The Evolution of a Story

pinterest: tempus regina

Most of you are already aware, which makes this post slightly anticlimactic, but...

The first draft of Tempus Regina is now officially, unofficially, and every other type of finished. 

I have been writing this novel for about nine months, not taking into account the 14,000 words written before I began NaNo last year.  Nine months.  It seems like a week compared to the laborious year and a half spent on the two novels of the Sea Fever series.  Joy commented on Facebook that it feels like I only announced the story's beginning yesterday - which for Scribbles' readers is more nearly true, since I was late in mentioning it.  It appears that since then I've talked about and around it a good deal, but not having posted many snippets, it feels somehow more private than The White Sail's Shaking.  That may, however, just be Me.

At any rate, as I contemplated which question from the Curiosity series to answer this week, I thought I would go ahead and do Joy's on Christianity in Tempus Regina.  But that demands a great deal of organization and care and thinking, and at any rate, it didn't seem to be an appropriate way of announcing the first draft's completion.  Instead, I decided to take up Bree's questions and trace Tempus Regina's evolution from that date in - what was it?  September? - when I put down the first words of the first chapter, to this past Saturday when I put down the last words of the last chapter.

what originally inspired Tempus Regina? 

is the current TR anything like what the original was to be? 

was it one of those books that other younger works...sort of worked up to, or does it stand on its own?

 [bree h.]

What inspired Tempus Regina?  Well!  That is the question, and I'm not positive of the answer.  I've mentioned before that Jenny began a story many years ago about lost kingdoms that sparked my imagination - and annoyance, because she never did finish it.  I don't think that consciously affected me, but I'm sure it did underneath the surface.  As far as a clear knowledge of Tempus Regina's origins goes, I am fairly certain that the title came to me first of all, and then maybe pocket watches, and after that I had to fit together many disjointed pieces like a jigsaw puzzle.  

Like The White Sail's Shaking, Tempus Regina is very much its own story.  I can't remember writing even a slightly similar idea years ago; I typically don't write anything down unless I am set on spinning it into a proper novel.  Wordcrafter is the only one, as far as I can recall, that departed from this norm (which it seems to have done a great deal): Justin and Ethan were characters whose origins go back long before the day I jotted down a scene for Wordcrafter on a church bulletin.  Regina and the Assassin, the White Demon and the Fisherman and Morgaine, were much more spontaneous, as it were.  Only the Time King might have ties to a character from a story that never got off the ground, but even then, I'm not sure how conscious I was of the relationship.

In point of fact, so much of this story developed during the actual writing process that it is difficult now to remember what I had in mind at the start; that is probably a common feeling.  However, I do know that the finished draft has a more marked similarity to the original than the Sea Fever books did when I put the last touches on them.  Certain parts of the book were very clear in my mind: the very first chapter (despite beginnings being absolutely loathsome); the end; and elements of the climax. For the most part, though, a mere comparison of the excerpt posted way back when and this draft's version will show the evolution this novel has undergone.  

"Evolution" is, actually, perhaps the best term for it.  It has gotten bigger and bigger, and complicated and more complicated, until I feel as though I can hardly keep the threads from flying out of my hands and the whole tapestry from going kaput on the floor.  Beginning early on in the writing there have been occasional flashes of despairing horror at the size of this thing.  Not that the book itself is terrifically huge: a mere 177,000 words, sure to be trimmed in the editing.  But, confound it, time travel is complex!  

do you set daily writing goals for yourself, or do you just write, write, write, until you feel sufficiently expended?

[bree h.]

I have this vague idea that I used to write a lot more in a sitting than I do now.  I'm pretty sure 2,000 was once a good day for me.  Now 1,000 is a splendid day, and 2,000 is out of this world.  I am, comparatively speaking, a slow writer, and since I get headaches and achy wrists if I push myself too hard, I don't tend to set hard and fast goals.  Except during NaNo.  But that's another beast entirely.  

Nowadays, I tend to shoot for a page or so when I sit down to write.  The way my documents are formatted, two pages is roughly 1,000 words - and getting there can take an entire (interrupted) morning.  I do this only rarely, but I can sit down for an hour or so nearly every day and write, which is much more than many people manage in their busy schedules.  Also, since I write each chapter individually (unless they go together so intimately that splitting them into separate documents breaks my train of thought), I have a half-formed goal of finishing one every week - or every other week.  

So you see, my goals aren't terribly coherent.  But one way or another, I do seem to get the thing done! 

Shadows and Echoes

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After reading books, blogs, and websites on writing for any length of time, there are certain phrases and bits and pieces of literary jargon that begin to be familiar.  It's not always clear what they mean, and sometimes they're downright unfortunate - internal conflict, for instance, always makes me wonder if the character had mayonnaise and pickles for lunch.  Some of them, however, are quite apt.  One rare example of this is foreshadowing.

