upon making maintaining a blog extremely difficult, I have found myself able to actually make a post.

I don't know how long this is going to last, so I'll try to make it quick. Today's post, or at least the first half of it, is about one of my uncountable favorite poems. It is by the sometimes adorable (but always only in my opinion) James Henry Leigh Hunt.

Jenny Kissed Me

by James Henry Leigh Hunt

Jenny kissed me when we met,

Jumping up from the chair she sat in.

Time, you thief, who love to get

Sweets into your list, put that in.

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;

Say that health and wealth have missed me;

Say I'm growing old, but add--

Jenny kissed me!

This poem in itself is adorable. It was a welcome change after pouring myself over The Wasteland.

And just to make sure that some random poem I enjoy that no one else might isn't the only thing on the blog today, I would like to bring to your attention my latest revelation---the wizard always dies.

I'm writing a fantasy, and it's so tempting to kill the wizard just because it's been imprinted into my brain that he always dies. Think about every single fantasy novel you've ever read that had a wise old wizard in it.

Did he die?

Thought so.

I'm trying to be original here, but it just feels like a fantasy series isn't complete without a dead wizard main character. I suppose it happens so often because it adds to the story's dilemma. Not only did the plot thicken, but now the younger, inexperienced, and often magically challenged other main characters are left all alone to deal with it. Now they're forced to grow up and learn to do things for themselves. The agony!

It does add drama, but I know how frustrating it is to feel like you're basically reading the same story with different authors and characters. I don't want to subject anyone to that just as much as I want to provide a valuable story that people will enjoy.

But if I do kill the wizard, I don't think I can resist the temptation to make his last words, “There is another Skywalker.”

George Lucas would take everything I own and more, however, so I more than likely won't. Also, I've noticed that the past two blog post pictures were of the same thing.

So I put up a puppy.

4 Annoying Things About Urban Fantasy

I have come to the realization that I cannot stand urban fantasy. I know, I know...it's quite possibly one of the most beloved genres in all of bookdome. I'm not saying that I've closed off my mind to it, either. Everyone knows that all it takes to completely redeem a genre is one really amazing book. There are just a few little things about urban fantasy that have really been jumping on top of my nerves and doing a nice little two step lately, and over time they've manifested themselves into a nice little article-worthy list.

1. It's a genre that continually tries to be cool to the extent that it just isn't.  Vampires are cool without dressing up as a circa 1970s Henry Winkler, and for some reason I just can't entertain the idea of them regularly attending nightclubs and behaving like a fourteen year old girl. 
2. It's almost always coupled with some sort of paranormal romance which is almost always based on nothing but sex because everyone knows that's all love is anymore. Sure, Guy #1 is seriously in love with you and would do anything for  you, but he's like, a human! And like, Guy #2 is half dragon and wants to eat your face for breakfast! How can you compete with that, Guy #1? How?!?
3. Everyone who isn't magical has to have a skull that's three inches thick. There's a dragon perched on top of the Empire State Building and I'm supposed to believe that nobody sees? This is the one thing that makes urban fantasy so hard to write--the fact that the writer has to make a believable excuse for the magical elements in the story and the fact that no one seems to notice that they're there. Most writers nowadays don't even seem to be making the attempt.  
4. All of the books are basically the same but with different characters.  In other words, urban fantasy has been way overdone. Nearly ever book that comes out nowadays is either it or just plain nonfiction. After being written so often, it's not hard to believe that elements of different stories criss-cross. Originality is getting harder and harder to find these days. 

Excerpt the Second

Image via WikipediaI'm fairly certain that I've at least got an actual scene from my novel going on here. The goal was to focus on character motivation...I was going to write about how Muriel wants to be a daredevil and find adventure but can't have it because she's stuck in the city. You can all see just how well that went. I gave the nutjob just what she wanted...or, well, what she thinks she wants for now.
 Somehow I never end up developing the parts of my characters that I sat down to develop.

I do believe I have a new development for my Muriel, however: She's crazy as a loon.

(Psst...I hope there aren't as many typing and spelling mistakes in this excerpt as there were in the first!)



------

The snow was falling in sheets. As she leaned out the window, feeling the tiny, icy pinpricks land on her skin, Muriel tried to make out the building across the alleyway beneath her bedroom. It was all in vain; there was simply too much snow.

