I had one of those sudden revelations again. Aha!
I like to consider social metaphors in the sense of trying to fit an imaginary segment of society into our real society.
So, what if witches are like plumbers? What if they're like academics? What if they're like the gay community? What if they're like the post office? What if they're like the NBA? What if they're like symphony orchestras?
I always thought that was sort of poorly imagined in Harry Potter, the way that the magical world interacts with the real one. She didn't so much gloss over it as whistle and look the other way.
Suppose you find out you're One Of Them. Like a super tall athlete, or a gifted violist, or a boy attracted to boys? How do you join that community? How do you build (or fight) that thing in yourself? How does it change your life, your family, your choices for the future?
What if you're a gifted violist from a family of plumbers? Or vice versa? What if you have to get hired by an orchestra to support yourself as a violist, and teach lessons, and carry your viola everywhere, only your viola is witchcraft?
I'm trying to decide which metaphor to use. Don't you think that's the hugest question you can possibly ask in modern urban fantasy? It affects EVERYTHING.
If being a witch is like being gay, it's innate, it's something she knows and others recognize if they have witch-dar too. Then it might be more accepted now but still subject to persecution. You can't join the Army (if they know) and certain things will be very difficult. And what about passing? It's a fun metaphor, huh?
If being a witch is like being a symphonic violist, then it takes a huge amount of work from a young age, and a lot of people are going to think you're out of touch and elitist, plus what you do will seem esoteric, but when people actually experience it going on, they are always blown away. You can do something magical and awesome but the utility is not obvious to everyone. Plus you have to have a viola! Expensive, fragile, personal.
If being a witch is like being a mailman, it's prosaic and reliable and you will work in one particular community, where you know everyone and take care of specific things for them, in exchange for regular money. It's a day job. Anyone can do it if they learn how. You go there, you do stuff, you go home. Maybe you know more about people than you really wish you knew! Maybe that gets you into certain situations. Maybe you can transfer to another district with other problems!
I guess I'm trying to decide which one serves me best.
I could certainly imagine someone suddenly discovering this skill and having a community try to adopt her into it, and seeing her dig in her heels and refuse to do things on anything but her own terms. The violist who joins a punk band, right? Can you be in the NBA without being part of the culture? I always think of Adam Clayton, being part of U2 all those decades without buying into their whole Christian thing. I really admire that strength of character.
Personally, I really hate being offered a whole lifestyle along with any life choice. You are a professor? You must drive a Volvo (now an Outback) and vote this way, exhibit a certain style, behave a certain way! You like this music? You must wear a big ugly hat! I mean, come on. We don't HAVE to shop for our lives as a package deal. What a gross idea!
Oh my, I really am writing YA, aren't I? Well, there you go.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Other books
One of my biggest problems in writing is that I want to write something else. No matter how much I love my current book, other ideas intrude. Of course at the time they seem like the greatest idea that's ever been had, like it would be an absolute crime not to go write them right away, now now now!
I am trying not to do this. I'll go write excited notes about a thing, but then ideally come back to my current one true love. No cheating on your book!
Today BLDGBLOG just wrecked my ability to do that by posting about two different books that are such great inspiration for that book I've put on the back burner that I'm hopping up and down to go write that right now. Jeez!
I don't usually use other books when writing MY books. Is that weird? I don't really do research except for bits of information--where is this town, and are there mountains nearby? what is the law on x?--and I don't like to let other fiction have too much to do with my own because of my chameleon nature.
But these! One is Camus's The Plague. The other is The Last Town on Earth. Both deal with walled and quarantined cities in ways that are absolutely right exactly about what that sad neglected book is about.
It's not that I haven't tried to write it. It just never quite worked, whatever I did. I wrote it as a comic book! Didn't work. I wrote it as a novel several different ways! Got a couple chapters in and it was apparent each time that that wasn't working. It's SUCH a great idea, I know this. I know it's going to become something amazing at some point. But I have some kind of problem with it and I'm not quite sure what it is.
