I did not post as much as I ideally would have liked in 2009, but it was still more creativity-oriented effort than I've ever engaged in before except perhaps the headiest days of my fanfic-writing days. I did write more non-NaNo original fiction than ever - two connected short stories, some more UFPE, and some RP with an original character of mine I've had in the back of mine for forever now. I've got a much better handle on her now that I've been forced to write her interacting with people and doing things. I may have written other things too, but those are what stand out - again, aside from my two fanfiction pieces, one revived and one started for a friend's birthday.
So overall, I count this blog a success! I'm not going to make a formal resolution on the subject because that's probably the best way to make me procrastinate, but I'm going to try very hard to write more in this blog and more in my Creativity folder in My Documents. My main ideas for this year are: more UFPE and a new story, which is currently called "Alien UN story" in my head.
UFPE: There's so much to do! Perhaps my most important goal is to figure out exactly what tone to take with this burgeoning epic. I have enough genuinely cool things that I want to write it as at least a halfway serious story, but the whole point of the UFPE originally was to indulge in the kind of overwrought prose I do so love writing. That has been a lot of fun! If UFPE were too serious, I might have to spend a few less paragraphs (that is mild exaggeration) describing A's color-changing eyes and Z's long-winded affections. That would be a tragedy.
I want to re-write the first volume. I have to re-write it at least to add a lot more punch to the opening scenes and to improve the pace of the story generally, and I might have to re-think the story extensively because I want a posse for A to travel with, at least for awhile. There's just too much internal monologue, even for a Parody Epic. I should sketch the other characters more fully - I know A and L pretty well, I know Z less than I should, and the others (aside from the Prince I interviewed on this blog) remain foggy figures. In fact, I should sketch more characters period, especially a posse for A. She does have that nymph who appears periodically, but she's too flighty and alien. Hmmm.
I also want to write some short stories set in the Ten Free Cities. I had a wonderful time naming and describing the Ten Free Cities in a notebook, along with the central character in each city that the short stories will revolve around. Each is based extremely loosely on an existing city. I have to say, my excitement for writing fantasy has jumped with my reading of the latest "Wheel of Time" volume, which encompasses both the excellent and the meh in fantasy.
Alien UN: this story was first inspired by my viewing of the first season of "Babylon 5." I want to create something like a United Nations of aliens, except it's completely useless. Okay, more useless than its critics today say. They're purely a figurehead so the powerful races can wreak havoc and the weak races can feel like they aren't total chumps. Except one day, for reasons I've not yet fully comprehended, they suddenly are forced to become relevant. Do I know where this is going? Not really. But I love the idea, and I really want to try my hand at some original science fiction. I also have a character, the RP character I mentioned earlier, who's been in my head for years but unable to find her own story. She would not be one of the diplomats; I think she would be first mate on a spaceship run by a shady bounty hunter. I think there's going to be a huge disaster, natural or otherwise, that wipes out a LOT of the races' leadership, and the Alien UN are so desperate for info/communication/travel/whatever that they basically commandeer this bounty ship. Wacky antics ensue! I don't even know where the focus of the story will be; it could even be several interconnected tales.
So those are my goals! I'm not sure which is my priority, but I should poke myself to post something here once a week or so and to write... well... more often than I do now.
Showing posts with label Nova. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nova. Show all posts
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Prompt - sleep deprivation
Another day, another topic from another reader. That's a total of two readers, which is more than I had envisioned when starting this out.
The prompt is "sleep deprivation." My mind jumps immediately to Dastardly Human Experimentation because of my sci-fi bent. Does this return us to Illunova of post past? It feels like destiny to me.
So, Illunova continued. Was she subject to sleep deprivation as a malleable youth? How did they know, if they did at all, how much was safe in order to maintain her physical and mental integrity (as much as the latter IS maintained). Ah, this brings me back to her nemesis, who remains nameless for now. I imagine that a lot of academic papers and horrific human experimentation occurred before they (the notorious they) decided to test out their theories on their own subjects. They had it pretty good by then, considering that they had never tried to create a soldier like this before - and they fortunately (for them) avoided the Dark Angel trap of creating a whole generation of subjects who can band together and overthrow their masters.