She leaned back into the room and shut the window. Chilled water dripped down her face as the flakes that had lighted on her head began to melt in the warmed air. Snow, and lots of it. Just what she had been hoping and praying for. December and January had almost passed completely without so much as a flake.

Behind her the television was chattering away, and she crossed the room to her dresser so that she could turn it off. The entire house was finally asleep. Now it could be quiet.

While she was still at the front of her room she flipped off the light switch, leaving the room in complete darkness, and felt her way to her bed. Muriel didn't want the slightest bit of glare on the window. She was hoping that the man would come and stand on the sidewalk that night like he had every night for the past two weeks, the one that she could see if she looked as far to the left as she could while staring out at the city beyond. Of course, the snow that night would make it harder to see him, but Muriel had the feeling she would. It was almost as if the world around him wanted him to be seen.

The snow was so thick that night, however, that she couldn't even see the fire escape directly outside. There was only a thick, animated whiteness, squirming and moving as if it were alive as each snowflake rocketed toward the ground. Muriel tried to zero in on a single flake and follow its journey to the ground, but it had left her field of vision before she could really even focus on it at all.

All seemed still in the frozen world outside save those madly swirling snowflakes.

Muriel snapped awake before she had even realized that she had fallen asleep. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she was covered in cold sweat. Something had frightened her, of that she was convinced. But what?

She rested her forehead on the glass. A chill shook her as the heat of her body met the frigid windowpane. How long had she been asleep? It couldn't have been very long, for the snow had not slowed one bit...unless it was going to snow buckets all night.

That was when Muriel saw it. Or him, rather.

He was in the alleyway this time. Not very far into it, as he still would have been quite visible from the street were the weather not so bad. He was only a relatively small black form, shaped very much like a man and nearly invisible behind the wall of falling snow. But it was him, there was no question.

Muriel slid her window open and climbed out onto the fire escape wearing nothing but her pink flannel nightgown.

The cold snow quickly penetrated her slippers, but she didn't care. Holding onto the rail to keep her balance, Muriel climbed down the metal stairs, taking note of how many level areas she came to. There were three floors between her bedroom and the alley below. Before long she came to the ladder and nearly slid down it rather than climbed.

Her foot finally struck pavement when she realized that what she was doing was absolutely insane. She was a thirteen year old Jewish girl standing in the middle of a snow filled alleyway in Brooklyn at who knew what hour of the night to meet some stranger that she had seen from her window. It was completely mad.

Mad and wonderful.

Muriel grinned and set off in the direction of the anthropomorphic black figure.

The closer she got, the more of him she could see. It was as if they two of them were concealed in a bubble; the blizzard was raging all around it but not inside of it. It could have simply been that she was so focused on him that the snow didn't matter anymore, but Muriel always liked to imagine that something simply wonderful was happening, even when nothing out of the ordinary was going on at all.

When she was only a few feet away from him he turned, and she saw that he was wearing a bowler hat pulled down over his face that was as black as the suit he wore. It looked as if not a single snowflake had landed on either one. They were still both just as black as black could be.

He reached out his hand, palm up, and beckoned to her.

Behind her was her apartment, and inside were her mother and father. Muriel loved them more than anything else in the world and couldn't stand the thought of leaving them alone. She also knew that it was incredibly wrong to go with a stranger, because when one did such a thing one had no idea where one would end up.

And that was what had her pinned. She didn't know why, but Muriel knew that this individual wasn't your garden variety stranger. He had somewhere that he would like to take her, and if she didn't go with him, she would never find out where that place was.

Crazy, irrational, and sometimes unbelievable Muriel took his hand and followed after him when she felt him pulling on her. He threw the jacket of his suit over her shoulders and led her on toward where she knew the street was, but where she saw nothing but that moving whiteness.

Before long the white was still and hazy, and she realized that there was no more snowfall. There was only seemingly endless white fog, and various details and outlines coming gradually into focus.

Though she was dazed and dizzy, Muriel actually managed a laugh. She had come into the alleyway just to talk to this gentleman, and so far she hadn't said a single word. 

Excerpt, maybe?

I'm not exactly sure when this scene will appear in my novel, only that it will. I know that the writing is suckish at the moment, it only being the first draft of a first draft. It will probably change quite drastically before things are over with, but I believe it will remain essentially the same scene.

