(no subject)

[chelseagirl]

Deadwood rewatch has slowed down a bit because I keep falling asleep in the evenings, and M was off for Columbus Day yesterday, so I just left early for the office. And got so much done! So much easier to accomplish things before the Writing Center opens and I start needing to interact with people . . .

Does anyone here watch The Exorcist? We really enjoyed last season; I doubt I would have chosen it, but M was into it so I gave it a try. I was really surprised it got a second season, but pleased. And I know I said this last season, but it is so slashy that even I sit there going "this is so slashy," despite my (boy)slash goggles being permanently broken, and so does M. It probably helps that Marcus is canon-gay, if until recently celibate (he almost got to pick up a guy in a bar after being defrocked last season, but there was an exorcism emergency); Tomas was struggling with his feelings for a female parishioner last season, but they are on the road as rogue exorcists now. So yeah, M and I sit there going, Do it already, you two. I confess, as growing up my name for my clergyperson was "Dad", clerical celibacy is something I don't quite register. Oh, and last season we had Geena Davis and Alan Ruck and Sharon Gless as family of the possessed; this season we have *tah-dah* John Cho! Admittedly, there are all kinds of church-hierarchy conspiracies, so it's like the lovechild of The Exorcist and a Dan Brown novel, but hey, priests so slashy that even I see it . . .

Thoughts about writing: So I have started writing a historical mystery. And I'm having some lengthy thoughts, and I'll put up a cut, but I'd appreciate it if anyone is patient enough to read the following, because I don't really have anyone to talk to about this with: So the old ASJ stories I am reposting were probably the best things I've ever written -- they're long, I worked through the plots thoughtfully, and because they were for a show that only had two main characters, who traveled around trying to stay out of trouble, I invented a town full of people for them to interact with, including love interests (which, back in the 90s, that fandom embraced in a way most others already didn't). And those characters really were thoroughly and thoughtfully developed. I often freeze at character creation and start doubting myself, but having canon characters for them to play off of really seems to have helped, in this case.

Even back then, I had the idea of breaking Ella, who is the female lead and a lawyer (and yes, there were woman lawyers in the US in the 19th c, not many but there were and mostly in less settled places -- I own several whole books on the topic) out of the series and using her as a detective, but I wanted to move her to NYC. I have a whole library of histories and reference books on 19th c. NYC, whereas my knowledge of the West is pretty much fanfic level. And she would end up solving crimes because of her background. But she resisted being separated from the other characters and I just never got far with it. So this time I thought -- why not bring some of the other characters with her? And adapt the canon characters so that they fit into the new world.

The thing is: I started it in New York, and I know who these characters are because they're variants of my fic characters, but readers won't, and there's so much clumsy exposition at present. So now I'm trying to decide if I need a first book set in Montana, to establish who everyone is, or whether the first quarter of the first book (which already has a plot and a lot of things going on) should be set there. So puzzling, and I fear losing momentum. Ultimately, they might not need to be entirely tied to either location, but the problem is I've got plots for three or four novels down the road, but I keep rewriting the first three chapters of this one.

Also, you might say "but C, I thought you mostly read litfic and sf -- why a mystery?" which is true but not entirely. My first adult books were mysteries -- sometime in 4th grade, I got bored with Nancy Drew and started reading Nana's Agatha Christies and Mom's Dorothy Sayers, and my own Sherlock Holmes. And whenever I find a mystery set in 19th c. New York, I feel compelled to read it, and I have Ideas. Which are at least as good as what I've read. Really.

So yeah, I really need encouragement to keep going and I'm afraid I'll fizzle out. I've been telling nonfannish Real Life friends that I'm doing this (without all those details) hoping to embarrass myself into continuing. When it's so much easier to write something for AO3, where I might not get much attention, but even a couple of kudos or a comment is enough motivation to keep going.

And because my scholarship is turning more towards writing studies and less towards what I trained in, I'm also finding that writing something set in the 19th c, even if it's in the "wrong" country (I focused on the British novel in grad school) makes me feel engaged with that whole part of my life again.

Comments

[retsuko]

Big Exorcist fan here! I really liked last season, so I have high hopes for this one. I love John Cho's island of doom setting, and I thought last week's hospital scenes were potently eerie. Very eager to see where this goes!

[chelseagirl]

Me, too. Strange and wonderful show.