The Plague might have given me a clue, though. And The Last Town on Earth gave me another piece of the puzzle.
I wonder if books that aren't working are missing pieces, like engines that will work for a bit then sputter out if they're missing something they need. You can duct tape a metal disc over that hole in your carburetor (I have done this and driven a thousand miles that way) but probably it's not the way to get there with your sanity intact.
The images these books gave me, the insights into how to solve my story problems, are making me completely wild to write it RIGHT EXACTLY NOW, so I'm going to do it anyway even though I'm sort of against that or whatever. And I have seven papers to grade. But I can grade them later on, sheesh, when this book isn't whanging on the inside of my brains, trying to get out. Sometimes you have to let the other book get its turn even when it's not next in line!
I am trying not to do this. I'll go write excited notes about a thing, but then ideally come back to my current one true love. No cheating on your book!
Today BLDGBLOG just wrecked my ability to do that by posting about two different books that are such great inspiration for that book I've put on the back burner that I'm hopping up and down to go write that right now. Jeez!
I don't usually use other books when writing MY books. Is that weird? I don't really do research except for bits of information--where is this town, and are there mountains nearby? what is the law on x?--and I don't like to let other fiction have too much to do with my own because of my chameleon nature.
But these! One is Camus's The Plague. The other is The Last Town on Earth. Both deal with walled and quarantined cities in ways that are absolutely right exactly about what that sad neglected book is about.
It's not that I haven't tried to write it. It just never quite worked, whatever I did. I wrote it as a comic book! Didn't work. I wrote it as a novel several different ways! Got a couple chapters in and it was apparent each time that that wasn't working. It's SUCH a great idea, I know this. I know it's going to become something amazing at some point. But I have some kind of problem with it and I'm not quite sure what it is.
The Plague might have given me a clue, though. And The Last Town on Earth gave me another piece of the puzzle.
I wonder if books that aren't working are missing pieces, like engines that will work for a bit then sputter out if they're missing something they need. You can duct tape a metal disc over that hole in your carburetor (I have done this and driven a thousand miles that way) but probably it's not the way to get there with your sanity intact.
The images these books gave me, the insights into how to solve my story problems, are making me completely wild to write it RIGHT EXACTLY NOW, so I'm going to do it anyway even though I'm sort of against that or whatever. And I have seven papers to grade. But I can grade them later on, sheesh, when this book isn't whanging on the inside of my brains, trying to get out. Sometimes you have to let the other book get its turn even when it's not next in line!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Power
I just reread The Witch of Blackbird Pond for the first time in about, oh, say 30 years. And what struck me suddenly 24 hours after I got done was: power. People who accuse other people of being witches are afraid of their power. And the characters in this thing I'm writing who are just perfectly normal humans who sort of pathetically *want* to be witches, they WANT power.
Isn't it cool how a position that was persecuted for its power is now sought for its power? I think that is so interesting. Is that what's behind all the vampire fanaticism?
It also gave me a terrific new character to complete my trio. Except I might have just suddenly changed her to a boy, and not just any boy but the object of affection of our heroine. That gives us three main characters who are doing stuff and one that is going to get the metaphorical axe to the head for being tremendously awful in those understandable, sympathetic, selfish teenage ways. Oh yes.
I also added in some excellent estranged fundamentalist grandparents, because once I realized it's all about the power of the position, I realized exactly how these different conflicting forces need to be fighting over it, or for it, or about it, or against it.
Honestly, that's one of the most useful revelations I've ever had while opening a box of Annie's mac and cheese. As if inside my head suddenly there is a house where there was no house before.
And...it could all be taken as a big metaphor, if you wanted to look at it that way. The older mother trying to get this power, the fundamentalists not wanting her to use it at all, the young adult character just coming into her power in the first place and not sure how it's going to change her life or what kind of person she's going to be.
