Being the fifteenth – and final – post in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
Things rarely turn out the way you expect. Including my short story Flatland. If you've been following this blog, you'll know how this project has taken a few unexpected twists and turns. Now it's sprung its final surprise. Flatland isn't a short story at all – it's a novel.
At least, it wants to be a novel. Whether it will become one or not only time will tell.
My suspicions were first aroused when I found I'd incorporated The Pattern into the story (The Pattern is the underlying structure of the cosmos, a strange and terrible texture the sight of which does strange things to you). Now, The Pattern also happens to be the central concept of an as-yet unwritten novel about String City, that mysterious burg where my nameless private investigator plies his trade. That novel has a working title of Big Picture.
The more I got into Flatland, the more its plot began to overlap with my notes for Big Picture. So much so that the two became completely intertwined. At that point I realised I wasn't writing a short story at all - I was plotting a novel.
"So are you going to put us out of our misery and write the damn novel now?" I hear you ask. "Not just yet," is my reply.
Big Picture is a novel I want to write, have no doubt about that. But before I devote any serious time to it I have other things more pressing. First is a ghost-writing project, delayed from January, that's just landed at my door. That'll keep me busy until the summer. After that I'm committed to completing the first draft of a new fantasy novel - a speculative project at the moment but I have hopes it will find a home. So Big Picture's going to have to wait.
All the above means this is the last post in the Flatland series of posts ... for now. As and when the Big Picture project goes live, I may consider blogging about that in the same way.
For posterity, I may even post the work to date on Flatland on this blog - all unfinished 8,500 words of it. Keep visiting, and you may yet get to read it!
Friday 30 April 2010
Sunday 25 April 2010
Flatland 14
Being the fourteenth in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
Sometimes writing is a straight-line process. I wrote Girl in Pieces in just a few sittings, with minimal editing as I went along. Everything just fell together. Flatland is more kind of falling apart. The good news is that, as I pick up the pieces, I find they really were meant to fit together, just not quite the way I’d imagined them. Ultimately productive, but endlessly frustrating.
Equally frustrating is the speed at which I’m writing, namely dead slow. This is mostly down to the day job, which is busy enough right now to fill up my head – not to mention my breathing hours – both in and out of work. So right now the writing has to be squeezed into whatever corners I can find.
Never mind all that, I hear you say. Where’s the story at? Well, despite the above, progressing okay. Yesterday I reworked a scene where the PI returns to his office to recover from a) being unexpectedly seduced and b) being attacked by a giant cockroach (a pretty typical day, in other words). In the first draft, my hero was very much under the supernatural spell of Pheme, the story’s femme fatale. But that made him reactive rather than proactive. Vulnerability’s all very well, but I need my hero to call the shots.
The solution was to have him recognise that he’s been supernaturally seduced, and to do something about it. So he programmes the coffee machine to concoct a special brew containing a magical substance called firewater, which blanks out Pheme’s influence for one hour. This plot device does several things. 1) it restores my hero to something resembling his usual self; 2) it lets me keep Pheme’s spell lurking in the background as a constant reminder that he isn’t his usual self; 3) it introduces a ticking clock, bringing some urgency to the narrative – if our hero doesn’t solve the case within the hour, Pheme’s spell will reduce his brain to sentimental mush and he’ll never think another rational thought again.
That done, I built up Edwin’s character a little by establishing that he’s a member of the Sidhe, a second-generation faery who stayed behind in String City when the rest of the Sidhe abandoned ship, fearing an imminent apocalypse. Just background really, and dangerous to overdo in a short piece like this, but it bears on the story so needs to be there.
Talking of length, I’m already running at 8,500 words and there’s a lot of plot to get through. At this rate, the finished piece could be as long as 15,000 words. A novelette heading for a novella. You might wonder why that matters. Well, it’s harder to find a market for something of this length. 10,000 words is the top limit for a lot of publications. I’m not overly worried at this stage – I’m just trying to tell the story as it wants to be told; it’ll be as long as it needs to be. But I would like folk to read it one day, so commercial viability is an important concern.
Next step in the story is for the PI to start putting his clues together. He’s got enough of them now. A mysterious silver amulet shaped like an acorn, the odd measurements he took in Mimas’s enormous apartment, plus the curiously small size of Edwin’s little abode. Pheme’s behaviour, the ransom note left by the cockroach. And, of course, the flattening of the city.
And it’s time to ramp up the pace. After four or five pages of seduction and deduction, it’s time for a little action!