Those of you who have followed Scribbles since pretty near the beginning are already aware that foreshadowing is one of my favorite aspects of writing.  It gives me a thrill to read a book, especially one familiar to me, and catch a new instance where threads of future scenes are woven into earlier sections; I love it when the first book of a series plants seeds for those that follow.  I am not sure why, save perhaps that, though (and perhaps because) I am a writer myself, it never ceases to amaze me that an author's mind can contain such a monumental and complete thought.  It is one thing to start at the beginning and bumble clumsily to the end; it is another thing entirely for the ending to be foretold by the beginning.

There are many different styles of foreshadowing.  One of the most obvious is that of premonition or deja vu, two phenomena we don't really understand, but that serve us well as writers.  They allow us to give the character a hint of whatever disaster is to come - not a vision, for that tends to ruin the suspense, but an unpleasant and indefinable taste.  And through the mind of the character, the reader feels it as well.

Foreshadowing can also be done in less obvious ways, ways that will probably not be noticed until the second reading when the ending is already in mind.  They can be as slight as a word that a minor character uses, a change in the weather, an insult, the writing of a letter or the killing of a moth.  It can be anything, really.  There is nothing so slight that the mind cannot latch onto it, connect it with an event and rethink it months or even years later.  The association needn't even be direct; it may be a connection may be only in the character's mind.  Personally, these are my favorites because of the detail and nuance they reflect - and because they're even more natural than a premonition.

As splendid as foreshadowing is, however, it is but one side of the coin of continuity.  Foreshadowing is what the writer does at the beginning of the novel; it is the darkness cast by the real event to which the author was looking.  But later on, especially in a long novel, it is necessary to harken back to earlier scenes and bring them clearly before the reader's mind again.  I call this echoing; like as not it has different names in different places. 

At any rate, for me these are usually pointed (often unintentional) repetitions of something that happened many chapters before.  Again, they're usually small things - the flipside of foreshadowing.  A phrase might be reused that harkens back to another scene; a character's expression might remind the narrator of someone else; a color might be tied to something critical.  Whether indirect or direct, it is an association that carries the mind back across the pages even more plainly than foreshadowing carries the mind forward.

However they are used, foreshadowing and echoing are wonderfully tantalizing ways of bringing together the pattern of a story.  And on a rambling side note, they represent to me one of the spectacular aspects of the Bible: no other book in the world so reflects the perfect continuity in the mind of its author.  Perhaps, after all, that is what we all pattern our own writing after.

The How and the Why

pinterest: the soldier's cross

I promised a third round of questions to be answered, and the month has nearly slipped by without me posting it!  But here you have another, and I believe the last, batch; if any of you sent in questions that have not been answered, send me an email and let me know.

Also, don't forget that the book giveaway ends tomorrow!  If you have not entered or written up a review of either The Soldier's Cross or The Shadow Things, hurry and do so before November is out.  We'll be announcing the winners next month.

And now, your questions answered.

writer4christ asked...

1. How do you develop your characters?

I write them. Honestly, that is the most helpful thing I have found for developing characters; much as I enjoy memes like Beautiful People for learning things about these people, I really don’t get to know the people themselves until I’ve spent a good 50,000 words with them. Even now, despite all the planning I’ve done for writing Tempus Regina in November, I wouldn’t say I know my characters. By the end of the story, then I should know them. But I’ve got to plug away at Regina’s side, seeing her struggles and her thoughts and her words, to the finish line before I can say I know even a little inkling of who she is—just as I had to plug away with Fiona, and Justin King, and Tip Brighton. They surprise me and, to argue in a rather circular fashion, that’s when I know they’re developed.

2. Do you ever want to write longer books (like 200 page-300 pages and/or longer)?

As a matter of fact, my stories are pretty long already by industry standards (not by the standards of a Dickens or a Dumas, but alas, we don’t live in the 19th Century anymore!). The Soldier’s Cross, since it was a debut novel, is pretty small at 92,000 words. The entirety of The White Sail’s Shaking came in at a whopping 185,000, or thereabouts, and I’ve been obliged to split it for easier digestion. As it is technically one story, however, I still count it as an 185k story. Who knows how long Tempus Regina will be? I’m trying not to think about it.

I like large books. As Jane Austen wrote—in one of her incomplete works, I think: “But for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.” It would even seem that my brain produces large books. Perhaps one of these days I’ll produce a tome to rival the bulk of Les Miserables!

3. What is your favorite Charles Dickens novel? Have you read Bleak House?

It’s difficult to pick a favourite work of a man so accomplished. I enjoyed Little Dorrit; I was caught up in the sorrow of Amy Dorrit’s life and in the tortured honour of a hero like Arthur Clennam. I was amazed, too, at Dickens’ skill at bringing all the threads together to create a whole seamless story. However, I must give A Tale of Two Cities much credit for having made me bawl. I honestly had to go in search of a box of Kleenex when I shut the book on the last page. Who can not suffer with and respect a character like Sydney Carton? It made my heart ache, and though it was smaller than most of Dickens’ other works, I think it deserves its high position amid literature.