Something about all this fixed what my story is ABOUT. And I even made a list of Threats and Goals, which is my personal writing strategy. Do you do this? Probably goals should come first, but I go with Threats first, though honestly I can't do any of it until I've been thinking and writing about a story for a while. Everyone has to come to life before I can really figure out what threatens them the most.
My very favorite part of the story idea so far is that this girl raised by wannabe witches joins the swim team because she's always been told that enchantment can't cross water.
Doesn't that seem like a peculiar rule, though? Like, what about water pipes? They're everywhere! So can you undo things by simply stepping across the house and crossing that pipe that leads to the upstairs bathroom? And do pools even count? It's supposed to be running water, like a stream or river. I would think submerging yourself should cure whatever it is, though, or a shower. Right? Wait, maybe the metal pipes counteract it or something.
I can already tell that the magical material is going to have to be worked out in detail for my OCD brain to be able to handle it. I cannot stand flaky artificial worlds. They have to WORK.
The part I LOVE about that (to get back to the swim team) is that even though she doesn't believe in it and it manifestly does not work at all in her mother's household, and she's a sort of magic agnostic, she was raised with enough of it to go for the largest body of water around and dive in. She's afraid of the power even though she doesn't believe in it. I think that's awesome. And you know that her fundamentalist grandparents are going to want to do an immersive baptism on her at some point, right?
This book is coming to life! It's just complicated that I have another one coming to life at the same time. Can you have book twins? Is that allowed? They are so very different, maybe it would be okay.
Isn't it cool how a position that was persecuted for its power is now sought for its power? I think that is so interesting. Is that what's behind all the vampire fanaticism?
It also gave me a terrific new character to complete my trio. Except I might have just suddenly changed her to a boy, and not just any boy but the object of affection of our heroine. That gives us three main characters who are doing stuff and one that is going to get the metaphorical axe to the head for being tremendously awful in those understandable, sympathetic, selfish teenage ways. Oh yes.
I also added in some excellent estranged fundamentalist grandparents, because once I realized it's all about the power of the position, I realized exactly how these different conflicting forces need to be fighting over it, or for it, or about it, or against it.
Honestly, that's one of the most useful revelations I've ever had while opening a box of Annie's mac and cheese. As if inside my head suddenly there is a house where there was no house before.
And...it could all be taken as a big metaphor, if you wanted to look at it that way. The older mother trying to get this power, the fundamentalists not wanting her to use it at all, the young adult character just coming into her power in the first place and not sure how it's going to change her life or what kind of person she's going to be.
Something about all this fixed what my story is ABOUT. And I even made a list of Threats and Goals, which is my personal writing strategy. Do you do this? Probably goals should come first, but I go with Threats first, though honestly I can't do any of it until I've been thinking and writing about a story for a while. Everyone has to come to life before I can really figure out what threatens them the most.
My very favorite part of the story idea so far is that this girl raised by wannabe witches joins the swim team because she's always been told that enchantment can't cross water.
Doesn't that seem like a peculiar rule, though? Like, what about water pipes? They're everywhere! So can you undo things by simply stepping across the house and crossing that pipe that leads to the upstairs bathroom? And do pools even count? It's supposed to be running water, like a stream or river. I would think submerging yourself should cure whatever it is, though, or a shower. Right? Wait, maybe the metal pipes counteract it or something.
I can already tell that the magical material is going to have to be worked out in detail for my OCD brain to be able to handle it. I cannot stand flaky artificial worlds. They have to WORK.
The part I LOVE about that (to get back to the swim team) is that even though she doesn't believe in it and it manifestly does not work at all in her mother's household, and she's a sort of magic agnostic, she was raised with enough of it to go for the largest body of water around and dive in. She's afraid of the power even though she doesn't believe in it. I think that's awesome. And you know that her fundamentalist grandparents are going to want to do an immersive baptism on her at some point, right?
This book is coming to life! It's just complicated that I have another one coming to life at the same time. Can you have book twins? Is that allowed? They are so very different, maybe it would be okay.
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