Writing fiction: the longest known way to get from point A to point B
Mid-January update: In which I realize what I don't want is exactly what I want
Reading time: approximately 12 minutes
Hello my darlings! Here we all are in 2024. I’d say I was happy to be here, but so far my 2024 has included the death of an extended family member and food poisoning. So instead, let’s say I’m hoping 2024 has a more positive upward trajectory from here. 🚀
For the first week of the year, I was a very productive little bee. All of my work was very meta, thinking out story things, and ended up all in my trusty notebook. I’ve put all my notes into this post, and I’ve added some commentary for you.
I wanted the commentary to be fun voice notes, but trying to get them transcribed seemed a bit problematic. And the e-mail experience would honestly kind of suck, and that’s the opposite of fun. (Audio embeds can’t play in an email, so you have to click and a web browser gets opened, and if I dropped in like 7 little sound bites, you’d have 7 tabs open of me talking at you? No thank you.)
Also, this is literally all of my notes from last week, which might be less “Behind the Scenes” and more TMI. Please, let me know in the comments if going forward you’d rather see the highlights of my work or if you like this play-by-play.
{WORLDBUILDING NOTES:
⓵ THE REAL WORLD IS FAR MORE REAL
PARAPHRASED FROM ANN LECKIE: Construct my world out of real-world elements. Whatever I can think of is probably something that’s already happened. The real world is far more real than the way my mind would put things together just from the things I already know.
START FROM A REAL WORLD PLACE, THEN BECOME ADDITIVE.
⓶ WHEN BUILDING A NEW SETTING, LOOK AT WHICH PARTS YOU REALLY NEED TO CREATE
FROM WORLDBUILDING, DEMYSTIFIED: Zero in on which aspects of worldbuilding will play an important part in this story.1
THOUGHTS
I started in December going through the step-by-step worldbuilding guides by section, and that’s likely why I feel completely overwhelmed now. I don’t need to fill out all the things. I don’t need to know everything.
ALSO I got caught up with my ideas about writing lots of stories in this world. But right now I need to write Netty’s story. That’s it. I don’t need to know exactly how or when the US Government fell or make a 200 year timeline. I need to work out}
~ * * ~
I’d done a bunch of worldbuilding in December before the holidaze. I spent time thinking about future major climate change milestones and other cataclysmic events related to global warming that could lead to the creation of the City. When I sat back down to it after two weeks away…the metaphorical worldbuilding mountain I had been climbing felt more like a mountain range. So I just started gathering some worldbuilding thoughts and advice that were running around in my brain.
~ * * ~
{the facts I need for Netty's story.
⓷ INFLUENCES ON MY STORY’S WORLD
FROM THE WRITER'S ROADMAP: Other factors, such as religious events and holidays, important rights of passage, or transformative events, like wars, famines, and territorial disputes might also influence your story’s world, since they have the ability to generate conflict, steer events, or lay the foundation for theme.
~Now I'm starting to think about the article I read earlier. How do I want the character to change over the course of the story? And how can my world support/hinder that change?~
⓸ EVERYTHING COMES BACK TO CHARACTER
FROM HOW TO DESTROY THE WORLD WORKBOOK: You have to remember that everything comes back to character. You have to remember that you aren't writing a story about a world that happens to have people in it.You are writing a story about people who happen to live in a particular world. Worldbuilding. Story. Character. None of these is independent from others.}
~ * * ~
I also was trying out a new writing tool: One Stop For Writers. It contains worldbuilding surveys, which have directions that say: only fill out what you need. How do I know what I need? That’s when I remembered that article I read earlier.
One Stop For Writers has a Story Maps tool, which is the structure-your-story bit. They use a structure called Michael Hauge’s Six Stage Plot Structure. I’d never heard of it, but if I compare a structure I do know to one I don’t know, I can usually mangle the new one into my understanding of story. There’s also an Internet for that, so I searched for ‘Michael Hauge’s Six Stage Plot Structure vs Harmon’s story circle’ and what I found was GOLD.
Ignacio Miranda’s Comparing Every Form of Story Structure article is hands down the best thing on structure I’ve ever read. Who is Ignacio Miranda?? I can’t find anything else about them or written by them (in English, anyhow). But thank you, Ignacio, from the bottom of my heart, because not only have you compared a bunch of popular structures, you laid out the pluses and minuses of using Harmon’s story circle. And then you went on to articulate an underlying structure process that strips away the philosophy of analysis and leaves a tool that anyone can use to write—I daresay—any kind story. BRAVO, MY FRIEND. MASTERFUL.
Seriously I had to look the article up to find the link and I re-read it for the umpteenth time right now and it STILL makes me so happy.
