Untangling Tales

“What a writer is intellectually, morally, spiritually, emotionally will radiate through the work, like the light on an overcast day in which there is no visible sun, so that all things appear illuminated equally.”

–Joyce Carol Oates

Started a new devotional this morning, and a quote from the first lesson brought me back to my novel:

“Man’s perennial efforts to take himself in hand, however he attempts it, lead to the greatest bondage in which man misses what he was meant to be…. He only gains this as he denies himself. Paradoxically, the free man does not belong to himself. He belongs to him who has set him free. “

–J. Blunck in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology

This quote so intrigues me because for a long time it has been established that the djinn (by their nature) are bound in obedience to their parent(s), until such time as they owe someone else more.  In my story it is exactly true that each individual belongs to the one who freed him or her.

And it can be argued the result is not race-specific. As in (at first blush), this affect seems to hold true for humans as well.  (Does that count as a spoiler?)

I culled the less-applicable stuff.  Here’s the original test site.

A few questions and answers for anybody who wants to know more about my novel.

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I’ve sometimes many times imagined the reason my book is taking years to write has something to do with it being one of four children.

This month’s opportunity to write for days uninterrupted by reality (other than hunger and the occasional dog) made it clear that imagination was a fantasy. Not only have I learned things over these four years (personally and skill-wise) that have made Lindorm a better book, but it really does take a lot of time to go through this many words.

In case you’re wondering, I did not get to the end of my manuscript before the family returned. But I made peace with that.

I did get just over half way, and am almost done with a second pass through those chapters. Why? Because a formatting glitch in Word removed all the tab-indents.

While at first I was going to search for a mass cure, I found that the high-speed cruise was turning up some embarrassing useful things to fix, so I stopped fighting it and treated it as an opportunity.

~ ~  ~

I am delighted by the maturing I see with each revision, and correspondingly frustrated at my own blindness to the remaining immaturities that I see so plainly later.

But maybe I can just categorize that as regular living, and not something unique to the Writer’s Burden.

If you can visualize this guy with grey skin, you’ll have a pretty good image of how I see my character Ivan. You don’t actually see a good head shot until 1:08, but I like the song, so I linked this instead of a still.

I saw this guy a while back and he reminded me of Ivan, but seemed too young. This is more the look I have in mind. I expect when I Google him again in a few years he’ll fit even better.

Three days left to get everything done. Here’s how the math works out:

• Finished through Chapter 10
• 349 pages to go
  • Plus 9 scenes to either write or revise (or explain away as unnecessary once I get there).

  That’s over 100 pages/day plus three fresh scenes a day.  No play time here.

I’ve stopped worrying about word-count, and I think it’s helped.

I also was able to cut my Inn chapters from four, to two.  Which makes me feel better. I’ve never been comfortable with how long that series of exchanges takes.

Have addressed two main questions already:

• how is Rickard connected, and
• where did Linnea’s baby come from.

Very reasonable progress.

The constant feedback I’ve gotten so far (narrow selection but identical comments is significant to me), is variations on We want more information.

The comments have been mostly positive (they’re my friends, after all), but, in one person’s words, “I feel like I’m outside an ‘in’ joke. That there’s something to know that I don’t know.”

This week I am working to do my final clean-up, and I’ve decided to make it one book after all.

Jay pointed out that if it’s too long for a first-timer to be picked up, I can at least have it done and ready to be my second book published.

Lots of work I expect to get done this week.  (Prayers welcome.)

I have now distributed 7 paper copies (with one more to deliver this week) and 2.5 digital manuscripts for review.

This morning I got a phone call from my lone 16-year-old beta, and it was *everything* a hungrily waiting author could want to hear.

She adored the story, “couldn’t put it down.” She could tell me the exact page where she fell in love with my hero. And a couple things that confused her.

So, as I continue to wait for thoughts from my other readers, I have some decisions to make. Primarily, how clear do I want to make certain people.

Tanith and Rickard (for those of you who’ve already read the story) are morally ambiguous characters. They do some really bad stuff. And they do stuff that’s the opposite.  Because most of their character-revealing stuff happens in the part of the story I’m saving for later, I have to decide whether this story is still solid with such confusing characters so close to the center.

Lord-willing I’ll have a complete manuscript by the end of the week.

Any applicants for a 87,000-word folktale-based fantasy?

I will expect to know you before I release it, but I’m keen for input on this version, as this is the one I expect to query before the end of summer.

If you’re new to this project, here’s my best-effort to fill you in:

The story is about a teenage mother who decides a dragon would be easier to live with than her stepmother, and ends up disenchanting a prince only his parents knew was missing.

Unlike most YA novels the main characters are married (part of the disenchantment).

I’m still working on a coherent “blurb” (a challenge for most writers), but here’s what I have so far:

When Linnea faces the grey-skinned man unearthing her father’s coffin, she has no idea it is about a knife. When Tykone uses that knife to attack a dragon-like snake, the lindorm, he has no idea he’s wounding a missing prince. And the perfect Prince Torbjorn, who believes he is to inherit the throne, has no idea when he dutifully goes off to wed his arranged bride that she might have to train Linnea to be queen in her place. The grey-skinned stranger guesses, only he has come North to leave behind the world of magic in the hot lands.

But evil magic has followed him—and under the unsetting sun of summer it will seek new entertainment.

If you have any questions feel free to ask them here, or e-mail me. I’m especially interested in readers 14-17 years old, since that (in theory) is my target audience.  If you can share this info with friends that will be a help. Thanks!

So I’ve been looking for a shorthand/formula for m-o-n-t-h-s now, and finally sat down and created one out of the tales I constantly return to.  And it works!  Made it very clear which elements do and don’t belong in *this* novel.

I started by analyzing favorite Beauty and the Beast and Iron John variants, then compiled a structure/format that also fit other tales

• The Ebony Horse
• East of the Sun, West of the Moon
• The Lindorm King (of course)
• The Lady and the Lion
• “A Flowering Tree” (basically a pre-marital counseling session wrapped in a folktale. I might be able to write this novel in my 50s)

This covers pretty much all the complex tales I am drawn to, showing relationship development (usually in a nutshell), and allowing both the man and the woman to think and affect their “destinies.”

1. Opening state.  Usually there are some inherent qualities of the MC
   1. Birth; e.g. royalty, other significant parentage (optional)
   2. Attitude; which attitude depends on the needs of the story
2. Other intrudes
   1. Does M.C. notice?
   2. How does M.C.respond? Acceptance (in this model), but how?
      1. reluctantly?
      2. with fear?
      3. innocence/naivety?
3. Physical separation from the known
   1. Frequently this includes an emotional connection with a former stranger
   2. If the emotional connection is skipped/missed there are deeper regrets and pain in the next step
4. Physical separation from the new known
   1. Opportunity for character discovery- self and/or others
   2. Journey to return
      1. Sometimes a series of tasks/helpers to process
      2. often anguish of seeing things changed while gone
5. The closing FIND, usually with a final twist that is victory beyond mere achievement.

I like how this formula isn’t as complex as Campbell’s Journey of the Hero, and provided me with a structure to look at individual story lines for each major character.

I’ve not much liked how many steps there were to keep up with in the Hero’s journey, and how some authors feel it’s so central/clever that they’ll over-work a story to fit it.

And it always seemed a waste of time to “reject the call.”

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