You want me to do WHAT?

One of the more interesting parts of plotting is getting the characters somewhere they don't want to go. In extreme cases, somewhere no-one with any sense is going to want to go. It's got to be done with care, because otherwise you end up killing suspension of disbelief (as the infamous rejection letter goes, "Suspension of disbelief does not mean hanging it by the neck until dead.")

Sometimes it's easy: your average hero will ignore the ten foot warning signs and the assorted Omens of Doom if his girlfriend is in there. On the other hand, he's not going near the Fortress of Ill Repute unless there's a bloody good reason. Said fortress being well supplied with Damsels of Negotiable Affection is usually good enough.

Absent a kidnapped sweetheart or a supply of Damsels of Negotiable Affection, you - the author - are going to have to convince your recalcitrant hero to get himself to the Fortress of Ill Repute so he can defeat the villain and the appropriate happily ever afters can happen. (Okay, if you're writing science fiction it's probably a Spaceship or Planet of Ill Repute, but you get the idea, all right? I think in weird metaphor and appalling allegory). This often turns into something of a battle of wits - and boy is it ever embarrassing when said hero outwits you.

I write in a kind of fugue state, okay? The number of times I've written something and come back later and thought "I wrote THAT?" - good, bad, and mind-boggling - isn't something I care to count because I ran out of appendages a long time ago.

Anyway. Here I am, carefully arranging all my obstacles so my hero's only viable choice is to go to the Fortress of Ill Repute, so the sneaky sod doubles back and heads home, figuring that the villain isn't as bad as all that, and besides, his home isn't in any danger. Now what? It's not exactly feasible for the villain to kidnap his girlfriend, especially since the hero so far hasn't shown interest in intimate relationships with anything, although I'm not that sure about the horse... And he's right. His home isn't in any danger. It's miles away, bad terrain, and bloody difficult to get to.

Random raiding parties doesn't cut it either. Who's going to raid in Back Of Nowheresville when they can have the riches of Fantasy Utopiana for a lot less trouble?

Well, let's see. He is a hero, therefore posessed of a certain amount of honor. He won't turn down an old friend who travels all that difficult bloody terrain, trailing raiding parties, natually, because the old friend has a Secret the villain would kill to possess... Or possibly the old friend is a Secret (See Diana Wynne Jones: Tough Guide to Fantasyland for more detail about this sort of thing). Or maybe old friend is actually old mentor's daughter and went looking for hero because her daddy said to find him if she ever needed help.

Suddenly, not only is the hero in danger, so is his home, and his family. Plus, he's got this person he's honor bound to help, and some kind of questy thing. Yay. I've got the stubborn SOB out of his comfort zone. Now I can harass and push him to where I need him to go, frustrate him into making mistakes, and generally make his life miserable unless he does things my way. Even then, it's not going to be nice, but it does get him out of the whole deal more or less intact, with a girlfriend as well.

I admit this is something of a gross oversimplification, but tactics like these work for me. A hero's greatest strength is also their biggest weakness because you, the author, can use it against them in ways they can't defend against. Although you can expect them to complain bitterly in your dreams, and demonstrate a remarkable command of language unbecoming to a hero.

How do you deal with unruly characters and get them to do what they need to do?

Wrestling with an angel

No, I’m not trying out titles for the latest WWF-romance (Shut up you, if Amish-romances are all the rage, you can too have WWF romances as a sub-genre) and I’m only referring to Jacob’s fight with an angel in an allegorical sort of way.

What I’m talking about here is trying to “close” a novel. Oh, I know Dave and I have both talked about the point when everything magically comes together and you just coast to the end. You hit this point where you’re in a special frame of mind and a particular “state of grace” and you just seem to coast through the hard stuff. I’ve heard of painters and musicians describing this state, too. It’s like your subconscious has been doing all the hard work, and suddenly it all meets and is perfect.

Only sometimes it doesn’t happen that way. Sometimes – and this is usually when the novel, for whatever reason is important to you, or significant in some way – you struggle right up to the end. And I end up locked with it, in single combat, feeling like either I finish it or it will finish me.

And when this happens – Gentleman Takes A Chance; Heart and Soul; Darkship Thieves – I am always terrified I’m doing something mortally wrong. So, in addition to the novel itself, I’m wrestling with my fears and my lack of understanding of my own writing.

