Other things on my mind as a new book starts up

[pegkerr]

When I am just in the beginning stages of forming characters, they are very amorphous in my mind, of course. I have always described the beginning processes of creating as being rather like dropping a single crystal into a super-saturated solution. Once you add the seed, if the conditions are right, things can bloom like a crystalline structure all at once. (Tolkien, btw, had a similar image--he called it the creative stewpot. You put all the stuff you've read and experienced in your mind into a stewpot that bubbles at the back of your unconscious mind. Then, if you've put enough in for your mind to work on, and you've let it simmer long enough, you can ladle up good, hearty, satisfying stew, with beautifully blended flavors.

One way this works for me with characters in particular is that my sense of the physical nature of a character can be quite vague in the beginning, but often, when I am just beginning to think about a character, I'll see someone on the street and think: "Oooohhh . . . that's what x looks like." One of the most dramatic consequences this had for me was with a major character in my last book, Sean. I saw the "template" for Sean at a public library. This handsome stranger, reading a book and totally oblivious to my fascination with his facial bone structure, happened to be wearing an Irish sweater, and it was that small detail alone that made me decide that perhaps Sean might be interested in Irish music--a little character detail that added so much to the book. (I often think, what if he had been wearing a Hawaiian shirt? Good heavens, what a different book that would have been.)

In other words the decisions you make early on, or the "snapshot" or "gut reaction" that gets the book rolling, about either the plot or a character, will have consequences throughout the book--and you may be struggling with those consequences months later.

I imagine that's one of the reasons that I've been blocked on starting a book for so long--I'm hyper aware that there are a bunch of key decisions in the beginning, and these cut off an infinitude of decision-trees about what-the-book-could-be-but-won't-be from ever coming into fruition.

You just have to plunge ahead anyway.

I have been thinking about this today, that at this early stage I'm highly . . . I guess the word I'm struggling to come up with is something like "imprintable." You know, like those baby ducks that will follow the first thing they see that moves after they come out of their shells, even if it isn't their natural mother. For that reason, I'm careful about what I read at this point. I will start gulping down research books (aside: you know that you're becoming serious about being a fiction writer when you start reading more and more non-fiction, for research). But I'll be leery of reading books that I have some idea are too much like what I'm trying to attempt. I don't want to "imprint" on that other author's voice; I want to find my voice. Sometimes I think when I'm starting to thing about a character, "I want him to work sort of like character X in author y's work." The problem is, if I really, really like that character, I worry too much that my character will become TOO much like character x. I've got that worry right now. Jack Frost is very hazy is in my mind, but there is a particular character in a certain author's work whom I love, whom I think has several of Jack Frost's characteristics, and I'm chanting over and over to myself, "Be SURE you don't make him too much like character x."

This is rather like telling yourself: "Be SURE you don't think too much about pink gorillas." Trying to banish something from your mind can, perversely, make it stick around even more stubbornly.

Peg (who is the sort of person who worries about the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow).

Comments

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

But I'll be leery of reading books that I have some idea are too much like what I'm trying to attempt. I don't want to "imprint" on that other author's voice; I want to find my voice.

Like how you wouldn't see RENT before writing Wild Swans? I was actually very shocked by that, because there were several little details that reminded me so much of RENT. I was rather amused. ::grin:: Not that the rest of the book wasn't original. Mostly just the Muffy comment.

Yes,

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

that's a good example. I deliberately avoided seeing "Rent" for that very reason, although I was pining to see it. Another one I avoided was "Love!Valor!Compassion!" which I had heard actually included a scene where there were gay men dancing as faux ballerinas, as the voiceovers talked about their fears about AIDS. Too close to the Trockederos of Monte Carlo scene.

P.

Irish sweaters

[(Anonymous)]

I guess I should start by saying that your next work sounds intriguing, and I've already begun looking forward to it, but that's not really what my post was about. Since I read "Wild Swans" I've been trying to figure out just WHAT an Irish sweater is. Does a sweater have a particular pattern, or fabric, or color that makes it Irish?
Thanks,
Katie

Re: Irish sweaters

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

As I've always understood the term, they are white or cream-colored knit sweaters that Irish men wear. They have a variety of complicated knit patterns (cabling, basket-weave and so forth). I believe that in the days when so many Irishmen went to sea to fish, it used to be that each region, or town or maybe even family had their own pattern, and the reason for that was that if the man was lost at sea and his body eventually washed up, he could be identified by the pattern on his sweater, so that his next-of-kin could be notified.

Glad you think the next book might be of interest. Please feel free to keep reading and commenting.

P.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

*laugh* re: imprintability

I notice that. Whenever I've begun a new endeavor (writing-related or not) my imprintability is SO high. :)

Do your characters sort of pop up and introduce themselves, or do you mold them to some extent? I know you've mentioned you want your protagonist (Princess Kaye's granddaughter) to undergo a specific arc of need vs. fear, and the concept of the heart of flesh vs. the heart of stone is sort of leading you in this. Is that driving your character creation, or do you feel the right character will appear with the qualities you need?

side note based on your prior post on protagonist: What if her need is emotional, but her fear is also a need -- a need for emotional security (the inner-building-of-walls sort)? That would make a "heart of stone" truly tempting, as she'd be secure from hurt...

