Overly Emotional

Today I was talking with my friend about how last night I was bawling my eyes out at a character death. I was asking her if I had bothered her as she tried to read a book as I sat at my desk a sniffling, blubbering mess. She mentioned that all she really noticed was that I sniffled a lot. I kept most of my emotions on the wayside, constantly stopping and gathering a breath and wiping away my tears so it wasn't absolutely ridiculous.

Anyway, she then asked, "I wonder if like, Tolkien felt that way when he killed Boromear."

"I don't know. It might just be a girl thing. I don't know if guys would be the type to just sit at their computer or desk or whatever and just cry," I said. I thought it over and said, "I'm gonna write a quick Facebook message and see if any of my fellow writing partners might be able to answer that question."

So I did.

First off, people either don't get on Facebook regularly or they just don't pay attention to when I ask questions. Regardless, I posited this question to see if the many guy writers I knew would offer an answer. It wasn't something I needed to know, but I was curious. Was this just me being overly emotional? I mean, I literally do just sit at my computer with my jaw quivering, tears rolling out of my eyes, sniffles hitting my nose and sobs racking my body whenever I kill a character.

It took a little while, but eventually one of my old profs from Houghton (who now works at Taylor University), said, "I normally don't when I'm writing, but - if I've done my work well - I often do cry when I go back and read the scene fresh after some time has passed. If I haven't done my work well, then I reread and think of the craft elements rather than losing myself in the 'vivid and continuous dream' of the story."

Okay. A grown man, well respected among his peers, a good writer, does cry upon rereading - if he's done a good job writing the scene. Not too bad. I can handle that. So I'm not overly emotional.

Not necessarily.

I was unable to obtain any other perspectives as apparently all of my fellow guy writer friends were either unwilling to answer or didn't see my post. The problem of Facebook. Anyway, I actually feel rather strongly about this. As a female and thus I am prone to being more emotional than a guy (just stereotyping, don't mind me), I feel as though if you can't cry at your own character's death, then how could the audience?

It's a justified question I think. I heard once - whether at a conference or in a class I don't know - that if you as the writer can't get sucked into your own story, then how could you expect the audience to? It's true. If the story you've written doesn't captivate you and pull you in as a writer, then it probably won't grab anyone.

I think the same goes for your character deaths.

Guys probably aren't as likely to sit with a box of Kleenex (or Puffs, whichever you prefer), as they read through a sad part of a book. They might shed a tear, but in a manly way. Whereas a girl will grab the box of Kleenex and bunker down for the long haul, expecting to take a few breaks just to clear the tears from our eyes so we can actually read the words written.

Is this a stereotype, or is it simply that girls are 'more in touch with their emotions'? I think that it doesn't really matter. If a scene is written well enough and if the character resonates, I think it'll impact both man and woman, regardless of how they usually react to things like that. Death isn't a fun thing. And as I write for an ensemble cast in Omniscient Third, I try to give the audience a feel for how everyone is reacting to this particular death, not just one person.

In a way, I think it makes the death of a character a) that much harder to write and b) that much harder to read. Because it's not just you experiencing it now. It's not just the character's death that's happened. It's the character's death and the impact that will have on those around them. It's a whirlwind that the author has to do well to control, otherwise it's just a mass of words jumbled together that are supposed to make you feel something.

Now, as I've said all of this, I don't endorse that I do any of it well. Yes, I have brought my friends to tears throughout my series because of various character deaths, but that doesn't mean I handle the situations well. I am, after all, still a young writer. There's a lot left to learn about myself as a writer and myself as a story-teller.

But I'm definitely going to try my best to do my characters justice. After all, to me, they're real and have been for a long time. They aren't just words on a page, they're living, breathing individuals with pasts, presents and futures. They have hopes and dreams and some of them die. And it hurts.

Good God, does it hurt.

Moving away from the long chat about it all: I'm actually rapidly approaching the end of my fifth book. I didn't think it was going to happen this fast. I haven't even come up to a month yet. And at this rate I'll finish it before the month marker hits. Granted, it helps that I started figuring out the last book a while ago and had a lot of it mapped out, but still.

The only thing I can think is that with all of my free time (because I do have a lot of it), I'm hammering away at the book faster. If I didn't have all the free time I've found in the closing of this semester, then having a deadline like this would be insane. Thankfully, I do have that free time.

Here's to finishing the fifth book before next week!

Happy writing :)

Currently Writing: Revelation
Currently Reading: Um. Nothing. Sorry. I'm being a goober and I'm spending all of my time writing. Wait! No. I'm reading a story by a fellow classmate of mine and writer for senior seminar. I guess that qualifies.
Currently Listening to: "Dive" by Steven Curtis Chapman

Not Very Good at Math

So I finished my fourth book yesterday morning.