This suggests that this is a very long-term project; a mature researcher can only expect to witness a couple of generations, and as noted, they did not have very many of these subjects. I imagine they told themselves they were being safe, but it was probably money more than anything that prevented them from beginning with a bigger test batch. Isn't it always the key? They belong to a department that's been relegated to the back burner for longer than any of the present personnel have been alive, but hope springs eternal when weapons are needed.
And this begs the question, why are weapons needed? Is the department out of favor because they're looking to create human weapons instead of the latest model bomb? Why should society at large favor bombs (or whatever it is) while this group of stalwarts prefer the human touch for destruction? What keeps them going in their long-term project? Do they have supporters, perhaps highers-up in Defense who secretly funnel funds to them? Do they even know of their supporters? Could there perhaps be a conspiracy? What speculative fiction novel is complete without a conspiracy?
I think Nova needs a plot walk. It's too late and too cold right now, but sometime during the next few days I should be able to spare an hour or two for just such a scheme. She's such an interesting character to me - extremely capable physically, a keen strategist if not quite a genius, and completely oblivious to the ebbs and flows of the social human animal. Having just read Watchmen in preparation for the movie, it occurs to me that she's quite a comic book sort of character. Interesting.
The prompt is "sleep deprivation." My mind jumps immediately to Dastardly Human Experimentation because of my sci-fi bent. Does this return us to Illunova of post past? It feels like destiny to me.
So, Illunova continued. Was she subject to sleep deprivation as a malleable youth? How did they know, if they did at all, how much was safe in order to maintain her physical and mental integrity (as much as the latter IS maintained). Ah, this brings me back to her nemesis, who remains nameless for now. I imagine that a lot of academic papers and horrific human experimentation occurred before they (the notorious they) decided to test out their theories on their own subjects. They had it pretty good by then, considering that they had never tried to create a soldier like this before - and they fortunately (for them) avoided the Dark Angel trap of creating a whole generation of subjects who can band together and overthrow their masters.
This suggests that this is a very long-term project; a mature researcher can only expect to witness a couple of generations, and as noted, they did not have very many of these subjects. I imagine they told themselves they were being safe, but it was probably money more than anything that prevented them from beginning with a bigger test batch. Isn't it always the key? They belong to a department that's been relegated to the back burner for longer than any of the present personnel have been alive, but hope springs eternal when weapons are needed.
And this begs the question, why are weapons needed? Is the department out of favor because they're looking to create human weapons instead of the latest model bomb? Why should society at large favor bombs (or whatever it is) while this group of stalwarts prefer the human touch for destruction? What keeps them going in their long-term project? Do they have supporters, perhaps highers-up in Defense who secretly funnel funds to them? Do they even know of their supporters? Could there perhaps be a conspiracy? What speculative fiction novel is complete without a conspiracy?
I think Nova needs a plot walk. It's too late and too cold right now, but sometime during the next few days I should be able to spare an hour or two for just such a scheme. She's such an interesting character to me - extremely capable physically, a keen strategist if not quite a genius, and completely oblivious to the ebbs and flows of the social human animal. Having just read Watchmen in preparation for the movie, it occurs to me that she's quite a comic book sort of character. Interesting.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Story Building - character
Alas, I have absolutely no excuse for my dearth of posting lately. I have spent the free periods of my evening catching up with my reader and only remembering this blog, if at all, when I've been headed off to bed. And it's a shame, too, because I've known for several days what I want to post about next. Or I should say, whom - Illunova, whose surname I've forgotten, if I ever gave her one.
Illunova is a character without a setting. I did try to create a story around her once, one I had planned to write for NaNo, but the story never quite hung together and held my attention the way a NaNo story must. For one thing, it was sci-fi, and I always want to get too far into the scientific and technical details of a story, even when they're completely unnecessary. As a wise author once said, we don't need to know the functioning and history of the combustion engine when a character takes a ride in a car. And I was able to ignore the science for the recent short story I wrote enough to get the story itself out; that choice was not roundly approved, but it's all a lot of hand-waving anyway.
So Illunova. She's a favorite character of mine, and once upon a time I wrote a character interview with her. But it wasn't in the format of the interviews I've been posting here; I just showed up as myself in a dream of hers and started asking questions. She is by far the most intimidating character I have; if it were in any possible, I'm sure she would leap off the page and demand to know what I was planning to do with her. If she didn't like the answer, she would take drastic measures.
