Happy π Day! March 14, 03/14, pi! (Although I suppose we'll have to wait another 5 years before we get an even π-er day--03/14/15.)
Why is pi significant? It's certainly not because it's a number of circular mathematical importance, heck no. I hate math. That's why I cherish my relationship with my calculator even more than I cherish my friendship with Krispy.
No, pi is significant because one of the main characters in our long-neglected novel is a girl named Pi. Well, she's named Piety, actually, but we can't blame her if she prefers "the mathematical constant used to refer to the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diamater" versus "reverence for God or devout fulfillment of religious obligations/the quality or state of being pious/dutiful respect or regard for parents, homeland, etc./a pious act, remark, belief, or the like".
Why Pi? Krispy and I came up with the name after tossing name-ideas around and eventually the conversation degenerated into declarations of desiring delicious desserts. Like pie. Hey, pie! No, pi!
...and thus Pi was born. Or named, at any rate. But since the story is set in a world quite parallel to our own in some aspects, well, being named Pi seemed a bit strange, so we had to retroactively come up with a full name for her. Piper? Penelope? Pia?
None of them seemed quite right. And then, because we are cruel people, we decided it'd be much more fun if she had a name she didn't like, and/or was named after some kind of virtue that, if not necessarily anathema to her personality, was at least the sort of thing you'd roll your eyes at.
How about Piety? Hmm. Sounds plausible, can be shortened to "Pi," wouldn't want to be named that ourselves. Great!
And so did Pi gain her full name. I'm sure she hates us for dumping "Piety" on her, but come on, girl, we hung Pi on you too, while thinking about delectable deliciousness. You can blame us for everything, but give us credit where due too!
Valentine's Day is Val's birthday, and so March 14th must be Pi's birthday--symbolically, at least. Unlike Val, she wasn't created or named or what have you on this day, and it might be a bit much to have her actual factual canonical birthday be today. Nonetheless, she has a day unto herself--Pi Day. We hope that makes up for all the teasing you've received in your life.
Showing posts with label developmental notes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label developmental notes. Show all posts
1.06.2009
Cookies and Collaboration
Long has it been since Krispy and I have paid attention to our sorely neglected co-novel baby. We are bad, bad parents.
However, we have been collaborating on a Holiday Cookie these past couple of weeks, and it's going quite well if I do say so myself. We've collaborated before on a sack of pennies as well as numerous other bits and bobs, cookies and crumbs, andcracktastic alternate universe high school melodramas. (Just kidding about that last—that was with another friend, although still containing Krispy's characters.)
But in our defense (as though something were attacking us besides our parental consciences), some of our co-novel characters appear in this Holiday Cookie, and by some, I mean one, and that one is a member of our novel's supporting cast. (Incidentally, this same character also appears in Krispy's Nanowrimo story, playing a slightly bigger role than in our novel.) So what if our current cookie endeavor is a multiple-world-crossover of questionable alternate universality? At least we're getting to know someone a little better, and see how he reacts under pressure and behaves in general. Chronologically speaking, this takes place a good manyyears decades centuries after the events in our co-novel and while I suppose that a few hundred years might make a difference in one's character and personality, I'm going to ignore that thought right now.
Collaboration this time is a wee bit different than how we wrote (and should still be writing, if only Krispy would freakin' write the next drabble) our Penny Drabble, wherein we took turns writing a section at a time, taking things in random directions to see where the other would run with it. For our Holiday Cookie, we've been writing different scenes simultaneously (and said scenes are more or less happening around the same time), consulting each other as necessary for information concerning settings, character whereabouts and interactions, etc.
Perhaps by the time we actually finish planning and plotting our novel, we will have smoothed out a few of the kinks, ironed some of the wrinkles, and sandpapered away the most awkward bumps of figuring out how to actually write it. I have the feeling (take no bets, please, for my feelings are as fleeting as they are fickle) that our novel will require a combination of both Penny Drabbles and Holiday Cookie techniques along with inventing some brand spanking new co-authorial anything-goes literary kung fu.
We will be co-author kung fu masters by the time we're through. Masters.
