Stories Behind the Story

Camp NaNo: July Edition was just spend working on backstories for various characters for my vampire novel-in-progress.

You know, the sort of music they like, how they got where they are, and that Nazi Germany apparently had something to do with vampire hunting. I'm not sure what yet, and I even said, out loud, "I wonder why that is?" as though I hadn't just written it and caused it to happen.

NaNo Week One: A Progress Report

I am really nailing this flashback shit.

My outline has some less than helpful direction, like "reveal some backstory here." Useless. But here I am, just writing along, and somehow seamlessly sliding into the past based on something that's happening in the present.

I am so good at this.

And these were just the good flashbacks. *rubs hands together* *cackles maniacally* Just wait until we get into the Dark Flashbacks™.

A Look Into the Past

I've had some realizations about flashbacks. Mainly, that yes, I can have them. All the advice I'd read cautioned against flashbacks,  saying that there was surely a better way to show backstory. That you should sneakily ease in that exposition throughout the story. That flashbacks break up the narrative flow, and readers can't wait for them to be over.

But you know what? Fuck that.

I recently read Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. It's mainly about a heist, but it uses flashbacks to reveal the histories of the main characters, and they are so good. You get just enough of the backstory to wonder what happened next, and then it cuts back to the present.

More to Life Than Just Death

Well, I'm back to working on my vampire novel, Cold Blooded, apparently. Sort of. It's mostly like backstory stuff, that will then have an impact on the main plot. Namely, I've written a little Wikipedia-style article about a fictional punk band, as well as working on some songs of said band. 

Am I going to actually need this in the novel? I don't know. Maybe. I have… some thoughts. But if nothing else, it's helping to develop the protagonist's history. And it's easier than figuring out the plot. 

Because, yes, my plot still has holes in it. 

Dropping Some Plot Relevant Knowledge

Camp NaNo is… progressing. Very slowly. I'm not writing as often as I would like, but I am writing, so that's an improvement.

I'm maybe… 50 or 60% through the plot. Maybe. Depending on how long the climax and resolution takes. But we're headed in that direction.

Having not yet completed Draft One, I can already tell that I'm going to need to rewrite the beginning. There's a lot of information, like world building and backstory, that I have all figured out, and needs to be in there, that just… isn’t in there. Stuff like what sort of time period this is set in, and who these characters are and why they're doing what they're doing. You know, important stuff. I also spent a lot of time figuring out what kind of a ship they have, and that's just… never mentioned.

What About Everything?

I've started rewriting The Long Road again. I haven't got very far, but it feels… good, just to be working on it again. I figured out how and where to start it, that introduces the characters without being all info-dumpy.

That being said, I'm thinking a lot about backstory.

Obviously, these characters have history, both of their own and with each other. I've been doing a lot of research into how to incorporate that into the story. And let me tell you, the internet is god damn useless. "Work backstory into the narrative in bits and pieces." No shit. You don't want to stop the action to explain how your characters know each other, or how they got where they are now. Some sites recommended the use of a prologue. As far as I know, prologues should really only be used when there's some crucial worldbuilding that needs to be done up front. Usually that's a sci-fi/fantasy thing, where the reader needs to know something about the world in order to not be completely lost. This is not that kind of story.

Past Romance

As I mentioned last time, once I started getting desperate for those sweet NaNoWriMo words, I started rewriting a part I had written earlier. In addition to upping the creep factor, I also delved into a piece of romantic backstory that had only been vaguely referenced before.

There's something notable about this. And yeah, it's the fact that I had a romantic backstory at all. I actually wrote out and explained how these character were connected, and how they had, um, connected. If I actually try to rewrite the whole story, it probably won't be dropped in there so abruptly, but I think it might actually have a place in the grand scheme of things.

To summarize it, Andrea and Jesse had dated for a few months, a couple of years prior to the events of the story. It didn't work out, but ended amicably. Yes, that can happen. Then at some point after that, her and Tony nearly hooked up after a night of drinking, but didn't go through with it. It was never spoken of again. But I found that after actually finally writing that down, there was a bit of certain… tension between the two of them. Which I'm kind of digging. It adds an interesting new dynamic.

Where Do Space Babies Come From?

The quest for Elsbeth's backstory continues, and the other day, I asked myself, "Self, what did happen to the boy's father?" The boy of course being her son, who still doesn't have a name. I think I thought of something, but then forgot it immediately.

Anyway.

My initial thought, a month ago, was that family dynamics are just different in space. But then Tycho, the protagonist, had both parents and lost them both, collectively, together. Implying a typical family arrangement.