I kind of just went with the flow on this one and wrote. It's from the novel I'm hoping isn't terrible that I'm working on right now, the one I recently decided to turn into a series (seeing as the synopsis alone was going to span several pages in Word).

Writing this scene has told me, however, that I'm incredibly rusty, especially at dialogue. Definitely need to work on some more prompts before I start outlining this baby. I'm thinking I might actually start the writing in about three weeks, so I'm excited :D

I also have my fingers crossed as I copy and paste this, seeing as the past four attempts (at least) have resulted in disaster. Seriously, this thing has taken me days to get up.

-----


The knight lightly shoved Muriel into a room that was so dark the window looked like a patch of stars on the wall. Without a word he left, nearly slamming the door behind him.

She felt a hand grab onto her shoulder to stop her from going any farther into the room and assumed, or rather hoped, that it was the Retriever.

“Follow me to my room. There isn't any light in your's.”

She recognized the voice. Muriel didn't know why she breathed a sigh of relief, but she did.

His hand found hers, and the Retriever led her straight on through the darkness for at least a few yards. “Wait here. I'll light the fire.”

Muriel listened as he fumbled around in the darkness. Tears were welling up in her eyes, and her face was hot. She had kept saying the entire way up to the room that she needed to go home...why hadn't anyone listened to her?

The room was suddenly illuminated with flickering, steadily growing light. The Retriever had found the fireplace.

From what little light there was Muriel could make out teal wallpaper, colored slightly yellow from the firelight. The fireplace was cream colored, and decorated with all sorts of carvings that she really wasn't in the mood to look at. As the light grew stronger she could see dark polished wooden floors and a bed in the corner of the room opposite the fireplace.

“Please, sit down...I'll be with you in just a moment.” the Retriever turned towards the window and lifted his hat, placed it on the windowsill.

Muriel didn't budge, her nails digging into her forearms as hot tears streamed down her cold face. “Can I just go home? Please?”

The Retriever was silent, his jaw tightly clenched. He leaned out the window, palms gripping the windowsill. “No...not once you're in.”

“But-”

He pushed himself up and crossed the room, taking her hand. “Please? Come and sit down.”

Muriel, tears now streaming freely down her face, finally complied.

The bedsheets were white and plain, making the bed look large and spacious, if not plain. She drew her knees up to her chest and sobbed, no longer caring to hold back.

“Come on, don't cry...please? There's nothing either one of us can do about it.” he laid his hand warily on her back, patting it gently.

Muriel would have pulled away from anyone else, but she could tell that he was a kind man and meant what he said. “Why...won't...you...let...me...leave?”

“Because you can only come in. You can't go out. Your kind, I mean...once you're in, you have to stay.” the Retriever explained. “Oh, please stop crying...this happens every time, I hate it!”

He leaned forward, his head in his hands.

Muriel wiped her eyes and sniffed thickly. “What do you mean? My kind? Every time?”

“Every one of you...you always cry.” he sounded exhausted, his voice muffled by his hands.

Muriel tugged at his shirt collar until he sat up. “You've...brought in more people like me before?”

“Yes...or rather, I used to.” the Retriever ran his hand through his hair. “Nowadays we can't get them to come anymore...especially when they're as old as you. Usually only the little ones can even see me calling to them.”

“I...I don't understand.” Muriel shook her head.

“You're not just here for the fun of it, um...” the Retriever paused.

“Muriel.”

“You're not just here for the fun of it, Muriel. I never would have taken you away from your world unless I had a reason. We need you here. To survive.”

He stood up and made his way to the door, stopping in the doorframe. “I know tonight's been rough. I'll talk about it more tomorrow, I promise. Your room is adjoined to mine. I'll sleep there tonight since it's this one is warmer becuase of the fire. We didn't have any in your fireplace because, well, quite frankly we didn't expect to have anyone come.”

He chuckled, so lightly that it was almost inaudible. “We had almost given up on getting anyone at all...you don't know how much we need you here, Muriel. It's been...such a long time.”

Muriel wiped another tear off of her cheek—she knew there was no way she was going to get them to stop flowing enough to get a decent night's sleep---and, when she saw that he hadn't moved yet, managed to keep her voice from shaking enough to ask, “What's your name? You know mine. I want to know your's.”

“I don't have one. They just call me The Retriever when we don't have one of you and The Guardian when we do.”

“Ah.”

Muriel reclined onto the bed and stared up at the blurred ceiling. “Nick, then.”