But I haven’t read Bleak House yet! It waits for me to be in the mood for something, well, bleak. I’ve heard it’s excellent and I really must get to it soon.

4. Why do you write?

I write because I can’t not. I write because of my love for the characters, and the worlds and stories of the characters, in my mind. I write because if I didn’t, the stories would probably burst out like Athena from Zeus’ head. I write because I was made to create—as I believe everyone, because fashioned in God’s image, was made to create—and the medium I’ve been given is that of words. That’s why I write.

alex (goldenink) asked...

5. What was it that got you into writing? 

I’m not one of those writers who has been scribbling from the earliest age, though I was always an uncritical admirer of my sister’s stories. When I was nine or ten, I didn’t have any real hobbies and was most disgruntled about it. I wanted to draw and couldn’t, wasn’t in love with violin enough to pursue it, and wanted very much to write. So I began, and though it was a very rocky beginning, I’m glad I did.

6. What inspired the story behind The Soldier's Cross? 

The story was mostly inspired by a snapshot image of a young woman in a sanctuary, holding a silver cross pendant. It had absolutely no relation to anything else, but it developed quickly after that first thought. I’m sure there was pain in the process, but fortunately I’ve forgotten it now!

7. Who was your favorite character in the book, and why? 

It is a little difficult to answer this, as I am torn between David, with whom Fiona has perhaps five run-ins all told, and Pierre, the young Lord of Gallandon. David was always a breeze to write; he was so brusque and his kindness so harsh. But Pierre had more character, simply because he was present more often, and I knew him best. I liked discovering his strengths and weaknesses and watching his personality develop. And, too—but that would be telling. Anyhow, I think I can say Pierre is my favorite.

8. What is your current writing project, and how is it progressing so far? 

I’m currently writing what someone recently termed a “fantasy-esque” novel called Tempus Regina: taking it through NaNo, in fact. It is something like a historical fantasy, because, while it deals with time travel, dragons, and all that good stuff, it also deals heavily with two legendary points in history. The story is still young and I have not properly “gotten into” it, but I am enjoying it and having fun with the characters. And the research. Really fun, outlandish research.

9. What hopes do you have for writing? 

Ah, this question sinks deep! I think (if I must be honest) that while I strive to write to honor God and for my personal enjoyment, I do have a number of “hopes” for what my writing will accomplish. I hope my writing expands my mind and my spirit. I hope my books find their way into the hearts of readers and inspire love, and many gleeful, inarticulate sentences. There are many things I hope for, and it can be difficult to keep that “rare jewel of Christian contentment” while still laboring to better my work.

10. Do you have any advice for beginning writers? 

If you’re just beginning to write, do your very best to ignore the host of writing tips and blogs and books out there and just write. If you focus too heavily and too early on “getting it right,” you run the great risk of losing the heart and soul of writing and turning it into a mere mechanical process.  

11. Do you have any advice for those writers who are about ready to begin their journey into the world of publishing? 

Think about what you’re doing, and don’t opt for one path simply because it appears easier. In my most recent (and controversial!) post I sought to encourage writers not to take anything for granted, and to question the things around them: even something as apparently fundamental as the Christian publishing industry. As believers, we should be marked for the thought we give and the wisdom we apply to everything we set our hand to do.

The Art and Craft of Villainy

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Once upon a time, my family watched Midsomer Murders.  Looking back on it, I can hardly figure out why, but for some reason we liked the series - until Troy left and they brought in a new right-hand-man.  After that, we stopped watching and the series has, for the most part, faded from my thoughts.

Not entirely, though.  Villains seem to be the characters of the day - or month - and when Georgie and Sky released their Villain edition of Beautiful people in May, my mind soon went to a line from one of the Midsomer episodes.  I can no longer remember the exact quote, and I've no intention of trawling through fifteen seasons' worth of episodes to find it; but in the main, the detective was asking another character if he knew about the trinity of murder.  That is,

motive

opportunity

means

Three things that seem to me fitting questions to ask any villain, murderer or not.  After all, there is an art to creating a memorable villain, as much as there is an art to creating a (hopefully still more memorable) hero; greatly as a billowing black cape may enhance the awfulness of any antagonist, it is, alas, not the deciding factor of villainy.  So what about this trinity?

motive

Much is written about backstory - the primary factor in forming any character's motive, including that of the villain.  He must have some reason for doing what he does, or he will only come across as arbitrary and irritating.  Writers are forced to take into account that, depraved though human nature is, it is still considered unnatural to commit certain crimes, including murder; one usually doesn't simply wake up one morning and decide to take a jaunt before breakfast to kill a handful of people.  An impetus is needed.  What is that happened, or is happening, in the villain's life that set him on this particular path?