So the question returned. What happened to the boy's father? He can't be dead, because there's a limit on how much tragedy I'll dole out per person. Yes, even I have limits.

Keeping Secrets

So I'm sure you're all wondering how the SubOccDeRom (Subterranean Occult Detective Romance) story is going.

And well… it's going.

They're wandering around underground, detecting things occultly, but… The romance is going to be harder than I thought. At this point, they don't seem to particularly like each other. I'm going to have to throw them into some peril that will force them to rely on each other and make them grow closer. Because at this point, Catherine is just on a mission to find her father, and Nick is kind of a jerk who doesn't like sharing anything about himself.

On that note, it's becoming a bit of a running joke that she'll ask about where his weird-ass clairvoyant powers come from, and he'll change the subject and say, "Hey, what’s that sound over there?" whether there actually is a sound or not. Is this because I haven’t figured out where it comes from? Partially. I know the basics, but I don't have the specifics. And he just doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would divulge that much information upon first meeting someone.

Last Minute Plotting

I'm continuing with my amazing skill at writing vague summaries that make the story sound way cooler that it probably will be. I was just doing a little scribbling, trying to get the backstory and setting worked out, and I came up with this:

The Lower World was uncovered some years ago at the bottom of a mine shaft. It's an endless labyrinth of tunnels, marked by ruins of some forgotten civilization. The inhabitants have long since vanished.

Or have they?

Have they just moved further down into the darkness? What still hides in the shadows?

Several expeditions were sent, led by Professor Harcourt "Harry" DeWitt, in an effort to map the Lower World and learn of its former inhabitants. On one such journey to the highest city, not far beyond the modern, human realm, DeWitt even brought his preteen daughter, the adventurous Catherine. She grew up among the ruins and the artifacts, learning the lost language of Subterranea.

And now, on a recently funded expedition to the lower reaches, the professor and his team vanished. A rescue team found nothing, and risked becoming lost themselves.

So Catherine, now grown and an explorer in her own right, must seek out a man with unusual skills, if she ever hopes to find her father.

The Intricacies of Waking Up Psychic

I started thinking after/while writing my last post that I use a lot of examples from books that don't exist. And that's not fair. Because while they might be these entire worlds in my head, from your point of view I'm just saying a bunch of random words. I feel like I should really only talk about my past projects if they’re published. Which of course none of them are. So no one has any idea what I'm talking about.

Of course, it's kind of interesting in this case, with this blog, because for the most recent stories, you all were along for the ride. You were there when I created these worlds and named these characters. But once they're done and moved to the "Probably Never Published" pile, we're all expected to forget about them and never mention them again. That might be easy for you, having only snapshots of them in the first place. But they’re pretty firmly in my head.

That said, I will try not to bring up old stories anymore. We can’t look back now. The future is all we have.

If you couldn't tell from that very long intro, I haven't made a lot of progress in my murder mystery. The current question at hand involves the onset of psychic abilities. Namely, "Why" and also kind of "When."

Where Did All These People Come From?

I'm still hard at work (more or less) trying to plot out this murder mystery. I've decided to write the thing for Camp NaNo in April, so that gives me about a month to construct a skeleton. Plenty of time, right?

Right now I'm focused on characters (while toying with plot structure on the side) and they’re not quite behaving. My initial plan was to have an ensemble piece, with focus on all the characters present. All six or eight of them. But the more I try to develop the idea, the more a single main character takes over. And I guess that's okay. As I said last week, it’s not uncommon for my original plan to go out the window. It's a weakness of mine, and I'm working on it.

With the issue of characters comes the issue of backgrounds. As in, the characters' background. Things like race, religion, nationality, even their hometown. There's just a big question of "why" in the middle of all this.  By which I mean, why is a given character in possession of a given background. If your story is about racism, or the struggles of the Russian proletariat, then a character's background matters.

But what if it doesn't matter?

How We Got Here

I would have written this last night, but, uh, video games were happening. I'm not going to get into that. Suffice it to say, Battlefield 1 is pretty awesome.

Anyway, I was actually thinking about this last night (early this morning) when I went to bed. It's a matter of what I guess you'd call narrative order. I'm sure there's an actual term, and maybe I'll look it up later. What I mean is the order that the story is being told in.

Now, if you want to get technical, the story of Des Mackenzie begins in 1964. That's when he appeared in the world as a very much not vampire little baby. But we're not going to start there. That would be ridiculous. Things don't really get interesting for Des until the late 80's. He starts a band, they put out an album, things are going good for them. Well, until they aren't, and most of them die in a plane crash. Except for Des, but he doesn't make it very far and more or less wakes up a vampire.

But we're not starting there either.