Anyway. I'm blathering. :) This is fascinating, I love following along with the process.

- Darice

Creating characters

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

The answer to this question is "whatever works."

Characters come from pictures, people I see on the street, other characters I've read, people I interact with.

Sometimes I have sort of an intellectual idea: create a sympathetic gay man, who is in the same ecological niche as the protagonist-princess in Andersen's "The Wild Swans." But then something pops up that will surprise me. For example, I was trying to think of a job that Elias could get with just a little experience, the sort that a high school graduate might have, that would turn into sort of a dead-end job. I played around a little with photography when I was a kid, so I stuck in "he's a photographer" and gave him a job in a photoshop. And then, since he was a photographer, he was an observer of people, the sort of person who noticed little tiny details about people--and so started picking up subtle clues very early on that his lover was ill.

Good thoughts re: protagonist. Yes, I'm turning that sort of thing over in my mind now.

One critical decision I'm making about her right now is whether anyone dies trying to rescue her when she falls through the ice--I'm thinking it would be her father. Killing off her father in the first two pages, of course, will make it a very different book, and give her a whole different kind of emotional baggage.

Another thing: I don't entirely know whether or not it's a comedy. It certainly could be . . . it could be entirely light and fluffy. If I kill off Dad, however, it will start out with more gravitas. Ideally, I'd like the book to have a really wide emotional range: laugh out loud funny, but with stuff that goes straight to the heart (but NOT sentimental bathos, please). That's one thing I liked about Neil Gaiman's American Gods. It had a wide range. I mean, the idea of a god of the Internet or the god of credit cards could be just plain funny, and he could have chosen to write it as just a romp. He went for a wider scope than that, however. That's more of a challenge, and I'd like to set myself a real challege. I don't write fast enough to write a book a year, and so when I do write a book, I'd like it to be good enough to be remembered.

Of course, it wouldn't hurt if it won the Hugo for Best Novel, like American Gods did, too.

One thing about my protagonist is bugging me right now: I know that I won't get much further creating her until I hit upon what her name should be. This is a very old quirk of mine. I just can't write about a character until I know his/her name--I remember my first book once stopped dead in the water for three days until I came up with one character's name (Ranulf). I just can't do it. It's as if we haven't been properly introduced.
P.

Re: Creating characters

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

The Hugo: go for it! :)

Killing off Dad: Wow. The thing that immediately sprang to my mind was that, since the protag. is gifted with a lot of magic from her dip in the icy waters (and you made clear that this doesn't always happen), possibly it's because her father's death is a sacrifice? She's gained something of great value, but it could be because she also "gave up" something of great value (even if it wasn't an active decision on her part). It would definitely make a darker book, but I don't think you'd necessarily have to give up humor. (American Gods certainly has both -- of course, a good part of the humor is grounded in the nature of Laura's death, and in the way she keeps coming back.) I think, in fact, that the underlying gravity can be a solid foundation for humor, because even though the characters can laugh in the face of danger, the reader knows the stakes are still high.

- D

[sundancekid.livejournal.com]

First off, this is all fascinating. I've been lurking for awhile now, and I'm loving seeing the process of writing a novel. Thanks for sharing.

Also, re imprintablility: I totally sympathize. I find that, in general, when I read something I really love, my next writing effort tends to seem very, very similiar. ;)

It's so interesting that Sean's interest in Irish music came from a guy in the library. Wonder what he would think. (If it was me, I'd be flattered.) :D

Right. Am going now.

Allie

Elias . . .

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

was a waiter who served my table in a restaurant once. I was so desperate to get a record of what he looked like that I actually went back to the restaurant later with my camera and begged to take his picture. He was perplexed when I explained why, but he agreed. Fortunately.

Re: Elias . . .

[sundancekid.livejournal.com]

Really? Do you have that picture? I'm sure lots of people would love to see it. :D

[alyeska.livejournal.com]

I agree with Sundance this is all quite interesting. I've always wondered what authors go through when writing a book.

So do you write out each characters profile before you start writing? Or do you just have vague impressions in your head of what they're like, based on RL observasions?

Kristin

Personally . . .

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I don't write out a character profile before writing. Other than that, my process of creating a character varies from situation to situation, depending on how confident I feel about what I'm doing. Sometimes I'll just brainstorm on paper. Another thing I'll do is to get together with another writer and have them ask me questions. This is the sort of thing I did with Kij. I've already dropped an e-mail to Eleanor Arnason, asking her if she'd get together with me on Friday. Other writers who've helped me this way are Patricia C. Wrede and Lois McMaster Bujold.

In my first book, I wrote out a character description after I wrote each character, but that was just to keep track of a rather large cast, and to keep track of the little physical details (Lady so-and-so has green eyes, not brown). My second book, I didn't bother with a cast list.

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of needing a name for a character before going on with the story. The bits attached to the name add 'weight' to the person.

I found my own name - Joyce - different after learning that it was the surname for some of my grandmother's relatives. That added depth to my connections to those Texans, ...