That said, I'll add that it isn't necessary for the villain's backstory to overwhelm the story, or even to be worth sympathizing with.  I never sympathized with Wickham, or Magua, and I've only ever remotely sympathized with one of my own villains.  Some people are just plain wicked, and it takes a great deal of effort to summon up any charitable feelings toward them - especially if they're on a page.  But you know, even psychopaths use a form of reasoning, and it ought to be lightly threaded into the story.

Another thing to consider in the search for motive is that the external impetus is not enough.  Two people will react to an event in two different ways.  One character may suffer poverty and come out on the other side with more charity and compassion; another may become Ebeneezer Scrooge.  The mental configuration of the villain is even more important than the outside events one may lob at him, for abuse and rejection and poverty and starvation and the whole shebang will only warp a character as much as he allows himself to be warped.

opportunity

The villain has to spend most of the story with opportunity, and greater opportunity than the protagonist.  The story will always be a give-and-take between the two characters, a battle in which sometimes one side and sometimes the other will come out the victor.  But for the most part it should be the villain who keeps the upper hand, for otherwise he isn't much of a villain at all.  The greater the villain's success, the greater the tension.  Thus, he must be in a suitable position for whatever it is he is attempting to do - or he must have good connections. Good connections are always to be coveted.  (Although one must take into account that if one wants a thing done properly, one has to do it oneself.  Never trust matters to the hired help.  Important advice for those who are considering ruling the world.)

means

Here there is a great deal of room in which to play.  The usual fallback means for villains to get what they want tends to be murder, but as mentioned above, that is hardly what one would call a "natural" thing to do.  The character has to be pushed very far, and have a certain makeup, to resort to that.  So before pinning the murder on him, the writer has to stop and consider whether he is in fact the sort of person to bring about his own ends by taking another person's life.  

If not, there are other means, just as wicked, some more insidious, that don't require any physical blood being spilled.  Manipulation is a good example and can take any number of forms, including blackmail; bullying also works, especially for characters who are rather childish.  For stories set in fantastical worlds, sorcery presents a whole array of possibilities.  And in any genre, there will be those villains who prefer to work entirely behind the scenes, pulling the strings so that others do the work for them.  In this instance, however, it is important to know why the puppets agreed to being on the strings in the first place...

...and then you go full circle and are back to "motive" again.

Capturing Voice

Last week I wrote a post on Robert Louis Stevenson, and in it I briefly remarked on his ability to keep the voice of the main character unique in each of his books (as many as I have read). It stood out to me in particular due to Stevenson's almost exclusive use of first-person narration - something which I have yet to attempt in a full-length novel. Several people commented on this and I thought I had better go into a little more depth on what I meant by "voice."

The concept of a story's voice turns up a great deal in writer-speech: establishing one's voice, finding an editor or agent who likes your voice, getting into a voice, differences in voice, and so on and so forth. It's used so much that it gets downright confusing, since people rarely stop to define their terms. What does it mean to say that every writer must develop his voice? And if every writer has a voice, why did I say that the voice differs in each of Stevenson's novels? Was I actually delivering an insult to his writing style in the clever guise of a compliment?

The trouble is that there are at least two voices that go into creating the atmosphere of any story, and writers tend not to discriminate between them when they talk about a novel's feel. This leads to apparent contradictions: writers should maintain their voices, but the voice should differ from one book to the next. In the first instance the voice is that of the author, while in the second, the voice refers to the narrating character (or characters).

author's voice

The author's voice is the style of writing, for a loose definition. I can't offer a more concrete one, because the concept is rather nebulous; it is what makes the story peculiar to that writer. Even within the scope of one era or genre, two books will never have the same voice unless one of the authors is blatantly copying the other. Dickens' voice, for instance, is not the same as Gaskell's, although they write about similar themes; Austen's voice could never for a moment be confused with any of the Bronte sisters'; my own voice is vastly different from Jenny's, although we are sisters. Voices may have similarities, just as a class of people may share an accent, but no two will ever be exactly the same.

"Develop your voice" is a rather pretentious way of saying that every serious writer must learn to write well, and write well in his or her own way. It isn't a conscious effort whereby you piece together your style; it's a matter of practice and perseverance, allowing your skills to grow with each manuscript. Voice is not stagnant, or at least it shouldn't be. Writing should improve from one book to the next, and with that improvement comes subtle changes to the author's voice. We can't expect every story to sound alike, even at this basic level; they will be different, while still maintaining that something that makes each uniquely that writer's.

