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Posting from college
Oct. 12th, 2005 12:49 pmI probably shouldn't be posting from college, but it's my lunch, and as soon as I'm finished it's off to the library with me.
Good. Justification over.
I've been thinking about the novel again. I might be able to restart it soon: I need to get my wind back, I think, and plan some kind of schedule (even if I don't stick to it). I have my outline, and my lists, and the characters are almost starting to talk to me again.
Yeah, weird way of putting it, but that's what they do. The characters talk, and I listen, and since the language they speak is a mish-mash of images and metaphors, feelings and flashes of clarity, intrepreting is like trying to understand someone who doesn't speak your language and whose language you don't understand, when the only medium you have for communication is pictograms.
And neither of you can draw worth a damn.
So my first early sketches for character went wrong, because pictograms aren't exactly genius for depicting abstracts. And motivation is a series of interconnected abstracts, strung together by a logic that is often unique - frequently universally recognisable, but still unique - to the character.
Logic. He does X, and thus she does Z, but knowing why he's done X instead of W or V, and why she's picked Z, not A or B or any of the other options open to her, is at least as important as knowing what.
And my pictograms aren't good at why.
I almost have a handle on it now. Third time over. I'm learning the right questions. And maybe the right answers, too.
Third try. Goal for week ending Sunday 16 October: 4,000 new words of 'Dreamdark'.
And yeah, titles aren't exactly where my talent lies, either.
Good. Justification over.
I've been thinking about the novel again. I might be able to restart it soon: I need to get my wind back, I think, and plan some kind of schedule (even if I don't stick to it). I have my outline, and my lists, and the characters are almost starting to talk to me again.
Yeah, weird way of putting it, but that's what they do. The characters talk, and I listen, and since the language they speak is a mish-mash of images and metaphors, feelings and flashes of clarity, intrepreting is like trying to understand someone who doesn't speak your language and whose language you don't understand, when the only medium you have for communication is pictograms.
And neither of you can draw worth a damn.
So my first early sketches for character went wrong, because pictograms aren't exactly genius for depicting abstracts. And motivation is a series of interconnected abstracts, strung together by a logic that is often unique - frequently universally recognisable, but still unique - to the character.
Logic. He does X, and thus she does Z, but knowing why he's done X instead of W or V, and why she's picked Z, not A or B or any of the other options open to her, is at least as important as knowing what.
And my pictograms aren't good at why.
I almost have a handle on it now. Third time over. I'm learning the right questions. And maybe the right answers, too.
Third try. Goal for week ending Sunday 16 October: 4,000 new words of 'Dreamdark'.
And yeah, titles aren't exactly where my talent lies, either.