Sometimes writing is a straight-line process. I wrote Girl in Pieces in just a few sittings, with minimal editing as I went along. Everything just fell together. Flatland is more kind of falling apart. The good news is that, as I pick up the pieces, I find they really were meant to fit together, just not quite the way I’d imagined them. Ultimately productive, but endlessly frustrating.
Equally frustrating is the speed at which I’m writing, namely dead slow. This is mostly down to the day job, which is busy enough right now to fill up my head – not to mention my breathing hours – both in and out of work. So right now the writing has to be squeezed into whatever corners I can find.
Never mind all that, I hear you say. Where’s the story at? Well, despite the above, progressing okay. Yesterday I reworked a scene where the PI returns to his office to recover from a) being unexpectedly seduced and b) being attacked by a giant cockroach (a pretty typical day, in other words). In the first draft, my hero was very much under the supernatural spell of Pheme, the story’s femme fatale. But that made him reactive rather than proactive. Vulnerability’s all very well, but I need my hero to call the shots.
The solution was to have him recognise that he’s been supernaturally seduced, and to do something about it. So he programmes the coffee machine to concoct a special brew containing a magical substance called firewater, which blanks out Pheme’s influence for one hour. This plot device does several things. 1) it restores my hero to something resembling his usual self; 2) it lets me keep Pheme’s spell lurking in the background as a constant reminder that he isn’t his usual self; 3) it introduces a ticking clock, bringing some urgency to the narrative – if our hero doesn’t solve the case within the hour, Pheme’s spell will reduce his brain to sentimental mush and he’ll never think another rational thought again.
That done, I built up Edwin’s character a little by establishing that he’s a member of the Sidhe, a second-generation faery who stayed behind in String City when the rest of the Sidhe abandoned ship, fearing an imminent apocalypse. Just background really, and dangerous to overdo in a short piece like this, but it bears on the story so needs to be there.
Talking of length, I’m already running at 8,500 words and there’s a lot of plot to get through. At this rate, the finished piece could be as long as 15,000 words. A novelette heading for a novella. You might wonder why that matters. Well, it’s harder to find a market for something of this length. 10,000 words is the top limit for a lot of publications. I’m not overly worried at this stage – I’m just trying to tell the story as it wants to be told; it’ll be as long as it needs to be. But I would like folk to read it one day, so commercial viability is an important concern.
Next step in the story is for the PI to start putting his clues together. He’s got enough of them now. A mysterious silver amulet shaped like an acorn, the odd measurements he took in Mimas’s enormous apartment, plus the curiously small size of Edwin’s little abode. Pheme’s behaviour, the ransom note left by the cockroach. And, of course, the flattening of the city.
And it’s time to ramp up the pace. After four or five pages of seduction and deduction, it’s time for a little action!
Tuesday 20 April 2010
Flatland 13
Being the thirteenth in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
Having just written an exterior scene (in which our detective hero and Edwin trek across the flattened city landscape) I've decided to keep the action set entirely within the apartment building.
This was an idea I toyed with earlier, but rejected. Now I've changed my mind. Doesn't affect what I've written too badly. The exterior scene can play out much as it did, just in a different location.
Also, after my last writing session I realised the plot I'd devised for this story was too complicated. So I've replotted. Gone is a trip to the Wildwood, mysteriously unaffected by the flattening. Instead, I've brought to prominence something I call The Pattern. The Pattern is the underlying structure of the cosmos, and something no man was meant to see. Just looking at it can kill you. Or send you crazy. Or something.
The Pattern is a phenomenon I've hinted at in a couple of my other stories. It's also the subject of a novel I haven't written yet (working title: Big Picture). I've decided this story is the place to introduce it as a concept.
As a tease, I've scanned the notebook I've just used to rework the plot. Just click on the image at the top of this post to view it. The right-hand page contains my scribbles about Flatland - good luck making sense of them!
Oh, and the scribbles on the left relate to another project altogether. About that, I'm saying nothing whatsoever ...
Having just written an exterior scene (in which our detective hero and Edwin trek across the flattened city landscape) I've decided to keep the action set entirely within the apartment building.
This was an idea I toyed with earlier, but rejected. Now I've changed my mind. Doesn't affect what I've written too badly. The exterior scene can play out much as it did, just in a different location.
