Legal Fiction - first paragraphs

Well, the writing group shall have to wait until Tuesday for my piece, but I did get a good start on it tonight. It's not moving as quickly as I'd like, but I'm enjoying Elorna's character more and more as I write her. Here is a quick sample of the first few paragraphs before I stumble off to bed.

***
Elorna Mynee chose a terrible day to disappear.  

Every one of her clients and colleagues was working frantically to take advantage of a pending Supreme Court decision, hoping to poach on competitors' patents while protecting their own. All around the nation, equal parts champagne and stomach-burning whiskey flowed in wood-paneled offices all afternoon into the evening as the news beamed down from the hallowed halls of justice. Under normal circumstances, somebody would have raised the alarm that same night, but everybody who would have called to ask where she was was regretting the afternoon's indulgence, crunching aspirin through an all-nighter. It would be over twenty-four hours after she awoke before one of the other partners thought to dial her number.

Elorna's first thought upon awakening to the ear-splitting trill of her computer was that either the decision had come down early or that she had slept amazingly late. Her hand groped for the button that would send the call through as she squinted at the clock. Four-thirty a.m.? she thought blearily. Did the justices not sleep at all?

The computer screen informed her that the call originated from Archon University, but it was not a number she recognized. It also informed her that the call had been made to her business number. “Elorna Mynee, how may I help you?” She barely smothered a yawn as she spoke.

***

What is in store for our intrepid lawyer, aside from inevitable disappearance?? Only time will tell.

Brainstorming - Legal Fiction

Yes, too long has passed since last I posted! I think working on a computer all day gave me an aversion for working on a computer in the evening, even in the context of writing. I've been writing a bit of fanfiction for a friend of mine and doing that in a notebook. It's much easier on my weary eyes.

But I have been thinking over the legal fiction story, and it's developing nicely in several areas except arguably the most important - plot. Normally I like to focus more on characters, but for the short story I'm imagining, the plot needs to hook the reader from the start and speed along from there. I'm planning to write this the way that my writers group suggested I revise Jemma.

The MC is named Elorna Mynee, an IP lawyer who specializes in magic stuff. Of course, I need a more official name for magic stuff - writers group suggested thauma- as a prefix, which I'll probably use. She's been in touch on and off with Jemma, and Jemma's supervisor (whose name I've forgotten) contacts Elorna the day after Jemma disappears to ask what Elorna knew about Jemma's work. Elorna has other things on her mind, namely a huge Supreme Court magic IP case, the outcome of which will be announced on the day the story dawns.

But she's a true professional, so she takes on the work and conducts some serious investigation. While she's working hard and trying not to think about the case, a pair of National Security lawyers come in and warn her off the case in a very genteel-like way. They end up chatting about the case, and Elorna brushes it off. I'm not sure what should happen during the afternoon - the Supreme Court case comes down then - but during the evening she contacts a friend of hers from undergrad, a conspiracy nut, who meets with her at a vast, dusty library.

Elorna records their conversation with her futuristic blackberry, and when her friend wanders off for a moment to use the restroom (or something), she absently leaves it laying around somewhere conveniently nearby but not clearly visible - perhaps inside a stack of scientific journals. When friend doesn't return, she heaves an irritated sigh and goes to look for her. On the other hand, maybe she leaves it in the shelves near the journals she's reading.

And doesn't return before the janitor or library intern comes to re-shelve all the stuff she's taken out. JanIntern finds the blackberry and takes it. What shall be revealed from its contents??

This is classic sort of open-ended ending I love and a lot of readers hate. Alas. Now I have a week to write the story and post it for a flensing!

Contest - New Story

I think I've settled on a vague idea - but no more than that - for the story I want to write for the legal fiction competition I posted about a day or two ago. I want to set it in the Jemma universe and have it be from the POV of the Grienyte family lawyer (or one of them), whose mundane practice is turned upside down by her murder/disappearance/whatever. I already started writing bits of it in my head, and besides the plot, which remains a mystery to me, my main challenge is to make the protagonist a distinct character from Jemma. Actually, she could sound exactly like Jemma from the perspective of the judges, but I don't want to have One Stock Character I bring out whenever I write something original.

I'm thinking that Unnamed Lawyer is an intellectual property lawyer who specializes in magic business (which has a fancier name, after suggestions of critique group). This sounds awfully close to my own interests, but I promise that it actually works within the Jemma story. I'm thinking that Jemma pulled something along the very cliche lines of, "Send this story to the papers if I'm killed," but left something with her family's magic-specializing lawyer instead.

I already have a short tangent in mind about how the incorporation of magic into the legal codes and things finally spurred Congress or whomever to pass a law officially striking down the law against perpetuities. Okay, that might have to go, but the idea tickled me as I was thinking of it. The RAP is basically evil and complicated and stupid.

