Possibly ADHD, possibly...ooh, shiny

*deletes irrelivent story*

What? Yeah, I know, I push my luck trying to make these things all tie together sometimes anyway, but that was one that was really better off behind password on WDC. *Waves at work person reading my blog*.

I was listening to music again this morning. Still trying to find a soundtrack for 'Contagion' (still like the name, too, btw). I didn't quite run the gamut, but I ran the rock/pop-punk gamut. Disturbed, Good Charolette, The Offspring (told ya), Concrete Blonde, Queensryche...etc, etc.

I still haven't found the right album for my current story idea, but I may have found the one for the novel I've wanted to write for like two years now and haven't been able to. 'Apathy's Hero'. This story and it's characters sit in the back of my skull and taunt me every time I try and write something new. They're all like "hey, pay attention to us. We're sexy and god-like and apathetic and brutal. Don't you want to come play in our world?" And I'm all like "Well, yeah, but no one's explained the rules to me yet."

I suspect the only reason I want to write it now is because I had planned to do something else. If I had decided two months ago that this would be the year for 'Apathy's Hero', I'm almost certain I wouldn't have had any interest in writing it now. So to spite myself (because I very much want to go play in their sexy, sadistic, overrun with egotistical gods world), now I'm thinking about writing both stories at the same time. I've heard people do this - write two novels in November. Honestly, I have a hard enough time with one. But I'm really tempted...

So I know I'm not even the only person who gets new ideas while trying to finish the old ones. And I know I'm not the only person who gives in (*waves* Hi Dawn, Kate, Mireyah, everyone else who's ever been distracted by a shiny before their current project is done). So I won't ask the obvious question. I'll ask instead - would you shoot for 100k in November instead of 50k? What would make you take that plunge?

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Plotting and Jamming

I was listening to music this morning. I do this most mornings when I have to work, because quite honestly talk radio grates on me. Any talk. Morning DJ's, NPR, whatever. It works for some people, it doesn't work for me. The morning and afternoon DJ's on the station I listen to are kind of this town's rejects...for lack of a better word. They both used to be on bigger, better funded stations, they pissed some people in the local industry off, and then the independent station picked them up.

When the independent station got bought out by one of these large corporations *coughclearchanelcough*, someone let them off their leash. It's like they were given permissin to do all the obnoxious things that had gotten them fired from previous radio stations. I don't know for certain that this is true, but my sister in law used to work in concert promotion and tells me it is, so I believe her. She would tell me if she was lying to me. She's honest like that ^_^ So...I don't listen to radio in the morning or evening. I have MP3's for that.

I'm getting tired of my current playlist, though. Don't get me wrong...The Offspring, Nickelback, Halestorm, Disturbed, Three Days Grace, Stone Sour, Linkin Park...they've served me well and are still pretty close to the top of my all time favorite bands. However, every once in a while I have to mix it up.

There's an alterior motive for this as well...with November rushing up to meet me, I realize I have this great (I think great) story idea, and no filler for it. I know how the basic premise - beginning, middle, end, but no idea how to connect the dots. And that's where the music comes in. I did this for my last two novels and was really pleased with how much it helped.

I find an album that fits the general tone of the piece I'm working on. For Serious Game it was The Offspring. For Uriel's Fall it was Evanescense. I let it play in order, and pluck out story progression based on it. The story doesn't match the order of the CD - that's part of the fun. A song comes on, I figure out how it relates to my characters and their situation, and I write some notes on it. Then I rearrange the pieces until they resemble my basic premise and viola - detailed plot outline.

This task has become a lot easier since I discovered Rhapsody (even though I'm still pissed at them because they don't recognize any of my MP3 players as supported devices to copy songs to). It means I don't have to own the CD that's inspiring me. I can sift through lists and lists and find something that's just right. So far this morning I've been through:

• Saving Abel - which I'm really starting to like but unfortunately just doesn't fit the story
• Finger Eleven - which may or may not work, but since it has yet to hold my interest past 'Paralyzer' I'm guessing not
• Theory of a Deadman - which was awesome until I heard 'Little Smirk' and went...oh yeah, not fond of that song...and 'Hate My Life' which I'm very fond of but again...isn't really my story
• Rage Against - has the most potential so far. Must give it a longer listen once I have more time to focus. 'Savior' is just about one of my favorite songs right now and possibly very relevant to the story.

