I may be guilty of being a lame blogger recently. Editing -as I've said countless times- just doesn't seem to be an interesting topic to blog about.
Saying that, my leave-of-absence could very well have been influenced significantly by what has been re-named 'the bitch-chapter.' It's one of those super-long but unfortunately necessary, slightly political and over-read chapters, Located conveniently in the centre of the text... It took me a rather long time to find the precious hour or three necessary to 'tidy' it. Heap some assessments on top of that as well as a sudden immersion into an actual social life and suddenly I am a busy lady. Not that that's any excuse for being a lame blogger.
So after my last post I asked people to give me something to blog about (this goes for this post as well. Anything bookish just lemme know). One of my wonderful flat mates said that she liked to hear about the writing process.
There's little more to say than 'my process is chaos.' A semblance of some kind derived from an unholy amount of raw material, an untidy pile of plans, notes, notebooks, songs, chapters and drawings. It's organised chaos. The best kind of chaos.
My process for the draft was this as well as a series of plans... endless plans, experimental conversations and a bunch of structural diagrams that were pinned to my wall. I had ever chapter planned on paper before it was written. These plans were mainly bullet-points and key-ideas.. then there was this triangle thing that I drew... I did a lot of research into chapter structuring, then cam up with my own little laws (e.g, each chapter had to end with and ending, a reflection or a cliff-hanger). For the book as a whole I had a few questions that I kept referring to, for example; what does the character want? How am i going to make that difficult? how am I going to make everything else difficult? Then I had fun with character studies by writing a 'journey' for each of them. What their purpose was, what they wanted, what they would get and how their part in the story would end. Adding layers was the fun part... there are several mysteries within the book that can be solved if the reader can collect all of the clues. I tested this out on some friends (complied the clues and presented them) they were able to figure out some rather important info that my protagonist doesn't even know yet.. that was entertaining.
(If you don't want to hear rambling there are some fish over there somewhere ---> )
Back to character.. because that's an interesting topic. One of my pet hates in YA fiction is when you come across characters that are 'normal' or 'perfect.' They aren't fun to read about.. In fact they're boring. I attempted to weird mine up a bit. I mean in 'real life' there's a wee bit of crazy in all of us. I'm a bit crazy -or so I have been told- were all a bit crazy.... Perhaps some of my characters are too-flawed, I couldn't really say. I like them I suppose that has to count for something.
There has to be a mention here of my absolute favourite character. Carver. Who has some serious and possibly repressed emotional issues due to a range of factors that he could not control, weird family things and all that hooey... His flaws made him fun to write about. I really only wanted to mention him because he is -as I said- my favourite, and that seems to stem from his issues more that his perfection. Flaws in my opinion are up there with redeeming qualities in bad guys. Every person has their flaws, things that shape them, annoying habits etc.... There's no relate-ability in un-flawed characters. which brings me full circle back to the weirdo's. We need some weird in our literature people.
Another random character insight- or rather insight to an insight. My favourite scene in Tellan includes a rare glimpse into the mind of the books most 'misplaced' character. Here enters Gambola. In said scene she merely sits beside the protagonist and asks some questions while another character sings -then forgets how- chuck in some rain and melancholy, blah, blah. I keep thinking that If i took her from that scene and sat any other character in her place the whole chapter just wouldn't work. The balance she creates -with the weird workings of her mind- makes it.
Saw hunger games at last. The whole ordeal made me quite nervous. Not gunna lie. I always get rather anxious when they turn a book I've read -and enjoyed- into a movie. The hunger games books are good, devour-able in a single day and easy to get lost in. I liked Suzanne Collins' strong female character/s. It isn't very often that we get those.
I discussed heroines with a friend recently. Its good to see a world where the females are not utterly useless. I feel like I should point a finger at Fantasy fiction in general here. Too often are we seeing world based on a collision of Tolkein and Medieval- earth -depicting the females as hopeless damsels or just ridiculous and naive. Again. At risk of sounding like an angry feminist...
Collin's did well reversing these roles and the movie did well depicting it. I liked how Katnis got to save Peeta, for once a female protagonist stepped up and saved her man-friend.
I considered the first hunger games book a considerable amount better than the other two, but look forward to seeing the second and third films!
peace. x