Anyway, the poor lawyer is bewildered by the wackiness that ensues, and I think that's where Unnamed Lawyer is going to differ from Jemma. Jemma was always pretty hyped up about what was going on, the point that my critique group mentioned several times that she's on the verge of a heart attack, and Unnamed Lawyer is going to be the opposite - bewildered but really laid back about it. Hey, you don't put in your obligatory three years in BigLaw in magical law only to jump out of your skin every time you get a death threat.

So that's all I have for now. Plot still needs to be figured out, but I have a character I like and a universe I vaguely know, which is pretty good progress.

EDITED to add: Check this out! Etymology of the word "prestigious": 1546, "practicing illusion or magic, deceptive," from L. præstigious "full of tricks," from præstigiæ "juggler's tricks..." Oh, that's going in there.

Contest - legal fiction

From an email in my school inbox (edited):

To Whom It May Concern:

Following are particulars of this year’s NYLJ Fiction Contest:

• National contest is open to attorneys, law professors & law students.

• Prizes: $1,000 (first place), $500 (second place), and $250 (third place). In addition, first place manuscript to be published (one time only) as special feature of the New York Law Journal edition of Friday, Dec. 4th, 2009.

• Manuscripts of 500 to 5,000 words must be works of fiction, set in the legal milieu, or with attorneys, law professors or law students as principal characters. A manuscript may be either a short story or a chapter(s) from a novel in progress.

• Deadline is Friday, Nov. 6th, 2009. Mail five hard copies of manuscript—along with author name, address, telephone number(s) and e-mail address—to (...)

• Ten finalists to be short-listed for judging. Finalists’ works to be published at NYLJ/NYLawyer.com on one-time, unpaid basis.

• Top three winners from short list to be selected by an independent panel of judges (to include author/attorney Linda Fairstein).

• Winners to be honored with surprise announcements during reception for all entrants, to be held at New York City Bar Association headquarters (42 West 44th Street, NYC 10036) on the evening of Thursday, December 3rd, 2009.

• Entrants subject to contest letter of agreement covering eligibility and author warranty of originality of fiction, and warranty that manuscript does not defame or libel real life individuals or institutions.


I can do this! Deadlines are my best friends, when it comes to writing. I'll think about this more when I'm not working.

UFPE - comic progress

Today I worked and worked and erased and scribbled and typed and made shocking, wild progress to... page 2! Yes the Book of Might Have Beens is slouching along. I'm trying to be conscious of varying the layout without being obnoxious about it, in addition to keeping the story progressing at a nice clip and preventing the narrative + story-within-narrative + flashbacks from becoming too confusing.

I only had a panel and a half to draw, but then I had to write up the script for the whole thing, and my head is starting to protest all that typing.

Because I don't remember where I left off last time and because my head continues to protest, I'll just share the final caption of this very complicated page: "He must have been a child, even by human reckoning, yet his tale was as old as my race." I'm not entirely happy with that line, but it does sound like something young!MMC would say. I'll sleep on it.

Short post - epiphany!

I had an epiphany as I was walking home tonight and thinking about the UFPE re-write, which I decided I'm going to do without referencing what I've already written. Or at least, without having printed out pages beside me during the re-write. I realized it's been almost a year since the UFPE was born, and it's evolved so much during that time.

But that's not the epiphany that gave this post its subject line. I was thinking about the Book of Might Have Beens and the Vol. 1 re-write, and I realized that the prologue to the Book of Might Have Beens shows that Bad Guy's early life is a lot like MC's. In fact, Bad Guy is sorta MC's life gone wrong, or hers is his life gone right. They don't line up perfectly, but they have a lot in common.

They: ran away from home, were isolated from their communities and the world at large, found nice people early on, met up with a specific character (I may have mentioned this before), wanted to learn about their heritage and the larger world... I think there were others, but I've forgotten them for now.

However, MC wasn't able to share in her family's privilege in the community, while Bad Guy did share in his family's disgrace. MC ran into mean folks, in the form of Seaton, while Bad Guy had almost uniformly good experiences, or at least uniformly un-bad ones. MC doesn't know anything about her ancestry early on, while Bad Guy does; his quest is more to understand his people. MC is a charming young lady, though she doesn't know it, while Bad Guy is awkward and shy.

The parallels were very interesting to think about. I can't tell if I just wrote them that way because they're such fantasy tropes, or if I was subconsciously being clever. Perhaps it's some of both! I love that their lives followed such a similar path early on and led them ultimately to such different places - Good and Evil, that is.

Writing Prompt - Paradise Falls

Another day, another neat picture, another writing prompt. This one comes from one of my two readers, an article about the inspiration for Paradise Falls in the movie "Up."

I love the looming hunk of rock in the distance, and the clouds hovering over top of it (or they're just way in the background, hard to say). It looks very much to me like the place where the Mage Towers (working name) of the UFPE would be! So let's see, brainstorming or spate o' writing today?