Also, after my last writing session I realised the plot I'd devised for this story was too complicated. So I've replotted. Gone is a trip to the Wildwood, mysteriously unaffected by the flattening. Instead, I've brought to prominence something I call The Pattern. The Pattern is the underlying structure of the cosmos, and something no man was meant to see. Just looking at it can kill you. Or send you crazy. Or something.
The Pattern is a phenomenon I've hinted at in a couple of my other stories. It's also the subject of a novel I haven't written yet (working title: Big Picture). I've decided this story is the place to introduce it as a concept.
As a tease, I've scanned the notebook I've just used to rework the plot. Just click on the image at the top of this post to view it. The right-hand page contains my scribbles about Flatland - good luck making sense of them!
Oh, and the scribbles on the left relate to another project altogether. About that, I'm saying nothing whatsoever ...
Sunday 18 April 2010
Flatland 12
Being the twelfth in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
Decent session today. 7,900 words in the bank. I did meander down a blind alley along the way though, ah, the perils of the novelist who tries to write short stories. What happened was I got sidetracked during a scene where my PI eliminates Edwin the janitor as a suspect. A necessary part of the story but it became far too long and convoluted. So I cut 800 words of lovingly-crafted prose down to a single line of dialogue. Thank you and goodnight.
And if you're sick of all my dancing around the story and not showing you enough of what I'm actually writing, here's a longish extract from today's session. First draft, unedited, chosen more or less at random ...
Trekking across the flattened city was like crossing a frozen lake. The snowshoes helped spread the load, but we still slipped like crazy.
Under our feet, the animated mosaic jostled. I imagined everything – and everyone –down there compressed and thrashing around, struggling to breathe. If we didn’t let them out soon they’d suffocate.
Neither of us looked up at the sky.
On the plus side, nothing stopped us making straight for our destination. From my office door, we rounded the building and struck out due south, plodding over the bustling planes of the Triple Towers and into the high-rent district abutting the nearby meander of the Styx. We trod our way over luxury villas squashed down to mere architectural plans, pine thickets like wide green carpets, multi-lane highways printed out like sleek graphic designs. At the same time everything was in motion. It was like walking over a projection screen playing a thousand different movies all at once.
Halfway across the river, I realised we were walking on water.
‘So what are you?’ said Edwin. ‘Don’t give me that “good with dimensions” baloney. I want to know.’
I thought about it. ‘I guess there’s a name for it. But it’s not one I use.’
‘Evasive bugger, ain’tcha?’
I stared at the place we were heading to. Pheme was there, I could feel it, like magnetism. The urge to run was almost unbearable. ‘What can I tell you? I’m a part of this city. You could say I’m a citizen.’
‘Ain’t we all?’
‘Not in the way I am. Edwin, do you even know what this city is?’
‘Why would I? I wasn’t born here, y’know.’
‘Isn’t there anything about this place that strikes you as strange?’
‘I’m Sidhe. I’ve seen strange like you wouldn’t believe.’
Beneath my snowshoes, the waters of the Styx writhed like cells under a microscope. ‘Think of the cosmos. Think of it like an ice rink. All the things that move through it, they leave scratches behind. And in those scratches, other things collect.’
‘Still not making much sense, fella.’
‘Stick with it. There’s some places where the scratches are packed so tight – like when a skater does one of those fancy spins – that all the things that gather there get kind of bunched up, piled on top of each other. Things get … complicated.’
‘Kinda tangled up, you mean?’
‘Exactly right. This city – String City – well, this is one of those places. Things that shouldn’t co-exist do.’
‘Like hamadryad hookers picking up vampire clients.’
‘And the zombie cops who pull them up for it.’
‘Sidhe caretakers too, I guess.’
‘Folk just spin here from everywhere else. What can I say? It’s a melting pot.’
‘So, where d’you fit in?’
‘Everywhere.’
Decent session today. 7,900 words in the bank. I did meander down a blind alley along the way though, ah, the perils of the novelist who tries to write short stories. What happened was I got sidetracked during a scene where my PI eliminates Edwin the janitor as a suspect. A necessary part of the story but it became far too long and convoluted. So I cut 800 words of lovingly-crafted prose down to a single line of dialogue. Thank you and goodnight.
And if you're sick of all my dancing around the story and not showing you enough of what I'm actually writing, here's a longish extract from today's session. First draft, unedited, chosen more or less at random ...
Trekking across the flattened city was like crossing a frozen lake. The snowshoes helped spread the load, but we still slipped like crazy.
Under our feet, the animated mosaic jostled. I imagined everything – and everyone –down there compressed and thrashing around, struggling to breathe. If we didn’t let them out soon they’d suffocate.