Again, voice is nebulous. We can identify elements that make two authors differ, but there is no capturing the spirit of their writing, no putting it under a microscope or dissecting it in a lab. A writer's voice is an articulation of thought and spirit and thus incapable of being fully grasped. It does have to be honed; but in the mad rush to do so, people often get so caught up in the mechanics that they lose sight of the fact that voice cannot be stressed into existence. It comes on its own and develops at its own pace, maturing with each story as the writer continues to push himself.

character's voice

Nearly every story has a narrator, and I only say "nearly" in case someone decides to reach into the depths of the literary ocean to fish out some counterexample. Some stories have multiple narrators, or POV characters, from whose eyes the novel is told. Their voice, flowing from who they are as a character, will influence the story as much as the author's voice does; thus a flat protagonist will result in a dull voice. Characters have to be well-rounded and of some depth, and once they have dimension, a worthwhile voice will likely follow as a matter of course. It's the same as with an author: the very effort of writing is the best maturer of voice.

Character voices tend to change from story to story much more than the author's voice does. They are different people, from different walks of life and cast into different circumstances, and these variables will naturally affect the flavor of a story and how it is told. Character voices ought to differ. But again, I am of the opinion that writers spend far too much time obsessing over the uniqueness of their protagonist's voice and fussing over how to correct it, especially early on in the story. One rarely plunges into a novel knowing the main character as well as he or she should be known; generally the protagonist has to be fleshed out as the writer goes along. Vocal cords will develop somewhere on the way.

As a caveat, it is possible to have no voice in writing, but it does not come through a lack of effort on the writer's part. Indeed, I think it more likely to come when the writer tries too hard. A lack of voice, of spirit, of personality itself comes when the cold hard rules of writing are adhered to, but no life is allowed to seep into the words themselves. Authors may so struggle to hone their craft, focus so minutely on the gears of writing, and study the dos and don'ts so religiously, that they lose sight of the beauty of storytelling. This is when voice is lost. This is when writing no longer has a purpose.

I Think He Knows Which End to Hold

"So killing things mends a broken heart?"
"No, but it's good fun."

When I began to write "Take One Lump or Two?" I was simply going to do a basic getting-to-know-your-character post, but instead it turned into a more specific post on the subject of tea or coffee. There are many good posts out there about interviewing your character, so instead of doing that (since it doesn't work for me anyway), I wanted to do something more in depth and out of the ordinary. Something in the line of Jenny's recent clothing post. The other day I used the personalities of tea-drinkers versus coffee-drinkers; today the subject is

weaponry

A fun subject for those of us who enjoy a bit of violence in our stories. Indeed, there are very few stories that can get away with not having any violence in them at all; the world is hardly a peaceful place, after all. In many cases your main character will have to fight at some point or another (because a novel without bloodshed is incomplete), and when they do it is likely that they will have a weapon. Rather like clothing, weaponry is one of those things that authors tend to hand their characters on the spur of the moment, not giving much thought to it or seeing much need to do so. But, like clothing again, the kind of weapon that suits your character can say a great deal about him. Is he a bull-in-the-china-shop kind of person? Then it is doubtful that he will be comfortable with a rapier. Is she a well-bred city girl who grows queasy at the sight of blood? Then she will probably not rush into battle with a hatchet.

Before starting on the barroom brawl or the climactic battle, stop to consider what weapon your character would use if given the choice. Naturally he or she will not always be able to pick and may end up with a weapon with which they are uncomfortable, but knowing what their ideal choice would be will help you as a writer know how they fight with what they have.

bare hand clobbering

Tip Brighton is a bare-hand-clobbering type of character: hot-headed, plain, and with the ability to pack a punch. In general this would be the more savage kind of person, the sort who enjoys a good fight and gets into them frequently. On the other hand, even a generally laid-back individual, if bred in the backwoods of a nation or the outskirts of an empire, is likely to prefer the use of either his fists or some heavy weapon to something light like a bow. It also implies that, when it comes to appearance, the character is at least moderately well built; a very slight person is unlikely to make a good boxer. A character who loses his temper frequently will probably be passable in the use of his fists, unless of course he always travels with a knife or a dueling pistol.

two inches in the right place

What is the weapon of the stereotypical villain? The dagger, hidden in the boot and withdrawn at the most inconvenient moments. There is something sly and underhanded about a dagger, making it a good weapon for conniving females and deceptive men. If your character is a plotter, the kind who can spend hours sitting and thinking, the kind who rarely loses their temper but hates with a cold hatred, a knife would be a suitable weapon. This is also a good weapon of necessity, as it can be carried and hidden easily. For a dash of pizzazz, throwing knives are always good.

I don't want a knife, I want a bow and arrow!