Illunova is a very defective human being (if fully human she is), almost completely lacking in human empathy. Part of the reason I had such a difficult time with her was that I was not sure what story I wanted to tell around her; I don't want to write a story where she finally learns to open up and make friends and fall in love. It would not be true to her. Instead, I want to write something where the story is fundamentally about her relationship with her own self and her own damaged psyche.
Illunova was raised to be a soldier - not the stereotypical "perfect soldier" because she could not carry out the subtler functions of war and international strife, but a weapon on the battlefield. She is an exceedingly efficient person, and she has very little concept of the dignity or value of human life. She is wholly loyal to her country even as she's aware of all they have done to make her life what it is. She is not an extremely intelligent person, but she's adept at finding patterns in apparent chaos and thinking quickly. She has very little ability to read people, and she's aware of this lack. This obviously cuts against her ability to see patterns in social situations - ah, now here's an idea.
She was created as part of an experiment, the details of which remain unclear to me. But I'm realizing that the experiment is continuing, and this time the big bad masters are trying to create someone who is as clever and loyal and skilled a fighter as Illunova, while also being able to read people. Illunova could never be a spy or diplomat, and there's a good possibility that she stands to be phased out. And, ah! There's another soldier created in the same experiment as she, who's turned out even worse, and he is very angry at this development. The They in charger keep him around for now because he is a true genius, but in age of the kind of tech they have, genius is over-rated. They would rather have people they can send into the field.
And so it is not the people looking to replace Nova (as I affectionately call her) who become her enemy in this still-unclear story of hers; it's this fellow who wants to wreak deranged vengeance on the powers that be. Is this perhaps her last mission? Does she think it will be? How does she come to terms with her inevitable termination? I fear this is a story too big for me to write, but better to try than not.
Illunova is a character without a setting. I did try to create a story around her once, one I had planned to write for NaNo, but the story never quite hung together and held my attention the way a NaNo story must. For one thing, it was sci-fi, and I always want to get too far into the scientific and technical details of a story, even when they're completely unnecessary. As a wise author once said, we don't need to know the functioning and history of the combustion engine when a character takes a ride in a car. And I was able to ignore the science for the recent short story I wrote enough to get the story itself out; that choice was not roundly approved, but it's all a lot of hand-waving anyway.
So Illunova. She's a favorite character of mine, and once upon a time I wrote a character interview with her. But it wasn't in the format of the interviews I've been posting here; I just showed up as myself in a dream of hers and started asking questions. She is by far the most intimidating character I have; if it were in any possible, I'm sure she would leap off the page and demand to know what I was planning to do with her. If she didn't like the answer, she would take drastic measures.
Illunova is a very defective human being (if fully human she is), almost completely lacking in human empathy. Part of the reason I had such a difficult time with her was that I was not sure what story I wanted to tell around her; I don't want to write a story where she finally learns to open up and make friends and fall in love. It would not be true to her. Instead, I want to write something where the story is fundamentally about her relationship with her own self and her own damaged psyche.
Illunova was raised to be a soldier - not the stereotypical "perfect soldier" because she could not carry out the subtler functions of war and international strife, but a weapon on the battlefield. She is an exceedingly efficient person, and she has very little concept of the dignity or value of human life. She is wholly loyal to her country even as she's aware of all they have done to make her life what it is. She is not an extremely intelligent person, but she's adept at finding patterns in apparent chaos and thinking quickly. She has very little ability to read people, and she's aware of this lack. This obviously cuts against her ability to see patterns in social situations - ah, now here's an idea.
She was created as part of an experiment, the details of which remain unclear to me. But I'm realizing that the experiment is continuing, and this time the big bad masters are trying to create someone who is as clever and loyal and skilled a fighter as Illunova, while also being able to read people. Illunova could never be a spy or diplomat, and there's a good possibility that she stands to be phased out. And, ah! There's another soldier created in the same experiment as she, who's turned out even worse, and he is very angry at this development. The They in charger keep him around for now because he is a true genius, but in age of the kind of tech they have, genius is over-rated. They would rather have people they can send into the field.
And so it is not the people looking to replace Nova (as I affectionately call her) who become her enemy in this still-unclear story of hers; it's this fellow who wants to wreak deranged vengeance on the powers that be. Is this perhaps her last mission? Does she think it will be? How does she come to terms with her inevitable termination? I fear this is a story too big for me to write, but better to try than not.
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