Ok, if I keep on like this this post will never end. Long story short, the structure process Ignacio explores puts the internal change the protagonist is going to make over the course of the story (the character arc) as the thing to figure out first. And I realized that if I did that, I’d have a lens to view worldbuilding through.
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{HOW WILL NETTY CHANGE?
This seems like the thing I need to figure out. But I keep thinking about that seminar I took with Dara Marks: WE WRITE STORIES AND STORIES WRITE US. We write to find answers, and the finding–journey is the reason we want to write.
I am not quite sure I can find how Netty will change, because I don't know the answer yet
I guess that's what revision is for! I've got to have some end in mind, or how can I possibly get anywhere?
TOOLS I HAVE TO HELP ME FIGURE OUT
as Ignacio Miranda says
WHAT NETTY IS LIKE AT THE BEGINNING ➡️ C H A N G E ➡️ WHAT NETTY IS LIKE AT THE END
SUSAN DEFREITAS WORKSHOP AGAINST EMPIRE
➡️ Arc of Change Masterclass Video
➡️ Anatomy of the Novel, Wk 1, Character Arc2
TAROT
Note: Need to order Radical Tarot
Note - best for containing decisions
➡️ Thesauras}
~ * * ~
Yes I am bad at spelling after all these years of Spell Check. Especially when I am thinking something out.
I like to forget that I don’t have to wing everything, that I’ve lined my writing nest with some helpful tools that I can use to help get me where I want to go. Some wheels don’t need re-inventing.
The link to Susan’s courses is a little confusing. I bought the 4 self-paced courses on her Courses page at the end of last year. I’m on Susan’s mailing list, and she was offering them as a bundle for half off. The offer was to also raise awareness about her upcoming MFA-replacement year-long workshop live course that she calls Workshops Against Empire. It sounds amazing, and one piece of it is teaching the four self-paced courses I bought live. So I call the courses I bought Workshops Against Empire because that name is obviously the best name for everything ever.
Sidenote: I love the idea of using Tarot and oracle cards to help me with character & story, but I’ve had limited success with it in practice so far. I tried to use The Citadel Oracle Deck to help think about Netty’s character, and I pulled The Researcher. Which is clearly me, not my character. I think. How do you separate your own psyche from the psyche of a character you are creating so really is also your psyche?
I should probably just leave my soul tools apart from my writer tools.
~ * * ~
{ARC OF CHANGE WORKSHEET
THE PROTAGONIST WILL GROW AND CHANGE IN A SPECIFIC WAY.
INITIAL ISSUE / EMOTIONAL WOUND
Copyrighted text3
LET’S THINK THIS OUT
A character’s worldview at the beginning of the story can be described as their negative (problematic?) belief. That worldview is expressed as a negative trait (maybe a number of related traits?) The worldview exists because of their emotional wound. The wound was caused by an event in their past (backstory). Pushing on the whys of that event can eventually come to greater social situations that caused it, bringing depth to the story. And the backstory can be woven into the story.4
NEGATIVE TRAIT
⬆️
PROBLEMATIC BELIEF (WORLDVIEW)
⬆️
EMOTIONAL WOUND
⬆️
PAST TRAUMATIC EVENT (BACKSTORY)
⬆️
ASK ‘WHY’ LIKE A 3 YR OLD UNTIL THE LARGER SOCIAL / CULTURAL SITUATION BECOMES CLEAR}
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So what you didn’t see was that I spent a day taking the first section of Susan DeFreitas’s Anatomy of a Novel course and watched her Character Change Masterclass, which were both brilliant and super helpful.
Susan DeFreitas’s coursework includes an actual Arc of Change worksheet that is useful and comprehensive, and was too much for me to tackle all at once. This is me working out just one piece.
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{NETTY: PROBLEMATIC BELIEF
I feel like starting here with Netty will be easier than starting with her major negative trait.
Let's start with the obvious – Netty was upset when Sylvie died, because she found out that Sylvie was still honoring her mer culture when Netty thought she had embraced hybrid culture and being hybrid. Many of the hybrids in the Ossuary came to be there after they had spent time growing up in the City. They got sent to the Ossuary after they had an existing identity as something else.
There's this decision about Netty that I keep putting off—was she born in the Ossuary. I keep putting it off because I’d also have to admit that whoever ends up in the Ossuary is stuck there. And that just sounds…ludicrously ominous. Something that people wouldn't stand for.
Gerrald—young Gerrald—describes Netty like this:
I can't even call Netty liz or mer. She's hybrid in a way I will never understand. What in hell were her parents even thinking? She's got blue scales – blue! No one has blue scales! – But they are in patches, someone on her cheeks, some her arms and legs…Netty’s blue skin–scale patch job is just gross.}
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I don’t know why I really wanted the description of Netty from a first draft of an unfinished story in here, but I really did. I was kind of fishing for where to go, I think.