I am starting to believe that this effect, which seems to grow strong with each of my last five novels is the result of my refusal to compromise.

You know what I mean. To bring the novel to the paper, you compromise a little. You give here, you pull there and you say “Yes, yes, a scene with a cast of thousands and a hundred elephants would be nice, but damned if I know how to write it, so I’ll do the guy and his friend and they just TALK about the elephants and the crowds.” I’ve done this for years. Only suddenly, it’s not enough. I want the noise and surge of the crowds – metaphorically speaking – the heat of the day, the smell of unwashed bodies, the plop of the elephants’... Well, you get what I mean.

So – what should I do? Is it worth wrestling with the angel, even if you know in the end a part of you is going to be lost to this book, a part of you injured or captive in the text? Or should I let it go and learn the art of the possible? Do you ever finish books and feel like it flinched off what should be a “drag me kicking and screaming” ending? Or do you feel that the ends should just tie lose ends and sort of let you down easy?

The question, my friends, is do you want the end to come at the climax, like a clap of thunder and a clash of cymbals? Or leisurely and quietly like an apres-l’amour cigarette? Are there endings you prefer for a certain type of book? Why?

Let me know what you think. I’ll be right here, wrestling with an angel.

Help! I See Plots.

Yesterday, Sarah wrote about being attacked by a novel and how it can happen at the most inconvenient of times. I think a number of us can identify with that. It pushes you away from everything when it happens, demanding that you put fingers to keyboard -- or pen to paper -- and write. I love those days, even if they do mean postponing the chores I really needed to do or not going to the movie I wanted to see.

Then there are those times when being a writer means you look at things a bit differently than most everyone else. At least I hope it's being a writer and I'm not turning into a conspiracy nut ;-)

An example of this, and how it happens to me, is yesterday's crash of the TU-154 in Russia that killed Polish president Lech Kaczynski, his wife and more than 90 other people. Many of those killed held positions in the Polish government. They were on their way to Russia to take part in a tribute honoring the thousands of Polish officers slain by the Soviet secret police in 1940 around Katyn forest in western Russia. If I remember correctly, there were several thousand officers killed. In total, more than 20,000 Poles died during that time at the hands of the Soviets.

As horrible as news of the crash was, it was the details of it that sent my mind racing, looking for cause and effect. The first thing to catch my eye was the initial report that one person who was supposed to be on that flight didn't make it on board. Maybe nothing, but the writer in me starts wondering if, perhaps, that person knew something was going to happen. Did they have a premonition? What caused them to decide not to board the jet?

Then there was the fact that the jet went down in Russia. Russia, long an enemy of the Polish state. An enmity that goes back longer than the existence of the communist state, long before the events leading up to World War II. Still, that part of my brain that tries to think logically most of the time kept telling me I was reading more into it than was there.

But, I reminded myself, let's not forget that the jet had been serviced just a few months ago -- in Russia. What if something had been done -- or not done -- to the jet then. Could this all be some sort of plot aimed at striking at Polish leadership?

Mind you, there is no proof to any of this. I'm not saying the deaths of President Kaczynski and all those others was anything but an unfortunate accident. What I am saying is that my mind took those leaps yesterday and started spinning the threads together to form the basis of a story.

I know part of the reason I made those leaps of logic -- and, no, I'm not saying it was real logic -- is my age. I don't remember the Cuban Missile Crisis but I do recall President Kennedy's assassination. I remember the drills in elementary school when we practiced what to do in case of a tornado -- or nuclear attack. I remember seeing the signs on buildings and highway overpasses/tunnels letting us know where the shelters were in case of attack. So I might be a bit more predisposed to think of the events surrounding the crash as part of a plot than others would be.

What I do know is I do seem to look at things and have a part of my mind thinking about how I can use it in a story. Whether it is something like the horrible crash yesterday or watching the men take down the 50' pine tree in my front yard, seeing how one of the men worked bottom to top as he took down the limbs, leaving footholds as he went and how he carefully trimmed each limb before he cut it down so it wouldn't tear up the ground when it dropped. Then there was how he all but communed with the tree, carefully circling it, studying it, almost talking to it as he figured out where to cut so the trunk would fall exactly where he wanted.

How about you? What sort of leaps does your mind take when reading the news or watching something happen? Is it the same sort of leap you see from those around you or different? Or should I just accept the fact that I see plots -- and possibly conspiracies -- around every corner?