[evelyn_b]

I don't know the fandom these characters are coming from, so would be happy to read a couple pages and tell you if I get confused. I love mysteries & like what I've heard of the premise.

So your MC is a Montana lawyer who moves to NYC in the (late? mid?) 19th century? Maybe the best thing to do is to start it with her arrival in NY or just after, so you can use the fish-out-of-water situation to establish her character.

I have the same difficulty re: writing without external motivation. Writing for someone specific is so much easier than writing for its own sake, or for some unknown & improbable future audience.

[chelseagirl]

I did start it there and I'm doing so much contextualizing -- I think I need to write the backstory, whether it ends up at the beginning, or in flashbacks, or whatever, so that I have a more solid sense of who these characters are, especially in contrast or connection to the fanfic characters, OCs or otherwise, that they originated as.

Late 19th c. -- I want to do post-Civil War, and when there are railroads. I need to narrow it down more, but that will come as it develops.

I'd love to show you some pages, but I'm not quite there yet. (What a huge surprise coming from me, eh? ;-) )

[amaka]

FWIW, to have exposition plus an in medias re start, I see a lot of novelists use the "mini-story introduction" approach. That is, the first chapter (or several chapters) of the novel is like a microscopic miniature of the whole book's theme, a short story until itself in some ways, almost a self-contained unit, that allows the characters to present themselves and their motivations, give us the pattern in shorthand. We get to see them in action solving a little mystery, or fighting a little battle, or negotiating a little society, to exhibit their strengths, weaknesses, and most importantly motivations -- what do they want, day-to-day and heart's desire? what are they good at and what is their Achille's heel? -- before we move into the bigger tale.

Maybe the thing to do is to set aside the first three chapters of this one until you finish this one, and then to come back and rewrite the beginning? You may know better then what exposition is and isn't needed. And you're going to rewrite them anyway. So decide, if you can, though it's very hard, to do it later?

Or of course, there are always flashbacks. Some of us love the way that flashbacks make stories bigger on the inside! Some don't. :-)

My favorite mysteries are Rex Stout's. Aside from Marvel Comics, those are my New York-set stories. And what makes me reread Stout's mysteries are the characters, not the clues or crimes. When characters fit each other, their tales become inviting out of all proportion with everything else around them. And -- trivia -- Stout never actually told us, in 74 stories, how Goodwin and Wolfe actually met, or more of Goodwin's background than tidbits that add up to a bare paragraph. We did eventually get a novel in which Wolfe revisited the village where he was born, but it was after many novels, not before, and it raised as many questions as it answered.

Turning your fanfic universe into an original fic universe is a great idea.

I wish you all the inspiration, motivation, time and insight to stick with it!

[chelseagirl]

I think I really need to show the different world they come from, and what motivates the characters -- whether it ends up at the beginning or elsewhere, as a flashback or an embedded narrative or whatnot -- I'll worry about that later, I think. I've been tripping over myself, though -- especially with the Main Character and showing how her life was and therefore why she's such a fish out of water. (As she moves to a place that to me is normal and ordinary, if a century and change too early . . . )

[lunabee34]

I don't think you necessarily need to write a first book or write the first few chapters set somewhere else. I would advise writing the whole thing set in NYC and when you're finished, seeing if it needs something added to the beginning or flashbacks sprinkled throughout.

This sounds like such a cool project.

[chelseagirl]

That's what I have been doing, and I've been tripping over myself explaining things. I'm going to write the backstory, and see where it belongs -- as the first quarter of the book, as flashbacks, as its own thing, whatever. But I need to establish who these characters were before they ended up in this place that is strange to them (and normal to me!), and I need to show the MC actually being a lawyer, instead of just talking about how much she misses it.

[lunabee34]

Ah, okay. I misunderstood. But I'm glad to see in the other post that you're feeling your way through what to do.

[chelseagirl]

Now if only I can not trip myself up, like I usually do, and actually finish the project . . .

[lunabee34]

Rah, rah, rah.

*cheerleads*

[chelseagirl]

Thanks! I've written the first new chapter, set in Montana and setting things up, and in the next chapter or two things will hit the fan and then the change of location comes in naturally. I now have a much stronger motivation for the relocation, too, yay! And the love interest is better established, as well.

But now, to finalize a conference presentation . . .

[lunabee34]

Look at all this productivity!

I'm impressed.