Neither of us looked up at the sky.
On the plus side, nothing stopped us making straight for our destination. From my office door, we rounded the building and struck out due south, plodding over the bustling planes of the Triple Towers and into the high-rent district abutting the nearby meander of the Styx. We trod our way over luxury villas squashed down to mere architectural plans, pine thickets like wide green carpets, multi-lane highways printed out like sleek graphic designs. At the same time everything was in motion. It was like walking over a projection screen playing a thousand different movies all at once.
Halfway across the river, I realised we were walking on water.
‘So what are you?’ said Edwin. ‘Don’t give me that “good with dimensions” baloney. I want to know.’
I thought about it. ‘I guess there’s a name for it. But it’s not one I use.’
‘Evasive bugger, ain’tcha?’
I stared at the place we were heading to. Pheme was there, I could feel it, like magnetism. The urge to run was almost unbearable. ‘What can I tell you? I’m a part of this city. You could say I’m a citizen.’
‘Ain’t we all?’
‘Not in the way I am. Edwin, do you even know what this city is?’
‘Why would I? I wasn’t born here, y’know.’
‘Isn’t there anything about this place that strikes you as strange?’
‘I’m Sidhe. I’ve seen strange like you wouldn’t believe.’
Beneath my snowshoes, the waters of the Styx writhed like cells under a microscope. ‘Think of the cosmos. Think of it like an ice rink. All the things that move through it, they leave scratches behind. And in those scratches, other things collect.’
‘Still not making much sense, fella.’
‘Stick with it. There’s some places where the scratches are packed so tight – like when a skater does one of those fancy spins – that all the things that gather there get kind of bunched up, piled on top of each other. Things get … complicated.’
‘Kinda tangled up, you mean?’
‘Exactly right. This city – String City – well, this is one of those places. Things that shouldn’t co-exist do.’
‘Like hamadryad hookers picking up vampire clients.’
‘And the zombie cops who pull them up for it.’
‘Sidhe caretakers too, I guess.’
‘Folk just spin here from everywhere else. What can I say? It’s a melting pot.’
‘So, where d’you fit in?’
‘Everywhere.’
Friday 16 April 2010
Peter Straub interview
Great interview with Peter Straub over at the BookBanter Blog. Timely for me as I just finished reading his latest novel The Dark Matter. Possibly his best work. I like this man's attitude.
Tuesday 13 April 2010
Doctor, dark, city
In the middle of writing this detective story that's taking far longer than it has any right too and fighting deadlines in the day job (hence the longer writing schedule), I'm also ...
... loving the new Doctor Who.
... savouring the joy that was The Dark Matter by Peter Straub. This is one of those books that gets right under your skin, makes you believe not only in an utterly strange otherworld but more importantly in the characters who brush against it.
... getting a real kick out of the first chapters of The City and The City by China Mieville. The last book of his I read was Perdido Street Station, which I enjoyed for the style, less for the substance. If the rest of City lives up to the start, Mr Mieville deserves all the awards this book's already picked up and as many more as folk are prepared to throw at him.
... loving the new Doctor Who.
... savouring the joy that was The Dark Matter by Peter Straub. This is one of those books that gets right under your skin, makes you believe not only in an utterly strange otherworld but more importantly in the characters who brush against it.
... getting a real kick out of the first chapters of The City and The City by China Mieville. The last book of his I read was Perdido Street Station, which I enjoyed for the style, less for the substance. If the rest of City lives up to the start, Mr Mieville deserves all the awards this book's already picked up and as many more as folk are prepared to throw at him.
Sunday 11 April 2010
Flatland 11
Being the eleventh in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
A good session this morning. I've doubled my word count to 6,000 and most of what I've written feels pretty tight. Having cracked the mysterious opening, I've written a couple of scenes in my detective hero's office. In the first he starts puzzling out the case solo. We move into the second when the janitor turns up, giving our hero a foil to bounce his ideas off and a friendly ear to hear the story of how his wife died and why he never goes home. Good backstory this, and added depth to the PI's character.
At the same time, he's obsessed with Pheme, the femme fatale. I've only just noticed the similarity between the words Pheme and femme. Complete coincidence - I chose Pheme for its mythological roots (check it out). But it makes me smile. On the subject of Pheme, before I started in earnest this morning I did a quick 'sexy pass' over the seduction scene, making sure I was taking every opportunity to turn up the heat. For example, I took this ...