The longbow is a graceful weapon, which is probably why Elves always seem to use them in fantasy novels. This is a good weapon for a woman who must take part in a fight but does not wish to get in the thick of things; it takes a cool mind, however, since the character's hands have to be steady for him or her to hit anything. A man who isn't heavily built enough to wield a broadsword or wear full armor might also use a bow and arrows. Though the bow seems to take no effort at all, however, keep in mind that it takes a strong arm to draw the string. The longbow isn't a weakling's or a child's weapon.

ready...aim...fire

The gun is a little like a modern-day bow, only a lot bloodier and less of a woman's weapon. All right, so the only similarity is that it allows the character to keep the opponent at arm's length at least, allowing them to stay fairly clean. A pistol is a good weapon for someone too slight for anything heavier, but still clear-headed and of a cool disposition. This would be Charlie Bent's choice; he does not have the build to fight with only his hands, and the pistol is a gentleman's weapon: sophisticated, pretentious, but deadly as well.

This list is not exhaustive, but it covers some of the more common weapons that characters might use. Again, keep in mind that they will not necessarily be able to get their preferred weapon and that this can be used to illustrate their characters; going back to Tip and Charlie again, Tip is forced at one point to fight a duel - something that is totally opposed to his nature - and Charlie gets into several brawls. Determine what the character would like to use, then decide whether or not to give them what they want.

Take One Lump or Two?

Day five of Lerowen's challenge was on the least favorite of your own characters, and I gave the award to Marta because of how difficult I find her to write. However, since she is a necessary part of the plot, I am forced to overcome that and make myself acquainted with her lest she become flat and annoying. Every character who is mildly important to the plot must be just that - a character, an individual person with a life that readers can tell stretches before and beyond the scope of the novel itself. Sometimes this develops of its own accord. Sometimes (to twist Jack London's quote) we must go after it with a stick.

tea or coffee?

Difficult characters plague just about every writer, and there are a dozen ways to beat or coax them into submission; they do not, however, all work universally, so this is trial-and-error. The very first thing to do if you wish to get to know the character is to ask them an important question as soon as they drop by to visit: "Tea or coffee?" My tongue is not wholly in my cheek; it's amazing what such a small and seemingly inconsequential choice can say about a character. Tea and coffee illustrate two ends of a personality spectrum as surely as do the terms "introvert" and "extrovert," and they turn up more often in real life. I frequently hear people lovingly discussing the merits of particular coffee grounds and crying out in horror at the idea of drinking decaffeinated coffee, while others shrug and say, "Coffee's all very well, but tea is such a homey thing. I must have my tea." An illustration that comes very easily to me would be the two main characters of Wordcrafter, who are opposites on this point as on so many others.

Justin: Justin is the embodiment of tea, really. He is withdrawn, shy, and generally sedate, finding comfort within himself rather than from the people around him. He's the sort of steady chap who will gladly sit by you through a rainy day and need nothing for himself, the sort who can comfort and encourage in any situation.

Ethan: Ethan's coffee. He tried this whole "tea" thing and thought it a very strange, watery concoction, but the smooth, bitter strength of coffee had him from the first. Ethan is more brilliant and assertive than Justin, confident and easy and perhaps a little proud. He is more striking, or, for lack of a better term, more flavorful. When you want someone to wake you up and dazzle you, you head for Ethan.

These are extremes, but they serve to make the point of the powerful indicator a choice between tea and coffee can be. So invite your character in, put him or her at the kitchen table, and ask the first question: "Tea or coffee?"

take one lump or two?

The kettle's whistling or the coffee is percolating, and you've brought out the sugar cubes and the cream. But there are half-a-dozen ways a person can take their tea or coffee, and depending on taste buds and personality, a character could take theirs black or with cream, with one lump of sugar or two (or three!), with honey mixed in or with a sprig of mint on top. Jenny's character Rhodri, for instance, takes his tea black and could not be induced to take it any other way. If forced to take tea my character Tip would likely also have it black, but he would prefer straight, strong, black-as-a-bat's-wing coffee. That's the way he is: plain and blunt, lacking any frills or tact. Charlie Bent would have tea with two sugar lumps...and, maybe, if you turned your back long enough (but watched him in the side of a tea pot), he would take another and eat it plain. And that's the way he is: smooth and easy, the perfect gentleman while you watch him, but with his own quirks that he can't quite resist when your back is to him.

How a person drinks his coffee or tea is as significant as which he drinks. It makes a world of difference whether he asks for tea or whether he chooses coffee, and then the cream and sugar provide some details for his personality. To say that Ethan is a coffee-person is not quite enough; does he take it black? No, he takes it with cream to make it go down easier. Justin likes his tea without milk so that it stays clear and amber, but he puts in just a little sugar after it has cooled so that he can watch the beads in the bottom of the cup. These are the little things, not necessarily important if you take them by themselves, but offering further glimpses into the personality of the character if you look hard enough.

Careful observation, my dear Watson, is everything.

Moving On

A great deal is said, and a great deal deserves to be said, about the importance of perseverance in a writer's life. Some books need more than others (spoken with an extremely pointed glare at my work in progress), but it is a trait necessary at all times in the life of a writer, and, for that matter, in anyone's life; giving up at the first difficulty may be more common in our society, but it doesn't help in completing a novel.

