Day 3 Nano — Plantsing Away (with story segment)

I think I remember telling people I’m a Plantser in NaNo parlance — I plan, but only so far, using a set of scene synopses instead of a full outline. This is easy to do in Scrivener, which uses a notecard schema for chapter and scene synopses.

When writing, even at 2000 words a day, I’m restructuring my outline by adding and moving those scenario cards. Yesterday, I realized that NOTHING plotwise was happening between visiting The Jungle, a geographical entity which includes Chicago and Detroit, and Salt Lake City. That’s hundreds of miles, folks. 1400 miles to be exact. I’m sure I could skip over that segment of flyover country, but given that one of the themes of the story is self-discovery (“It’s ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ meets ‘North by Northwest!’) I easily could give my protagonist a few pertinent experiences there. I’ve added a chapter — actually, two half-chapters — to facilitate some adventures here.

I do minor editing on spelling and grammar in the writing stage, but don’t get too bent out of shape about it, because that’s not the idea of the writing stage. The idea is to get a first draft (or in the case of NaNo, half a first draft in a month).

OOPS — back to writing!

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Today’s excerpt, written yesterday:

I considered my options for getting off-campus. There was a riot outside the building and my captors within. I didn’t believe the police, or the Guard who had joined them, would be any more sparing of bullets than my captors had been.

The steam tunnel doors hung open. I had heard about the legendary steam tunnel system — maps of the tunnels existed, handed down and providing adventures to generations of students who could withstand the heat. The cameras that protected students from heatstroke no longer functioned, so the risk was higher than in bygone eras. I taught all of this in Intro to Anthropology each year.

I, however, did not have a map, and imagined myself wandering through the tunnels, some of which were low enough that the explorer had to crawl through. There were rumors of dead ends and caved-in sections — wait. Somewhere in my notes, up in my office, I had documentation of a Charles DeWitt who had, in 2020, painted guide signs in glow-in-the dark paint. All I needed was a flashlight, which I found on a hardhat by the tunnel doors. I flipped the switch; the light functioned.

Now, a destination. I thought about where I was, Hartley Hall, at the north central point of the Quad. My destination was under the Quad to Alfred Wyndham Lab, the science building nearest the east gate. I knew that the tunnel would be anything but straight, given how the tunnels branched out to serve all the buildings.

What I would need besides the light? I took a long drink from the utility sink in the corner and relieved myself in a dank, muddy corner — I didn’t care about anything but being safe. What else — lock picks. I didn’t have lockpicks in case any doors were locked. Lockpicks — I searched for the smallest bladed screwdrivers I could find, precision screwdrivers, which I found in a large drawer on a workbench labeled SHOP. I swiped the two smallest screwdrivers and a diamond file so I could file them thin if needed. My father, the cryptographer, had taught me how to disable locks from simple tumbler locks to advanced cryptobiometric ones.

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Then I charged through the doors into the unknown.

Metamorphosis

Sometimes a story tells you what it’s about, and not vice-versa.

Gaia’s Hands, my thrice-edited novel, is my case in point because I am not privy to the revision process of other authors. When I first interrogated the dream and wrote the story, I wrote a light-hearted, unconventional romance between an older woman and a younger man who just happened to have unusual talents. It was, in other words, humorous and bland. It didn’t “grab” at the reader. It was, in other words, the same sort of fantasy/romance story I wrote in sixth grade, only with a chance of intercourse.

Being the new writer I was, I felt dissatisfied with the story, but I couldn’t figure out why. What was the problem? The story had a beginning, a middle, and an end. It had a resolution. What took me the longest time to understand was that the story had a resolution, but it wasn’t resolving anything of substance.

After a couple other books under my belt, I tried writing Gaia’s Hands from the viewpoint of the four characters most involved in the action of the plot, which had grown to involve a small miracle and more menace from a corporate cabal. I laid in subplots for the two other characters, and they’re fascinating enough that they may deserve their own short stories — Eric tries to find his surrogate mother, and Annie is revealed as a refugee for a surprising reason.

However — four viewpoints in a novel is painful for a reader to follow, and the novel seemed fragmented. What I figured was “avant-garde” was actually confusing. Not only because of the four points of view, but because of the fact that four subplots doesn’t compensate for a less-than-solid main plot. Reading the book reminded me of watching hand-offs in two-person juggling.

After a couple MORE books under my belt (there are five completed now, although one isn’t good enough to revise), I reviewed Gaia’s Hands and decided the following:

I could go back to the two points of view — Jeanne and Josh, third person limited — because they are most important in the plot and subplot. I love those two oddballs.