She pulled the robe tight about herself again.
... and turned it into this ...
She applied the robe to herself again.
I love tinkering with the prose like this, real micromanagement. I'll do these 'passes' at all kinds of levels, usually one at a time. If a scene needs to be sexy or scary or whimsical, review it purely with that single quality in mind. Make every word count towards that goal. With these detective stories, I'll do several 'hard-boil' passes - that means cutting things down to the pith, dialling up the noir.
So things are moving nicely. Next up is a brief passage where our hero and his new friend Edwin the janitor explore the apartment building in search of the kidnapped Pheme, with no success. In the course of the search they spot something outside, on the horizon of the flattened city, that's a clue to her whereabouts. To solve the case, they're gonna have to go there. Could be dangerous, possibly messy.
A final note. I have know whodunnit, and have a vague idea how they'll be caught. But I think I'm missing an extra twist. I'll conclude the story without it and thread something back in once I can see where the gap is. Sometimes you have to write backwards, you know?
A good session this morning. I've doubled my word count to 6,000 and most of what I've written feels pretty tight. Having cracked the mysterious opening, I've written a couple of scenes in my detective hero's office. In the first he starts puzzling out the case solo. We move into the second when the janitor turns up, giving our hero a foil to bounce his ideas off and a friendly ear to hear the story of how his wife died and why he never goes home. Good backstory this, and added depth to the PI's character.
At the same time, he's obsessed with Pheme, the femme fatale. I've only just noticed the similarity between the words Pheme and femme. Complete coincidence - I chose Pheme for its mythological roots (check it out). But it makes me smile. On the subject of Pheme, before I started in earnest this morning I did a quick 'sexy pass' over the seduction scene, making sure I was taking every opportunity to turn up the heat. For example, I took this ...
She pulled the robe tight about herself again.
... and turned it into this ...
She applied the robe to herself again.
I love tinkering with the prose like this, real micromanagement. I'll do these 'passes' at all kinds of levels, usually one at a time. If a scene needs to be sexy or scary or whimsical, review it purely with that single quality in mind. Make every word count towards that goal. With these detective stories, I'll do several 'hard-boil' passes - that means cutting things down to the pith, dialling up the noir.
So things are moving nicely. Next up is a brief passage where our hero and his new friend Edwin the janitor explore the apartment building in search of the kidnapped Pheme, with no success. In the course of the search they spot something outside, on the horizon of the flattened city, that's a clue to her whereabouts. To solve the case, they're gonna have to go there. Could be dangerous, possibly messy.
A final note. I have know whodunnit, and have a vague idea how they'll be caught. But I think I'm missing an extra twist. I'll conclude the story without it and thread something back in once I can see where the gap is. Sometimes you have to write backwards, you know?
Friday 9 April 2010
Flatland 10
Being the tenth in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
The day job's been so crazy I haven't had much time to work on Flatland this week. Still, I've managed to refine the opening a little more.
I wrote in an earlier entry that it was best to get the first draft down clean, without getting distracted by too much editing. Well, all rules are made to be broken. I'm still only about 3,000 words in, and still working over the first couple of scenes. In this case it's the right thing to do, as it's only by rewriting that I'm finding the real shape of the story. If I lay the foundations right, the thing will build itself.
One problem was that my original plan had too many beginnings. My detective hero discovers the city's been flattened. He gets seduced by a femme fatale. He gets threatened by his neighbours. He gets debriefed by the smooth-talking resident of the penthouse apartment. All before he actually gets to do any detecting!
That's way too much of a logjam for a piece of short fiction. So in the latest draft I've cut it down to the discovery the flattening, swiftly followed by the seduction scene in the femme's apartment, which is cut off by her getting abducted. The kidnapper (who happens to be a giant cockroach) leaves our hero with a ransom note demanding that he steal the two remaining dimensions and deliver them to the cockroach in exchange for the femme's life. The PI retires to his office to figure it out, and off we go...
At last this seems to be working OK. I've got a mysterious opening, a sexy-but-odd scene in the femme's boudoir (the seduction of the PI is supernatural, so puts down deep roots with unnatural speed). There's a fist-fight between the PI and the cockroach (good to inject some early action) and the surprise of the abduction. All this bears on the story, and leaves the PI with a mystery to unravel.
Confused? Fear not. For the first time I'm beginning to believe this story really is worth writing. With luck, you may get to read it and decide for yourself. In the meantime, I've got another 7,000 words to put in the right order.