“What?” the Retriever asked, stopping in the middle of his slow retreat into the other room.

“Nick. That's what I'm naming you.”

Oh joy! It's a PLOT!

Image by mshea via FlickrI've never been more excited in my entire life. I just sat down and, after finishing up the last of my character development, typed out the entire plot synopsis to my novel. AHHHH!

This has never happened before. Normally I start a novel with nothing but ideas and then leave it alone. If you think of the plot of a novel as getting from point A to point Z, my problem has definitely always been that I have points A, Z, G, O, M, Q, W, P, and R, but none of the others.

In other words, I only have a few disjointed, disconnected scenes of the novel and not the whole shebang. Well, I'm happy to say that the whole shebang is definitely mine in the case of this one. I've got all of the stops along the way planned out. Now all I have to do is outline the thing and then write it! EEEE!

I know it may seem like I'm overreacting, but this truly is a wonderful moment for me. It means I just might make it in this crazy business, after all. My problem before definitely was planning. Looking back at the way I had been writing before, it's no wonder I never got anywhere. I'm so glad I actually decided to pretty much develop the whole darn thing beforehand or I might have never gotten past my slump.

I have made this one rule for myself: The novel is everything. Even if it's five in the afternoon on a Saturday and you've been invited to go to a free pie party, you don't. You write. Because if you don't, that novel will never get finished. Never.

It makes me want to rip my hair out, but it's completely worth it.

Image by John-Morgan via FlickrSo my novel is finally underway...sort of.

 I'm trying to have the first draft done in three months. I really feel like I have a chance of finishing this one seeing as its more than just a jumbled mess of ideas, so quite a bit of energy is going into the developing and outlining stages. In fact, I spent four hours today on character development alone. Granted, I did stare blankly at my writing journal for some of that time...but it's still something, right? It truly is amazing how long it can take just to decently fill out a bio sheet for one measly little person.


The main character is a fourteen year old Jewish girl living in Brooklyn, though not much of the story is set in the city. She gets taken into a world that the inhabitants refer to as "The Hidden World" by a man known as  "the retriever."

As  you can probably guess, it all goes down hill from there.

It's a magical little world full of all sorts of schmaltzy fairy tale elements and all that jazz, but its sinister secret is that every few years it must take a human sacrifice from our world to ensure that it survives. It's a bit dark, and I don't know how happy the ending is going to be, but I'm thinking that it has the potential to be a pretty good work. I honestly can't wait to get started on outlining the actual novel. This may even extend into a series if I can make enough content.

A Clockwork Story-line

Image by Kjirstin via Flickr
That is by far the worst parody blog post title I have ever seen, let alone conjured. Forgive me, father, for I have sucked.

Lately I've had an inexplicable affinity with all things involving clockworks. I think I'll scream if I can't incorporate it into my mostly fairy-tale based novel. As of now I have no idea how I'm going to make it work, but it's at least obvious now that it's either going to be incredibly cool or tragically terrible.

I'm not going to call this affinity that I have "Steampunk" because, to be completely honest, no one really seems to know what it is. Plus, I'm not willing to walk around in Victorian clothing. Well...I'm willing, but let's just say that I'm not able.

Anyone who knows me knows that I would dress up as a giant cupcake if I could. Damn society. Not letting me be weird.

BUT...as I was saying...maybe it could work if I stick some sort of machine at the center of my story world. That should give me my gear fix while still giving me my fairy tale fix. I just don't want to to look forced. There's nothing more annoying than forced fiction. Don't you just hate it when it seems like even the characters know what kind of story they're in? Or when the story is set in a technologically advanced age and the author spends nearly an entire page describing gadgets and only a paragraph on actual progress in the plot?

It's like...we get it. They're all in the future. Now what's going to HAPPEN in the future?

I also hate hearing that a book is completely wonderful when I've tried to read it, myself, only to get so  bored that I can't even manage the first few chapters. It's like dangling all of that wonderful-ness everyone is talking about right in front of my face. I know it's in there, but the storytelling bores me before I can get to it.

Of course, sometimes people will tell you that a book is wonderful and you'll read the whole thing cover to cover and never get to the amazing story they've been telling you about.

Such was the case with a certain book series I read a while back. Yes. The entire series. I read it all just because my so called friends said that it started off bad but got better.

Guess what?

It never got better.