Seriously, chain mail is sexy
23 July 2005 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammerAnd with 20k words written, it's safe to say I'm working on the new novel and not the other projects. This being the previously mentioned adult medieval romantic fantasy. Her Nibs is a warrior fighting to inherit her father's earldom while His Nibs is the captain of the royal guards heading for a religious crisis. I'm not calling Her Nibs kick-ass because she hasn't actually applied foot to posterior, though she has kneed someone in the stones. Also in the mix: dry sarcasm on stage, espionage in the wings, badly fitting gender roles, and anger management issues. Plus I get to say scathing things about Courtly Love. All tasty ingredients, which is good because I never expected to be cooking a high fantasy stew. No idea how long it'll be, given I've never written one of these before, but 100k words would make me happy. Code name is Inheritance, for lack of a better working title.
This is not an attack novel -- 500 words is a good day. Strong voices and tight diction will do that. There are signs, though, I'm catching the manner of it, so may speed up. Not that I've figured out how to translate "just because I'm butch doesn't mean I'm a dyke" into medieval terms yet.
Odd process realization. I draft contemporary YA novels like I do fairy tales -- dialog and incident improvised continuously, rolling ever onward to the end, except when I fork wrong and have to back up. This novel is drafting itself like a narrative poem, in a more quantum manner. This is easier to explain for poetry: By the time I start a stanza*, I've a rough sketch of what I think happens in it, which I piece together into shape, altering and refining and recasting as I go. Along the way, I jot notes what comes after; when one's done, lather/rinse/repeat on the next, each in order. Inheritance is similar, with the quanta not stanzas but scenes and subscenes. I'm writing the scenes in order, just as I do stanzas, but its parts are put down everywhichorder, aiming for an emotional end-point. Get down the highlights any way I can, then connective tissue, smooth it out, add emotions and descriptions, sand down the seams, then on to the next. For the longer scenes, which articulate in movements, it's not the whole scene but each small arc/subscene.
*I say that as if there's no blank verse or couplets, but in truth, it's been several years since I've written anything over 75 lines in anything but stanzas. Revised or rewritten, yes, but not drafted. As for free verse, because I'm wretched at it, I of course rarely use it.
The ObFluff this week is played by viciously addictive point-and-click adventures: Hapland 2 (more fiendish than the first), Archipelago and Dark Room, The Phone, The Doors, Vagrancy, and something in unreadable Japanese. Plus for people who untangle Christmas lights and headphones for fun, Planarity.
---L.
This is not an attack novel -- 500 words is a good day. Strong voices and tight diction will do that. There are signs, though, I'm catching the manner of it, so may speed up. Not that I've figured out how to translate "just because I'm butch doesn't mean I'm a dyke" into medieval terms yet.
Odd process realization. I draft contemporary YA novels like I do fairy tales -- dialog and incident improvised continuously, rolling ever onward to the end, except when I fork wrong and have to back up. This novel is drafting itself like a narrative poem, in a more quantum manner. This is easier to explain for poetry: By the time I start a stanza*, I've a rough sketch of what I think happens in it, which I piece together into shape, altering and refining and recasting as I go. Along the way, I jot notes what comes after; when one's done, lather/rinse/repeat on the next, each in order. Inheritance is similar, with the quanta not stanzas but scenes and subscenes. I'm writing the scenes in order, just as I do stanzas, but its parts are put down everywhichorder, aiming for an emotional end-point. Get down the highlights any way I can, then connective tissue, smooth it out, add emotions and descriptions, sand down the seams, then on to the next. For the longer scenes, which articulate in movements, it's not the whole scene but each small arc/subscene.
*I say that as if there's no blank verse or couplets, but in truth, it's been several years since I've written anything over 75 lines in anything but stanzas. Revised or rewritten, yes, but not drafted. As for free verse, because I'm wretched at it, I of course rarely use it.
The ObFluff this week is played by viciously addictive point-and-click adventures: Hapland 2 (more fiendish than the first), Archipelago and Dark Room, The Phone, The Doors, Vagrancy, and something in unreadable Japanese. Plus for people who untangle Christmas lights and headphones for fun, Planarity.
---L.
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no subject
Date: 23 July 2005 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 23 July 2005 11:35 pm (UTC)I wanna know what happens when they hit the road. Because, they do have to go to court. Of course.
---L.
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Date: 23 July 2005 09:40 pm (UTC)It works, too, which is the fascinating and cool part. Something to be learned about craft, there.
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Date: 23 July 2005 11:33 pm (UTC)---L.
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Date: 24 July 2005 06:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 July 2005 08:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 July 2005 02:11 pm (UTC)---L.
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Date: 25 July 2005 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 July 2005 01:40 am (UTC)(Oops, gosh darn it. His Nibs has ran into some raiding hill clansmen. This just might slow his party down. <cackle>)
---L.
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Date: 25 July 2005 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 July 2005 02:05 am (UTC)---L.