The day job's been so crazy I haven't had much time to work on Flatland this week. Still, I've managed to refine the opening a little more.
I wrote in an earlier entry that it was best to get the first draft down clean, without getting distracted by too much editing. Well, all rules are made to be broken. I'm still only about 3,000 words in, and still working over the first couple of scenes. In this case it's the right thing to do, as it's only by rewriting that I'm finding the real shape of the story. If I lay the foundations right, the thing will build itself.
One problem was that my original plan had too many beginnings. My detective hero discovers the city's been flattened. He gets seduced by a femme fatale. He gets threatened by his neighbours. He gets debriefed by the smooth-talking resident of the penthouse apartment. All before he actually gets to do any detecting!
That's way too much of a logjam for a piece of short fiction. So in the latest draft I've cut it down to the discovery the flattening, swiftly followed by the seduction scene in the femme's apartment, which is cut off by her getting abducted. The kidnapper (who happens to be a giant cockroach) leaves our hero with a ransom note demanding that he steal the two remaining dimensions and deliver them to the cockroach in exchange for the femme's life. The PI retires to his office to figure it out, and off we go...
At last this seems to be working OK. I've got a mysterious opening, a sexy-but-odd scene in the femme's boudoir (the seduction of the PI is supernatural, so puts down deep roots with unnatural speed). There's a fist-fight between the PI and the cockroach (good to inject some early action) and the surprise of the abduction. All this bears on the story, and leaves the PI with a mystery to unravel.
Confused? Fear not. For the first time I'm beginning to believe this story really is worth writing. With luck, you may get to read it and decide for yourself. In the meantime, I've got another 7,000 words to put in the right order.
Monday 5 April 2010
Flatland 09
Being the ninth in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
After a session of backtracking and rewriting, I now have fewer words than before and a better chance of getting this story on track. As planned, I've ramped up the intensity of the previously-written 'seduction' scene and combined it with the 'residents meeting' scene. The residents are now a creepy mob and I've changed the role of their leader (now called Mimas) to be more sympathetic. At the end of this scene, the femme fatale (now called Pheme) is kidnapped by the giant cockroach, leaving our PI hero to escape the mob along with Mimas and Edwin the janitor.
You may have noticed I've been juggling names. If you know your mythology, the names Mimas and Pheme may mean something to you, especially when you bear in mind the hint I dropped way back in my first Flatland blog entry that I fancied including Gaia as a character. I'll give you no more clues than that, other than to say that Mimas and Pheme are brother and sister and Gaia's at the heart of the mystery around which the story is built.
I now have a more robust set-up. The city's been flattened, the PI's been seduced and the woman he's fallen for has been abducted. There's an angry mob on his tail and all he's got to fall back on are his wits and the company of the janitor and a devilishly handsome man who turns out to be the missing woman's brother. The next scene will be set in the PI's office, with Mimas delivering some essential exposition. It's at this stage that the PI will take charge and start doing what he does best: unravelling the mystery and saving the girl.
Interestingly, the PI knows that he's being seduced. Pheme is a sort of siren or lamia, and the PI knows it. But he gives in anyway because she reminds him of his dead wife. Which is deliberate on her part of course. What I haven't yet decided is quite why he lets himself be seduced. Maybe he just can't help himself, but I'd like to think he's smarter than that - could be there's something else on his agenda. Still, who can blame him for giving in when Pheme's acting like this:
She took a step towards me. In her bare feet, she was exactly as tall as I was. Laura had been shorter by four inches. Her bottom lip was trembling. The robe came open again. She let it stay that way. She smelled of cinnamon.
And I knew that most of what she’d told me was a lie.
‘I’m so scared,’ she said. Her voice had turned husky. Her eyes had grown big. Her presence enveloped me. ‘Won’t you protect me?’
For a second, I had strangest feeling. It was like Pheme Bacall was everywhere, all at once. It was like I was running down a steep hill while warm water rose over my head. I tried to breathe but couldn’t. If I had, it would probably have killed me.
It was like I was drowning.
Laura!
A wind whipped up, lifted the robe. She stood wholly revealed beneath fluttering silk wings. There was more of her than seemed possible.
Smoke and mirrors, I told myself, drenched in her. Nothing about her’s real.
‘Help me,’ she sang. ‘I love you.’