I needed more plot, more menace — if for no other reason, to illustrate why Jeanne was being persecuted by a corporate cabal. It couldn’t be just because her research supported alternate forms of agriculture — not even I found that believable under scrutiny. Could it be that the corporate cabal was goaded by a third party with his own vendetta about Jeanne? A mysterious figure that would tie this book into the later ones that it’s a prequel to? Yes! And so that character, immortal and mercenary, brings with him a lot more menace than the shadowy cabal alone could.

I’m almost done with this (hopefully final) edit, and then a quick once-over, and then I hand it to beta-readers (HINT: You too can be a beta-reader. Just ask!)

To summarize the metamorphosis from what I’ve related over several entries:

Dreamed a weird dream — I will not tell you how weird, but suffice it to say it involved a much younger man and a kitchen, followed by wandering through a subterranean city with white glossy walls, lots of whiteboard, and really bright fluorescent lights. (To my current readers: The young man wasn’t you, so don’t panic.)

Interrogated the dream (“Young sir, why were you in my dream and why were we — ?”) I used a Gestalt dream interpretation tool.

Wrote my imaginary interrogation as a play snippet. (It comes off like high school angst)

Wrote two short stories to flesh out the play snippet.

Husband suggested I write a novel.

First draft of what then was called “Magic and Reality” (referring to magical realism). Mainly a love story. Not much tension, except between the two characters about their age difference.

Second draft, renamed “Gaia’s Voice”. Emphasized the role of Gaia, the Earth-Soul. Brought in JB94 (see “Not all my characters are people”).

Third draft, named “Gaia’s Hands” — the four-way point of view

Fourth draft, still named “Gaia’s Hands” — two way point of view, more menace

Whew!

Change or Die

As you might have read here before, I’m writing a book. I woke up yesterday morning and decided my novel fell into the Young Adult category. I decided to rename the book “Prodigies”. Then I decided that, instead of splitting the narrative into four different segments with four different first-person narratives, that I would retain one first-person narrative throughout. So in about three minutes, I changed everything but the characters and the plot.

When I first started shaping this story, I wanted to write in the viewpoints of all the characters because — so cool! so experimental! so avant-garde! I loved my characters; I wanted to give them all stories — the eighteen-year-old mixed race violist who spent her life in residential music schools; the seventeen-year-old graphic artist whose talent is edged by madness; the 26-year-old teacher and mentor who has declared war against a shadowy conspiracy; the 28-year-old veteran with PTSD and a talent he will not reveal. But one of the rules of writing is to limit your protagonists to one (or maybe two if you must) because readers prefer reading the story through one person’s eyes. I chose Grace, the violist, because I felt she saw and interacted with the characters the best:

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I stood in front of Room 16, afraid if I knocked too loud at that time of the night, I would attract the attention of those large men who served the Ivanovs. If I knocked too quietly, I would not wake Ichirou at all, especially as the bedroom lay beyond the suite —

As I dithered, I realized that I could go outside and throw rocks at the kid’s second-story window. As if that wouldn’t attract attention. As if I could figure out which window was his.

The door opened, and Ichirou hissed at me, “You may want to keep the grumbling down.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I hissed back as I let him pull me into his room and close the door silently.

“I’m just saying …” Ichirou took a deep breath. “How do we get out of here?” I noticed he wore jeans and a t-shirt with his hoodie over it, and his laptop sat by the door.

“What about Ayana?” I whispered, remembering that Przemysław had said he wasn’t sure about Ayana.

“Ayana told me to go with you.” Ichirou picked up his computer bag and peered through the peephole. “Of course,” he muttered. “A reverse peephole.”

“Should we — “

“Go go go!” Ichirou hissed, then grabbed my free hand and trotted across the lounging area, bumping into a chair. He threw the curtains open and pulled the window sash up. “Watch your step; it’s a bit far to the fire escape.”

Ichirou tried the fire escape first; his laptop appeared to unbalance his small frame for a moment, until he lurched forward and pulled himself onto the metal step and gripped the railings.

My turn. I perched on the sill, judging the difference between myself and the fire escape. I would not have to jump; if I shifted far enough to the right and stepped a bit, I could reach the step with my foot and shift my weight to grab the railing. Hopefully my viola would survive the maneuver.

As I swung myself onto the fire escape, we heard a gunshot, then another.

We ran down the fire escape. The pounding of our feet met the pounding of my heart.

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I also wanted to move away from “The Ones Who Toppled the World” because I’m afraid that title oversells the plot. They don’t topple the world, but they certainly do a number of the United Nations. (What do you think of “The Ones Who Toppled the Nations”?)

I guess I wanted to say that a writer should not be so wedded to something in their story that they will not walk away from it. If change improves the story, by all means change!