In the incredibly early morning hours, I chronicled the stories of my characters through their fourth book. I called it quits around 4:45 am because I felt spent. If I hadn't been crying for hours on end, I probably could have plugged away through all day yesterday. But, as I knew it would be, I was bawling my eyes out pretty well from 12:30 till I wrote the last sentence of the book.

Why you might ask? It's fairly simple really: I was writing sad things. Character deaths were popping up all around every corner and, as I write an ensemble cast, I write the impact that death has on everyone still alive. It's never a fun experience. As I mentioned in the previous post, killing characters is like killing a part of yourself. If anyone found it easy, I imagine they wouldn't be a very good writer because they wouldn't be able to relay the feelings of the characters to the audience.

I like to think that, in bawling my eyes out and feeling like someone just killed my puppy, I'm relating to my characters. Therefore by that, I am then relating the audience to the characters. Ultimately it will be determined when my friends and family members read the book. According to my friends, they've been impacted pretty hard by the previous character deaths, so I can only imagine how this one is going to play out.

Today, on the way to a hair appointment, I was telling my mom that I couldn't really fathom what was going on. Let me lay this out for those of you just joining in: Less than one year ago, one of my greatest friends texted me. About a week after she ranted about how much she (a non-fantasy reader), loved my first book, she sent me a poem based upon the first book.

To inspire someone is, I think, the ultimate goal of every author. With that knowledge that my friend felt led to write a poem about my book, I suddenly was fueled to write the second book. In under two months, I finished book 2 and rolled right on into the semester with a fire to write book 3. By the new year, I had finished book 3. From my brother's comments, I rewrote my first book, finishing by early February, all the while writing a novella for my senior seminar class.

And now, only a little over a month after finishing my novella, I finished book 4.

With only one book left to go in the overall story arch (because there's potential for 7 spin off novellas, 2 prequels and a plethora of stand-alone books based on the world), I have to wonder how this has happened. If you had told me a year ago that I was going to write three books, rewrite my first book and write a novella, all in less than a year, I would have punched you and cried that you were mean.

And yet, somehow, here I sit. Four books. Four books and one novella. How...? How did we get here? When did the tomorrow turn into the today? What a crazy phenomenon - the passing of time and the progression of a dream.

With accomplishment and approval at my back, I want to stride forward into the fifth (FIFTH! And it's the final one! Holy wow!), and complete the series. I want to get what's in my head out on paper. I want to see all five books stacked in a pile of paper and words and thoughts and story. Already knowing what the first three manuscripts looked like, a smile plays on my face. This crazy scenario I find myself in is surreal. It doesn't feel possible, and yet somehow, it is.

I like to think that God is blessing me with this. I haven't a clue where He's taking me, but I'm excited. A little nervous from time to time, but mostly, I'm excited. The writing life is an epic adventure of happiness if we allow it to be.

One more. Just go one more.

Smile people. Because the sunrise can be painted in your own world. Don't mind me as I go off and paint mine :)

Currently Writing (add-ons): Alaster
Currently Reading: Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: "A Thousand Miles" the Boyce Avenue Cover

Oh, Okay.

So, according to the outline for my fourth book, I only have 3 chapters and an epilogue left until I've finished.

Hmm.

At this current moment in time, this book will be the shortest out of all of the ones I've written for the series. Not counting my novella of course. Right now I think I'm just shy of 70,000 words for the novel. If I had to guess, I might just crack over 80,000 - if I'm lucky.

Now is that a bad thing? Having your second to last book of a series be the shortest of them all? I really don't know. At the moment I feel as though I'm running straight into the book, so it's likely that I need to go back, write a whole new introductory chapter for the book and then pick up after that. I mean, a chapter might only add about 2,000 words, but it might be enough that I don't feel like a silly person.

I suppose I could look at moving bits of book two to book three and bits of book three to book four. But I don't like that idea. This could change, naturally, but at the moment, I really like where I chose to end each of the books. I guess the beauty of writing in today's world is the fact that you can always go back and change things.

With only three chapters left (according to my outline. Which is likely to be off), I find myself dragging my feet to finish it. I know precisely why. I'm coming up to a character death. Those are never fun. I've been killing characters since the second book, maiming characters since the third, and brutally harming them all since the first. I guess you could say I'm not very nice to my characters sometimes.

Despite putting them all through very real scenarios and suffering in very real ways, I'm not looking forward to this one. Character deaths are always difficult. Any writer (or storyteller in general), knows that. When you take the time to develop characters, it's hard to essentially banish them from your thoughts again. And I think for writers of series books, it's even harder.