It occurs to me that MC's love interest is a pretty under-developed character. I wrote a short scene with him once, but I wasn't quite happy with it. I think I fundamentally don't have as good a grasp on him as I have on MC and Bad Guy, so... character interview it is! Questions are copied and pasted from past interviews. I'm going to set this when UFPE v. 1 begins.

1. What do you do for a living?

I am a Quisan of the Amethyst.

2. Are any other people living with you? Who are they?

I have many fellow Quisans and Quisenes who inhabit the Teuirs. We are by and large solitary, and there are often days where I never exchange a word with one of them.

3. Tell me about your parents. How well do/did you get along with them

No Quis knows their parents for long. As soon as our talent is discovered, we are hurried off to the Teuirs. I remember one scene: my mother was returning from a long and fruitless day of fishing to find that my aunts had cleaned the house, cleaned me, and prepared a fragrant supper. I do not know they chose this occasion to act so generously toward us, but I have never smelled anything as aromatic as that food. I sometimes wonder where my father was during this scene, for I also remember hoping that he would not miss the delectable odor that wafted through our home.

4. What was your birth order? How many siblings did you have? Older? Younger?

When I left, I had no siblings, but I suspect that my parents had more children after I was gone.

5. Who else was in your family while you were growing up? How did you get along with them?

My mother's sisters frequently visited us in the evenings and on holidays. I remember them but dimly as a chattering, perfumed bunch who liked to sweep me into their midst for pillowy embraces that left me a little dizzy from the clash of scents they wore.

6. What were three things you liked to do when you were a child?

I liked to attend my mother as she fished, though I never had the patience to stay for long. I liked to be swept up by my aunts into a communal embrace. Once I arrived at the Teuirs, I liked to scramble to the bottom of the Great Table in order to gaze upward at the sight. It never fails to leave me in awe. The climb back up, and the amount of time the entire expedition takes, severely limited the amount of times I could partake in such a delight when I was fairly young. At that age, I could rarely maintain my enthusiasm long enough to reach the bottom, especially knowing how difficult the climb is. Still, I was now and then seized by the urge, and I never regretted it.

7. What were you afraid of when you were a child?

When I was first taken, I was so afraid that my parents would replace me with another child and forget about me that I often wept at the idea.

8. How did you respond to the physiological and psychological changes in your life as a teenager?

The Quis, especially with Quisans, counsel great meditation for the inner and outer turmoil of that period. Lessons with young Quis during that transition are very carefully monitored for dangerous outbursts. When one becomes flushed with tumultuous sensations, heavy exercise is also recommended. During this period, I descended and ascended the Grand Table dozens of times. The final ascent was always sufficient to cure me of whatever strange ardor had seized me.

9. What makes you happy now?

I enjoy my work with the young Quis. It is astonishing to watch them progress from lost children to peers, and it is astonishing to think that I too underwent such a change. The bulk of my time is taken up with teaching specialized courses of the Amethyst tradition, but I have also been appointed Special Counsellor to half a dozen Quisans who require additional guidance.

10. What is your greatest fear?

The appropriate Quis answer would invoke the Wars and the harbinger that ever lingers of another Rupture, but frankness is preferable to a facade of propriety. My first instinct is to say that my greatest fear is that I shall never discover anything more about the death of my dearest friend, but I realize that I have a fear greater than that - that one day I shall no longer care.

11. What would you change about yourself if you could?

The Quis always seek to better themselves, but they must also honor their creation. Another appropriate Quis response here, if that did not satisfy, would be - I would change the stubbornness that prevents me from knowing harmony. But so much I have I seen of the dangers of self-delusion that I shall attempt another honest answer, painful though it might be.

I would change... my dedication to my duties at the Great Table. I dream of haring away to seek the truth of (name)'s death, but even my dreams are shackled by a sense of duty heavier than iron.

12. What is it that you have never told anyone?

I have never told anyone that I dream of leaving here, but in the interests of an original response, I shall say that I have never told anyone the true circumstances surrounding the death of my dear professor, nor of the thought-link that existed between one of the Amethyst and myself. The Great Table and its quiet people harbor many secrets, without doubt to our detriment.

13. What do you want?

I want to find the truth, and I want to see the girl whose face appeared in a secret room.


I do have a better handle on Love Interest now though I couldn't remember any of the names of the characters he mentions. Oh well. I do like my names for the various Mage Tower aspects: "Quis" is the name of either the collective of mages or a hypothetical individual (a bit like "on" in French); "Quisan" is a male mage; "Quisene" is a female mage; "Teuirs" is the Towers built upon the tepui, and the Great Table is the name of the hunk of rock itself. "Quisan" and "quisene" I got from the French words for male and female cousins; I wanted the mages to have familial names for each other, but I wanted something a little different from the typical brother/sister, son/daughter convention. "Teuirs" is a twisting of the French word for tower. It turns out that foreign languages are wonderful for these kinds of made-up words!

So it's getting late, and if I want my eight hours of sleep, I must away. Good night!