Before the night is through (I should bring headphones to work so I can do it at work too...hmm...a thought), I suspect I'll also have gone through Apocolyptica, more Offspring (hey, diverse portfolio, lots of potential...maybe Splinter...), Queensryche (which I always try and have yet to have work for me), and who knows what else.

What works for other people? Whether you're a pantser or a plotter, once you have that idea, how do you decide how to get from point A to Z? How do you pick out individual scenes and settings and character interractions to make it all happen?

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Not Lost Afterall

This morning I got to work and went to reach for my trusty 'ol water bottle. It's not really that old, but It took me a week to pull the labels off of it in various meetings, so we've bonded now. And...*gasp* it wasn't there. My water bottle was missing.

I mentally fumed. Who would have taken my water bottle? What cruel soul would be callous enough to abscond with my connection to the life-giving juice? Had the cleaning staff thrown it away? Why would they throw away 'ol trusty when they never touch the unfinished Starbucks cups I have a habit of forgetting to throw away at the end of the day? Would my 'meh' flask be next? Or the mug from my recruiter? Maybe they liked paper disposable drink cups better than they did plastic, reusable containers.

And then it was time to stop mourning the loss of 'ol trusty and head to my first meeting of the morning. On the way down the hallway, I passed the conference room we lovingly refer to as the fishbowl. Called this because the wall facing the hallway and front entrance is all glass. And there was my precious water bottle sitting on the conference room table, probably left their from one of the dozens of times I was called into that war room yesterday.

And I have a place to keep my water again.

The entire situation was dramatic, and heartbreaking (well, if you employ a little hyperbole it was), and was resolved in a matter of moments without me having to do anything except go about every day life. Oh, and take a detour into the conference room to grab 'ol trusty. (Which I now need to tatoo or otherwise emblazon on my water bottle, thanks to this blog entry).

I have a story that works much the same way, and I didn't realize it until a couple of weeks ago. I've known the story was boring, and I couldn't figure out why. It's the novel I wrote last November.

It's because even though the main character faces conflict, it's always too easy for him to overcome it. He doesn't ever really flinch, he curses a little, then makes a plan and executes it. Even when his fiancee' dumped him and sold controlling shares of his company to the competition, ensuring his misery as CEO, he thought about having a drink, and then confronted and solved the problem instead.

Oh, that and if I don't like sitting in meetings at work, I don't know what made me think my readers would like reading about them, regardless of how sexy my main character is, but that couldn't possibly be related, right?

So now, with November approaching again, and a new shiny in my head for this year's NaNoWriMo try, I know exactly how to fix last year's novel. And no idea where this year's novel is going. But with any luck, I've learned the 'sterile, competent characters are boring' lesson, and can implement some of that in the first draft this time around.

Though, you have to admit that if there had been some explosions and cg robots added to my ol' trusty story, that it would have been a lot better. Thank you Michael Bay.

Ever have one of those 'aha' moments about what was wrong with a story you were working on?

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Contagion Synopsis (working title)

In 1996 I discovered something called NaNoWriMo, and decided it was the most absolute brilliant idea ever. I had written one novel (okay, technically two, but I'm only just starting to own up to that first one) before that point, I was pretty sure I had written it in less than a month, and I figured what the hell, I can do this.

Epic fail. I still have the notes somewhere on my computer. That's a minor understatement. That was actually about the time I started backing up everything everywhere, so I have three or four copies of unfinished first chapters, along with that many outlines, spread across old and new computers and my USB drive.

I've gotten better since. I've learned what kind of planning it takes me to actually sit down and write 50,000 words. This year, I want to call the book Contagion. I hesitate to do this only because I know that it was the name of a series of Batman comics over a decade ago that later became a graphic novel. But no one knows that besides me, right? And hundreds of thousands of other Batman comic fans?