After a session of backtracking and rewriting, I now have fewer words than before and a better chance of getting this story on track. As planned, I've ramped up the intensity of the previously-written 'seduction' scene and combined it with the 'residents meeting' scene. The residents are now a creepy mob and I've changed the role of their leader (now called Mimas) to be more sympathetic. At the end of this scene, the femme fatale (now called Pheme) is kidnapped by the giant cockroach, leaving our PI hero to escape the mob along with Mimas and Edwin the janitor.
You may have noticed I've been juggling names. If you know your mythology, the names Mimas and Pheme may mean something to you, especially when you bear in mind the hint I dropped way back in my first Flatland blog entry that I fancied including Gaia as a character. I'll give you no more clues than that, other than to say that Mimas and Pheme are brother and sister and Gaia's at the heart of the mystery around which the story is built.
I now have a more robust set-up. The city's been flattened, the PI's been seduced and the woman he's fallen for has been abducted. There's an angry mob on his tail and all he's got to fall back on are his wits and the company of the janitor and a devilishly handsome man who turns out to be the missing woman's brother. The next scene will be set in the PI's office, with Mimas delivering some essential exposition. It's at this stage that the PI will take charge and start doing what he does best: unravelling the mystery and saving the girl.
Interestingly, the PI knows that he's being seduced. Pheme is a sort of siren or lamia, and the PI knows it. But he gives in anyway because she reminds him of his dead wife. Which is deliberate on her part of course. What I haven't yet decided is quite why he lets himself be seduced. Maybe he just can't help himself, but I'd like to think he's smarter than that - could be there's something else on his agenda. Still, who can blame him for giving in when Pheme's acting like this:
She took a step towards me. In her bare feet, she was exactly as tall as I was. Laura had been shorter by four inches. Her bottom lip was trembling. The robe came open again. She let it stay that way. She smelled of cinnamon.
And I knew that most of what she’d told me was a lie.
‘I’m so scared,’ she said. Her voice had turned husky. Her eyes had grown big. Her presence enveloped me. ‘Won’t you protect me?’
For a second, I had strangest feeling. It was like Pheme Bacall was everywhere, all at once. It was like I was running down a steep hill while warm water rose over my head. I tried to breathe but couldn’t. If I had, it would probably have killed me.
It was like I was drowning.
Laura!
A wind whipped up, lifted the robe. She stood wholly revealed beneath fluttering silk wings. There was more of her than seemed possible.
Smoke and mirrors, I told myself, drenched in her. Nothing about her’s real.
‘Help me,’ she sang. ‘I love you.’
Sunday 4 April 2010
Flatland 08
Being the eighth in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
After adding another 600 words last night (PI meets his neighbours in the posh penthouse apartment of playboy Neptune - another 'placeholder' name), I woke early and realised it wasn't going so well. Over 3,000 words in and not enough has happened. Also my PI hero is almost entirely passive.
So I read Peter Straub's The Dark Matter for a while (nothing to do with this project, just the book I happen to be reading right now) and let the problem work itself through in my head. The solution is simply to tighten everything up. The events so far - discovery of the flattened city, seduction of our hero, meeting the neighbours - are all fine, I just need to get through them quicker. In fact, in something of a frenzy. Everything I've written is really just the set-up, so let's get it done fast.
In fact, the idea of frenzy is the key. I'm going to put my hero PI through such a whirlwind that he actually flees back to the safety of his office in order to escape, think straight, start putting the pieces together. which is what will make this a proper detective story. Next step - some ruthless rewriting. Everything that doesn't contribute to the frenzy goes overboard.
This is a common problem for me. Short stories (or novelettes in this case) don't come naturally to me. I'm more comfortable with novels. But these short forms are a fabulous way to be hard on yourself, and improve your technique. Nothing matters but the story. And I mean nothing. So, having fallen into my usual trap of taking it too slow, it's time to put the pedal to the metal.
Fingers crossed, it'll be for the best.
After adding another 600 words last night (PI meets his neighbours in the posh penthouse apartment of playboy Neptune - another 'placeholder' name), I woke early and realised it wasn't going so well. Over 3,000 words in and not enough has happened. Also my PI hero is almost entirely passive.
So I read Peter Straub's The Dark Matter for a while (nothing to do with this project, just the book I happen to be reading right now) and let the problem work itself through in my head. The solution is simply to tighten everything up. The events so far - discovery of the flattened city, seduction of our hero, meeting the neighbours - are all fine, I just need to get through them quicker. In fact, in something of a frenzy. Everything I've written is really just the set-up, so let's get it done fast.