~ * * ~
{Netty has liz genes, mer genes, alb genes, and yuld genes—from all Four Nations.
liz-black eyes
liz cool-bloodedness
though she doesn't go into full torpor like a pure liz
blue mer skin
patches of liz scales, but in blue not green
white [alb] hair, but thick and wavy like a mer
short stocky frame like a yuld
I don't think there's any way for her parents to have looked “normal" enough and their genes to have been pure enough for her to realistically not have been born in the Ossuary.5
I don't know why I find that distressing. Like someone being born in a concentration camp. But it's not that and I need to make that very clear.
I mean, or it is. FUCK.
Netty is devoted to the Ossuary. It's not an exile to her. It's home. It's where life away from the people who would condemn her as a genetic mistake can be good and lived on in her own terms.}
~ * * ~
You’re going to notice a theme here. I’ll get to it further down.
~ * * ~
{She doesn't get the loyalty of the exiles to their original culture.
She doesn't acknowledge that she is a product of those people and their culture.
A R G H
I want everyone else to change, not Netty.
OK, that's not exactly true. I don't want her to unhome herself. I don't want her change to turn her from someone who has a community and loves it to an outcast. I don't want Netty to become an exile as her lesson. I want the other characters to gain a feeling of home and community that Netty already has.
And Netty wants that for her friends and loves too.
But maybe she has to learn about being an exile to make a home for her people?
At least she has to acknowledge the exiles’ feelings. And that her home, her community, is still a jail, an oubliette. Exiles might feel like they deserve the oubliette.}
~ * * ~
Oh, past-Elnora. Poor little piglet.
All those things I don’t want to happen and don’t want to be true? WHAT A GREAT CHARACTER ARC THEY MAKE, DON’T THEY. 🙄 😂
Srsly, this is basically the story. Obviously I had no clue the day I wrote it, I just kept going, looking for other things that could happen. Then I transcribed this mess for you and as I was dictating this part the clue-by-four fell on my head.
The rest of my scribbles have some interesting ideas in them, but I feel like the core of this story is now set. I still don’t want all those things to happen to Netty, but when I read those few sentences that feeling starts. That one you get when you are reading a book and the protagonist is getting ripped to shreds emotionally and possibly physically, and you feel their hurts and it feels so delicious because you know somehow somewhere pages ahead that catharsis is waiting to wrap you up in a big ole slurry of warm beautiful redemption and healing.
I think that’s it.
~ * * ~
{Oh shit. Does Netty need to realize that she has community and happiness but not freedom?
Maybe Netty needs to realize that her exile friends don't want community, they want freedom. That's what would make them happy.
But that would destroy Netty’s community, Netty’s culture, the traditions of the Ossuary.
Is her love jailing her exile friends? Are her desires for them and their happiness blind to their needs and wants?
BRASS TACKS: IF THE OSSUARY REMAINS A PRISON, NETTY BELONGS, AND HER FRIENDS ARE EXILES. IF THE OSSUARY BECOMES INTEGRATED, NETTY BECOMES THE EXILE.6
OK the good thing here is this is my first draft I don't have to be right. This makes me think fear of abandonment, being expressed as controling, maybe? Time to check the thesaurus.}7
More than time to wrap this up! I hope you enjoyed reading this—if you’ve made it this far, thank you!
I’ll be back with more story progress in a couple weeks, for better or worse.
Till then,
💖
Elnora
Side column note: I’ve started in the wrong place - how does Netty change?
Side column note: Ha ha, Susan starts here. I should have followed her advice.
Side column note: Notice how there are two relationships: negative trait / positive trait
negative belief / positive belief
This is the emotional wound that causes the negatives.
Bottom note: ADJECTIVE: A word that describes or modifies a noun or pronoun “red”, “happy”
ATTRIBUTE: Quality or characteristic that someone or something has. Physical feature, behavior, skill.
TRAIT: Distinguishing quality or characteristic of a person, typically one belonging to their character.
CONTENTAUTHORITY.COM
Post-it: Talk with Dad about my height, when they are short. How did I end up 5’4”?
→ Tall Grandpa ——
→ Tall L——
Tall Great Grandpa ——
The genes are on both sides, not expressed always
Side column note: PROBLEMATIC BELIEF?
Bottom note: She’s the only one who can protect / love her friends? Needs everyone to agree with her P.O.V.? → MANIPULATIVE? EGOCENTRIC? SELFISH?
I love seeing this whole process, and the resistance to the character arc and the dawning realization of it. I feel this so much. I think about how I want my characters to be beloved and amazing and that it's tempted to write them as well-rounded and "arrived" from the beginning, but then...what is the story? This is a great reminder that the flaws are what make the arrival so good and the connection to a character so satisfying. Write a character who is flawed and complex and the reader wants to be better because they know they can be! And then figure out how to get them there.