Sunday, December 30, 2007
Meg Vs. Jenny
The new process I'm gonna try this time around: just writing it from beginning to end and not getting TOO hung up on acts and character arcs. I know how I want my character to arc and I'm just gonna write it and see how it goes. Revision can come later.
I wrote the first two scenes last week and I'm quite pleased with them. I'm settling in for the interview, where Mixie points the finger at several of the people in the victim's life. After that it's the family dinner where the romantic interest comes in.
I think once I hit my stride and get into the story, that will be fine, but right now I'm struggling to introduce him. Maybe it would be better to jump ahead and write one of the Whitney/Cole/Mixie scenes? Maybe that would help him seem more real? Or a scene like that? Not sure, but trying not to get bogged down. Just going to go into it and see how it goes.
Off to start the interview scene.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
And So It (Finally) Begins
Or at least the idea of Mixie. I didn't have a name for her, but I knew I wanted it to be some sort of unusual, perhaps made-up nickname, but not made up in the way that "Nichelle" is made up. I found the name "Mixie" on a box of produce that had come into the store. "Mixie", it appeared, was their brand name, and it stuck with me.
I knew that Mixie had two sisters: an overbearing oldest sister and a twin sister. I knew that Mixie felt isolated from her family and this was due to the distance between her and her twin, whom I quickly named Whitney. Mickey developed next and was the quickest and easiest character to take shape, based partly on my father and mostly of a caricature of him and ever other stereotypical Irish father.
I never got around to writing Mixie, but the idea for her story stuck with me. Well, actually, I abandoned what her story was supposed to be with the ensuing years, but she stuck with me. In late 2007, I came up with a new story for Mixie, one that, after figuring out who the victim was, came together rather easily, amazingly enough.
I'd had the first line of Mixie's story pulsating through my brain for years:
I breezed through the door of Willow Falls's smallest grocery store. My neon yellow sunglasses were resting on the bridge of my nose, perfectly matching my neon jersey and the rubber strap on my flip-flops. My red hair was being its usual self, looking like red flames pouring out of a burning building. I had tried to clip it down, but halfway here it had somehow escaped its confines, much like my dog L.A. flees from her kennel when it's time to time to go to the vet. I had a big leather bag slung over my sunburned shoulder, and I felt pretty important.
I was carefully rounding the corner to the Keeyes' Family Market, staying clear of icy patches, when my cell phone went off. I didn't bother to check the caller ID; I knew who it was. I flipped the phone open, still concentrating on the icy road. "Mixie!" Mickey's voice roared. "Get in here!"
I worked out the story in my head one night during a two hour car drive and finished that night in bed. The story began to make sense. A few nights later, two weeks before Christmas, I typed up a rough outline in Word. I divided my page into two columns, writing different events in the right column as they occurred to me, and putting them in their proper order in the left column.
I remember reading that J.K. Rowling made lists of hundreds and hundreds of characters for her Harry Potter series. It helped her to make her world real and saved time when she needed another character to enter a scene. Here they were with their backstory all intact. The following night, I made a list of all the characters that would or might appear. I divided them into text boxes with the following headings: families, friends, colleagues, suspects, others, and police officers. Coming up with character names is one of the things I struggle with (last names are a bitch!), so doing it all in one sitting really helped.
I've got the opening scene done (who knows how much it will change?), but after three different drafts, I'm fairly happy with it. Now I'm moving into the Information Stage which I'm going to do my best not to turn into InfoDump.