Doesn't matter - I like the name, and for once I think I've come up with something appropriate to the story. So...my synopsis for my latest unwritten book: (And then the follow up question - are you NaNo-ing this year and how much are you prepping?)

Mackenzie is a post-graduate student who's been asked to tutor a failing student in computer science. No big deal, she does this all the time. Except this time, when her roommate/best-friend-since-forever Ryan finds out, he freaks. Turns out Xander, the guy she's tutoring, is known around campus as the guy who can get anything done for the right price. Ryan is afraid Mackenzie is about to get used so this guy can get a passing grade.

Meanwhile, Mackenzie's been directed to a Facebook fanpage by one too many friends to ignore. She's finds out why when she checks out his status updates: a series of uber creepy blurbs about how he's thinking about following someone, watching them day and night, plotting their death, that kind of stuff. People are speculating about whether or not he's for real until one day he starts posting blog links describing people he's killed. They're always off the deep-end gore-wise, but they never go into any detail beyond the visceral and disgusting.

The self-proclaimed killer has gone viral and half the country, including Mackenzie, are following him with horrified fascination. Since no one knows where the mysterious poster is, everyone figures he's in their home town and college campuses are the most prone to speculation.

Mackenzie doesn't think it's real. She's been paying attention and she's starting to discover evidence --including clues back to the responsible party -- that the whole thing is hoax. When strage things start happening to her, Ryan tries to convince her that Xander is responsible. But she suspects it's linked back to the real perpetrator of the morbid online sensation; whoever is conducting this experiment in online social infection is trying to stop her from blowing their cover.

Mackenzie is running out of time in a world where online media has made instant gratification an expectation. She has to stay alive, figure out if her best friend is more important to her than the guy she's starting to fall for, and finish her thesis. If discovering the truth behind the online infection doesn't kill her, her own personal stalker probably will.

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Three Types of Stories

Someone once told me that there were three kinds of stories. What I think they meant was that stories are driven by three different core elements. That's not quite right either. But closer...maybe:

1. Character Driven
2. Plot Driven
3. Setting Driven

At the time this made absolutely no sense to me. It was as incomprehensible as a literature teacher telling me that there was internal conflict and external conflict and a story could have either or both.

I was bothered by this concept because most fiction has all three of the above elements. It's what makes a story, right? I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes, so I didn't understand. It's taken me almost tweny years to figure this out.

I think I've got it though. I think I finally understand. You can tell which of the above elements drive a story, because the other two exist to support it. Sometimes it's well-hidden. I'm not even interested in picking apart countless of books and movies to figure out which is which. And in movies, sometimes it's all just eye-candy driven, but that's a different post that I won't write because I'm not Michael Bay.

Lord of the Rings. Setting driven. The characters and plot exist solely to support the world. Middle Earth existed before they did and will continue to exist after.

Dune. Plot driven. Plots within plots. The characters, the planets, they all exist solely to move this intricate storyline forward. The main characters all but admit this. The joy of being truly omniscient, I suppose.

My Sister's Keeper. Character driven. The conflict and the world were created specifically to give the characters something to react to. The story was not about the choice that had to be made, but about how the characters all reacted to it. How it impacted them. Which, I suppose, is why the ending was all right, because the story wasn't actually about the choice...but different rant I've covered elsewhere.

I'm all about character driven. It's how come I can say I allow dialogue with my characters. I figure out what would cause them the most grief, what would be hardest for them to overcome, and what they're most blind to about themselves. Them figuring those things out is a large chunk of story to me.

Sweetie is all about plot driven. Characters exist to advance a plot, and if they don't do their job, they get removed or replaced. Sweetie is also a little bit world driven, because world-building is half the fun.

Fortunately, we spend a lot of time brainstorming and most of my stories get all three elements at the end of the day. I'm not allowed to let my characters run rampant just because I like to torture them emotionally. I'm required to say why, and create back-story around it, and say how it's going to advance things.

What about you? Is your preference character, plot, or world-driven? And is it different for what you write versus what you read?

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