At the same time, however, there is a place for moving on. I won't necessarily say that this point is ever reached because of difficulties alone, but there are other reasons for abandoning a work and continuing on to something else. One reason is stagnation. I spent about a year, and possible more, writing a mystery thingy (thingy is really the best description I can give it, looking back on it) that was very near to my heart, although my actual writing of it was somewhat sporadic and I didn't get far. Still, I toiled over it with great perseverance for a long while...and I believe I can safely say that my writing did not improve a jot throughout that time. It was not until I broke away from the Thing and began working on little bits of an incomplete story based around Stonehenge that my writing actually began to develop. Stonehenge was never a tight novel, per se, and likely never shall be, but it was a stepping stone, and after a while I deleted the Thing forever and moved on to write The Soldier's Cross.

Staying with a story is commendable, but there comes a time, especially if the novel is an early one or even a first, when starting something new is advisable. The comfort zone of the old has to be left for something different, and likely not as comfortable at first, if one's writing is going to progress. The same thing goes for such endeavors as fanfiction, which is another good experiment in writing to start off on, but which should give way to original works at some point.

Another time for moving on is when a novel is finished. In theory it doesn't sound as though this would be so hard - after all, the novel is finished - but it has its difficulties as well. Once a writer reaches the last page of a story he has been working on for months or perhaps years, there is a bond between him and the characters, and the novel has usually become comfortable for the author to work with. Thus it becomes quite easy to keep rewriting and editing and rewriting and editing, rather than starting work on another novel. (This is, of course, not to say that editing is bad; it is quite necessary, but can be taken to extremes.) Not being a fan of editing in general, I can't say that I would rather be editing Wordcrafter than working on anything else, but compared to the difficulties of The White Sail's Shaking, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea...

Attachment to a novel can also lead to series. Not the sort of series that are basically one storyline cut up into several books, but the Nancy Drew or Boxcar Children series that just. won't. die. This would be Disney, who makes one movie, sees its success, and promptly follows it with a sequel or two. This is a way of "moving on," since the writer is leaving one novel for another, but it can easily be as stagnating as staying with one story. The characters become so much a fixation that developing any others is more and more difficult - perhaps impossible - and the plots are often so familiar to the writer that they never bother to break out of the mold. Change, even for those of us who are not fond of it, is healthy.

The Small Things

Yesterday I finished rereading one of my sister's favourite novels, The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff. I read it years ago, but I had forgotten how much I liked it until I bought it (she carried off all our Sutcliff books when she married, and now I'm having to build up my own stash) and started it. I had forgotten how Sutcliff sweeps you away to another place; I had forgotten how beautiful her writing is. There were a dozen things I loved about the book - the main characters (Esca!), the minor characters (Uncle Aquila!), the descriptions (Etruria!) - but one of the things that stood out to me most was Sutcliff's ability to evoke emotion through small things. She could make an inanimate object or an animate being symbolic of so much, and I loved the way she employed this here and there throughout the novel.

The Rose Bush When Marcus takes command of the cohort at Isca Dumnoniorum, he notices a rose bush, just beginning to bloom, that was planted years ago by some predecessor. The pot-bound plant reminds him of his family's farm in Etruria, which was sold after his father's and mother's deaths, and also links him to the past and the Romans who came before him in the frontier fort. Through the months he commands Isca Dumnoniorum he watches the rose bloom; but after the native British uprising, when Marcus is told that, due to a bad wound to his leg, he is being discharged from the Legions, winter is coming on. As Marcus watches his career - and the only life he ever expected to follow - slip away, the rose loses its last petal.

"Now that he could sit up, he could look out into the courtyard, and see the rose-bush in its wine-jar, just outside his window. There was still one crimson rose among the dark leaves, but even as he watched, a petal fell from it like a great slow drop of blood. Soon the rest would follow. He had held his first and only command for just as long as the rose-bush had been in flower..."

Cub Cub, the wolf pup that Esca brings home to Marcus after a hunt, does not at first glance seem to come into the story much; he is left at home when Marcus and Esca set out to find the lost Eagle, after all. But Sutcliff draws parallel between the collared wolf-cub and Esca the slave, the Briton of the tribe of the Brigantes who was taken captive and made into a gladiator. The time comes when Marcus has to take Cub's collar off and give him the chance to return to the wild; and the time also comes when he has to give Esca his freedom, and allow him the chance to return to his own people.

"And watching him, Marcus remembered suddenly and piercingly the moment that afternoon when he had taken off Cub's collar. Cub had come back to him; but Esca?"

The Signet Ring Marcus' clearest memory of his father is of him standing in the courtyard of the farm in Etruria, the sunlight glinting on the flawed emerald and dolphin of his great signet ring, the ring that links many of Sutcliff's novels together over generations. Like the Eagle itself, it is a bond between Marcus and his father, a bond of family and honour, of strength and loyalty.