When you write a book series (or a movie series I suppose), you've spent an inordinately long amount of time with a group of characters. For me, I've spent years, probably close to ten years, with these characters. It's a hard experience to take a personality that's been in your head for so long that you can't even tell when they appeared and then suddenly make them disappear. Their voice can't pop back into your head willy-nilly because...well, you've killed them.

Even though, as the writer, I know in the end everything's okay, I don't want to experience this. Last time I wrote a character's death, I sat like a lump on a log for a week and couldn't move forward. I practically cried myself to sleep. In the second book when I killed characters, I was bawling at my desk at all hours, wishing I didn't have to do this.

That then raises the ultimate question: does the character have to die?

It's an important juncture to reach as a writer. If you an answer that question with an honest answer that it does benefit the story and it does serve a purpose, then you're okay. But you can't just have characters dying for kicks or to show "how dangerous the situation is." On one hand, yes, the reader needs to know just how drastic the scenario is that you've placed your characters in. However, sometimes I think people get carried away.

For instance, with Harry Potter, I found some of the deaths to be meaningful and have a purpose. I understand Rowling's problem though: when you have a major final battle, you can't just have everyone you've ever met walk off the field with some nicks and cuts. On the flip side though, things are a little ridiculous when you go so far as to kill both Harry's owl and his wand.

Then on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have Twilight. When people should die, they die. If a battle is talked about and prepared for but then in the end, everyone talks and it's all okay and nothing happens, that's not only unrealistic, it's boring.

The goal is to find the happy medium. It's a hard thing to accomplish. You can't just have everyone live. That's boring and unrealistic. Yet you can't have everyone die. That's also unrealistic. There need to be stakes and there needs to be risks, but at the same time, a chunk of your characters can survive the bloodshed. After all, someone's gotta be around to tell the story afterwards, right?

I think (in my limited view point), I've done a good job determining who should die and who should live. I also think that those that survive suffer enough from either emotional or physical damages that it's obvious everyone was effected somehow. At least, that's the hope. There's always the knowledge that I might have screwed up somehow.

But, like I said before, that's the beauty of writing. I can always change it. There's always the ability to edit. And when all five books have been written and I get the overall feedback from my friends and family members, then I'll do an overhaul of the series. I do want to make this the best story I can write, so that's what I'm gonna do.

Let's just see how well I can do that.

Currently Writing: Unseen
Currently Reading: Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: "There's a Place for Us" by Carrie Underwood

World Creation

I've been reading Orson Scott Card's book Writing About Science Fiction and Fantasy and one of the main sections he stresses is world building. As writers of new worlds, it's important to understand the world we are placing our characters into. If necessary, make histories that go back to the dawn of that world. Our understanding of it is a requirement. Because if we don't understand it, then no one will.
I've begun writing my fourth book and I know come the end of the series, I have to destroy the world I've built. I have to look at it and it's beauty that I've wished to walk through, and tear it apart. When I started out it seemed like the logical thing to do. It seemed like the right thing to do.
Now, when I started out, I was fourteen.
I didn't even understand that there was a world there to really explore. But that's a story for another time. No, instead I'm going to talk a bit about the fact that one day I'm going to have to tear everything apart that I've built. It's a necessary part of it all, although I couldn't explain why without first explaining everything else. At the same time, I can't give away too much because I know Kara knows about this blog and might pick something up that she shouldn't. (Yes Kara, I'm keeping an eye on you, even from 400+ miles away).
I don't look forward to that day. I didn't look forward to the deaths of characters and I definitely didn't relish in those agonizing hours spent in front of my computer, bawling my eyes out as I tried to write the words to the saddest things I could think of.
But I know it's there. I know one day I'll finish my series and put the books on a shelf and say, "It's finished." And on that day, I'm going to step back, look at what I've done, and ask, "Okay, now what?"
Aside from End Game, I have no idea what I'd do afterward. I mean, I think I've only got that one good idea. I really don't want to write anything else right now because I'm filled to the brim with stuff just for this one idea. I can't imagine adding a different world, different characters, and different situations into my brain at the moment.
Will it still be the same when I finish my series? I don't know. If it is, I won't complain. I'll enter the mission field. I'll write a memoir or something. Maybe I'll start a college. I don't really know.
I won't run away from it though. In starting my fourth book, I'm running toward a finish line that I've set up for myself. A goal that only I instated, and I'm glad I'm the only one to say, "Okay, by here, we've gotta be done!" It makes it more manageable to me. I don't know how, but it does.
And who knows? Maybe by the end of the summer, I'll have all five books done. Wouldn't that be awesome?
Currently Writing: Unseen
Currently Reading: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Currently Listening to: "Sleep" by Polyphony & Stephen Layton