In fact, the idea of frenzy is the key. I'm going to put my hero PI through such a whirlwind that he actually flees back to the safety of his office in order to escape, think straight, start putting the pieces together. which is what will make this a proper detective story. Next step - some ruthless rewriting. Everything that doesn't contribute to the frenzy goes overboard.
This is a common problem for me. Short stories (or novelettes in this case) don't come naturally to me. I'm more comfortable with novels. But these short forms are a fabulous way to be hard on yourself, and improve your technique. Nothing matters but the story. And I mean nothing. So, having fallen into my usual trap of taking it too slow, it's time to put the pedal to the metal.
Fingers crossed, it'll be for the best.
Saturday 3 April 2010
Flatland 07
Being the seventh in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
Word count's just crept past 2,700. Minor revisions to what I've already written, including a slight tweak to the opening paragraph, hinting at the dead wife subplot early on ...
I woke to find the city had been flattened. Literally.
I lurched off the couch rubbing my eyes. My mouth tasted of the same bad dream I’d been having every night for the past two weeks. The dream about Laura. I spat it away, wiped the window. I tried to see something that made sense. But it wasn’t there.
The new scenes I've written today include the first encounter between the PI and Electra. Like all good femme fatales, she's wearing a flimsy negligee and doing her damndest to seduce our hero. And he's falling for it because she reminds him of his dead wife. This being a detective story - a noir detective story at that - Electra's behaviour naturally puts her in the frame as a prime suspect in the dastardly crime. Namely I'm setting her up so the reader doesn't trust her.
Now I'm not about to give away the story, but suffice it to say Electra is partly behind what's going on ... but it's not a clear-cut case. She's got a motive - and complicating circumstances - that I hope will create sympathy for her. And her involvement isn't the whole story. So when the PI discovers she's not on the level, it's a real wrench for him to accept it.
I've also introduced the janitor and Edwin the cockroach, and got everyone up to the penthouse apartment ready for the resident's meeting. This is where they'll discuss their predicament and decide what to do next. Whatever they decide, the PI will buck the trend and go his own way.
So far I've established a mystery and introduced a bit of sizzle with Electra. Time for some action, methinks. I may well have Edwin go crazy during the meeting, forcing the PI to protect Electra, thus strengthening their relationship. Tempted to have Edwin trip some kind of ticking-clock deadline ... not sure what yet, but something to impose urgency on the whole proceedings.
This next scene is critical then. In it, I'll set up all the clockwork that will make the rest of the story unwind. The key to the whole mystery, by the way, is something that's visible from the rear penthouse window - a view that the PI has never looked out on before ...
Word count's just crept past 2,700. Minor revisions to what I've already written, including a slight tweak to the opening paragraph, hinting at the dead wife subplot early on ...
I woke to find the city had been flattened. Literally.
I lurched off the couch rubbing my eyes. My mouth tasted of the same bad dream I’d been having every night for the past two weeks. The dream about Laura. I spat it away, wiped the window. I tried to see something that made sense. But it wasn’t there.
The new scenes I've written today include the first encounter between the PI and Electra. Like all good femme fatales, she's wearing a flimsy negligee and doing her damndest to seduce our hero. And he's falling for it because she reminds him of his dead wife. This being a detective story - a noir detective story at that - Electra's behaviour naturally puts her in the frame as a prime suspect in the dastardly crime. Namely I'm setting her up so the reader doesn't trust her.
Now I'm not about to give away the story, but suffice it to say Electra is partly behind what's going on ... but it's not a clear-cut case. She's got a motive - and complicating circumstances - that I hope will create sympathy for her. And her involvement isn't the whole story. So when the PI discovers she's not on the level, it's a real wrench for him to accept it.
I've also introduced the janitor and Edwin the cockroach, and got everyone up to the penthouse apartment ready for the resident's meeting. This is where they'll discuss their predicament and decide what to do next. Whatever they decide, the PI will buck the trend and go his own way.
So far I've established a mystery and introduced a bit of sizzle with Electra. Time for some action, methinks. I may well have Edwin go crazy during the meeting, forcing the PI to protect Electra, thus strengthening their relationship. Tempted to have Edwin trip some kind of ticking-clock deadline ... not sure what yet, but something to impose urgency on the whole proceedings.
This next scene is critical then. In it, I'll set up all the clockwork that will make the rest of the story unwind. The key to the whole mystery, by the way, is something that's visible from the rear penthouse window - a view that the PI has never looked out on before ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)