"Looking back across the years, Marcus remembered that his father's eyes had been very bright, like the eyes of a man going into action; and the light had caught suddenly in the great flawed emerald of the signet-ring he always wore, striking from it a spark of clear green fire. Strange how one remembered things like that: little things that somehow mattered."

The Olive-Wood Bird On the farm in Etruria there was an olive tree with a gall, which Marcus, as a child, cut off and carved into a bird and has carried with him for years as a reminder of that beautiful place. It is his last physical tie to the farm, which he had hoped to buy back after he earned enough in the army, and in the long days and nights where Britain feels cold and foreign to him, the olive-wood bird is a sign of home. When Marcus burns it as an offering during the hunt for the Eagle, his old life seems to be burning away as well.

"But a new life, a new beginning, had warmed out of the grey ash, for himself, and Esca, and Cottia; perhaps for other people, too; even for an unknown downland valley that would one day be a farm."

Merlin and Arthur

The two main players in the BBC series Merlin are, naturally, the warlock Merlin and the crowned prince of Camelot, Arthur Pendragon. As they have done with most of the story, the writers of the show have put their own spin on both characters that is drastically different from the "original" stories, and pulled it off admirably, creating two dynamic foci around which the series revolves.

Merlin, far from being the bearded, backwards wizard that T.H. White's The Sword in the Stone portrays him to be, begins the series as a young warlock recently arrived in Camelot, where magic is banned on pain of death. His powers are innate, not learned, but at the start of Season 1 he has no experience and no guidance, and no idea of how he is to use his magic (which is where Gaius and the Great Dragon come in). He is kindhearted and brave, if clumsy and awkward, and wants only to use magic for good.

"Without you, Arthur will never succeed. Without you, there will be no Albion!" (The Dragon's Call, Season 1 - The Great Dragon to Merlin.)

Arthur, Uther's son, has been brought up to hate sorcery and to regard all who practice magic as corrupt. He is proud and stubborn and an arrogant pig, as Gwen calls him - traits which he no doubt inherited from his father and then skilfully developed on his own; but early on his character begins to grow, showing viewers that he is more than that. He is compassionate and has a deep love for the people of Camelot, and is not quite so bull-headed in his approach to magic as Uther.

"You're a prat, and a royal one." (Le Morte d'Arthur, Season 1 - Merlin to Arthur.)

"You're a better man than your father. Always were." (To Kill the King, Season 1 - Morgana to Arthur.)

The complete overhaul of Arthur's and Merlin's established characters is what makes them both three-dimensional and allows the series to stand out as something new. If Merlin's powers were all in place by Episode 1 - if he were the wise wizard he is generally made to be - there would be no development. If Arthur were the glorious King Arthur at the beginning of the series, rather than being the jerk throwing knives at a servant, he would be flat and stale and unable to grow episode by episode.

As it is, the distinct flaws in each leave plenty of room for development: Merlin must learn to listen to his head and not always follow his instincts, and Arthur must lay aside his inbred fear of magic and his arrogance. Little by little both characters are growing, moving, hopefully, toward the crisis - when Arthur at last learns about Merlin's magic. Every episode edges a little nearer to that time, increasing the tension as Merlin is torn between keeping his powers a secret and revealing who he really is, and as Arthur begins to question his father's attitude toward magic.

An interesting facet of Merlin is the skill with which the characters play off each other, and that is most apparent in Arthur and Merlin - perhaps due as much to the actors as to the screenwriters. Like Morgana and Gwen's friendship, which is set more in the background, that of Merlin and Arthur is one between opposites, both in nature and position. By starting them on a footing of mutual disgust in the first episode, the screenwriters are then able to build up from the ground, letting the episodes add to the respect and friendship piece by piece. Arthur progresses from beating Merlin up with a broomstick to drinking poison for him; Merlin goes from insisting that if anyone wanted to kill Arthur, he would lend them a hand, to sacrificing his life to save the young Pendragon's. This will also (again, hopefully) set the stage for Arthur to realize that Merlin is not an idiot, and that he has powers far beyond what Arthur would have previously imagined.

It also gives the series a taste of humor and irony, at least in these episodes before Merlin's powers are revealed, as Arthur prides himself on his own skill and Merlin allows him to do so. An interesting episode in Season 2 put Arthur in Merlin's shoes for a time as he watches another man get the glory for his own actions - in exactly the same manner that Merlin has to let others take the credit for winning battles and saving Arthur's life. Hopefully the screenwriters will not stretch this too thin over episode after episode of Merlin disguising his magic, for, just as with a story in which a single point is worn to shreds by being carried too far, it will weaken the story if the truth does not soon come out.

"You cannot do this alone! You are but one side of a coin, and Arthur is the other." (The Mark of Nimueh, Season 1 - The Great Dragon to Merlin.)