However, we have been collaborating on a Holiday Cookie these past couple of weeks, and it's going quite well if I do say so myself. We've collaborated before on a sack of pennies as well as numerous other bits and bobs, cookies and crumbs, and
But in our defense (as though something were attacking us besides our parental consciences), some of our co-novel characters appear in this Holiday Cookie, and by some, I mean one, and that one is a member of our novel's supporting cast. (Incidentally, this same character also appears in Krispy's Nanowrimo story, playing a slightly bigger role than in our novel.) So what if our current cookie endeavor is a multiple-world-crossover of questionable alternate universality? At least we're getting to know someone a little better, and see how he reacts under pressure and behaves in general. Chronologically speaking, this takes place a good many
Collaboration this time is a wee bit different than how we wrote (and should still be writing, if only Krispy would freakin' write the next drabble) our Penny Drabble, wherein we took turns writing a section at a time, taking things in random directions to see where the other would run with it. For our Holiday Cookie, we've been writing different scenes simultaneously (and said scenes are more or less happening around the same time), consulting each other as necessary for information concerning settings, character whereabouts and interactions, etc.
Perhaps by the time we actually finish planning and plotting our novel, we will have smoothed out a few of the kinks, ironed some of the wrinkles, and sandpapered away the most awkward bumps of figuring out how to actually write it. I have the feeling (take no bets, please, for my feelings are as fleeting as they are fickle) that our novel will require a combination of both Penny Drabbles and Holiday Cookie techniques along with inventing some brand spanking new co-authorial anything-goes literary kung fu.
We will be co-author kung fu masters by the time we're through. Masters.
6.02.2008
Growing Pains
We're alive and working on the story, I swear! It's just that May has been a busy month for both me and Alz, what with the whole graduating from college and all that. ZOMG. May is a month of those pesky final Finals and pomp and circumstance related events such as Commencement and hauling 4 years worth of accumulated stuff (how did I manage to have so much stuff in that small apartment?) from one side of the state back down to the other. Well, the latter pertains mostly to me. (Alz higher educated herself closer to home.)
In any case, that is the real and true reason for the month-long silence here at Nudge -- surprisingly not procrastination and not laziness. Though, I have also been trying to think up something interesting to write about in terms of how our baby is developing, and boy, is the baby developing.
We've gotten to that point in the novel where, well, the shizz is hitting the fan. I don't think I ever realized how hard it is to go out with a bang. It certainly sounds easy and straightforward enough, but it's not. It's incredibly hard to actually plan out the climax. I mean, this is THE Moment--of Truth! if you will--so you kind of have to get it right. There's also that sort of stage fright-like feeling. Now that we are finally there, at this Point of points in the story, I find myself blanking on my lines. So we're here at the pearly gates, but what the frell are we supposed to do?
I'm a little overwhelmed to be honest. There's a lot of action in multiple locations involving multiple characters that needs to be planned out. This includes the issue of transitions between scenes, characters, and even actions by the same characters. I mean, there has to be rhyme and reason when a character goes from operating as a Distraction to purposefully fulfilling his current Goal in Life. There's also a lot of pesky logistics cropping up like emergency evacuation procedures (should have paid more attention during fire drills!), event/location security (what kind, how many, armed/or not and with what?), and the weight-carrying ability of teenagers (how many sacks of potatoes do you think they can drag and can they do it while being pursued by a pack of purple bunnies?).
Oh and Alz mentioned last post that we recently gave one of our characters a crippling fear of snakes, which will now potentially be a Big Problem, considering we're about to head into a section involving a whole mess of serpents (or would that be a tangle of serpents?). Comedic effect, you better be worth the trouble!
Much like most climactic explosion-filled scenes are, things are very confusing and I'm not quite sure what's going on. I'm trying very hard to figure things out on the fly, much like my good friend Pi, who is getting into all sorts of trouble and wondering what she did to deserve it. Keep your fingers crossed for us. I know I am.
P.S. Next time, I try to figure out what my issue with bad guys is. It'll probably be a long post involving a lot of ani/manga people.
In any case, that is the real and true reason for the month-long silence here at Nudge -- surprisingly not procrastination and not laziness. Though, I have also been trying to think up something interesting to write about in terms of how our baby is developing, and boy, is the baby developing.
We've gotten to that point in the novel where, well, the shizz is hitting the fan. I don't think I ever realized how hard it is to go out with a bang. It certainly sounds easy and straightforward enough, but it's not. It's incredibly hard to actually plan out the climax. I mean, this is THE Moment--of Truth! if you will--so you kind of have to get it right. There's also that sort of stage fright-like feeling. Now that we are finally there, at this Point of points in the story, I find myself blanking on my lines. So we're here at the pearly gates, but what the frell are we supposed to do?
I'm a little overwhelmed to be honest. There's a lot of action in multiple locations involving multiple characters that needs to be planned out. This includes the issue of transitions between scenes, characters, and even actions by the same characters. I mean, there has to be rhyme and reason when a character goes from operating as a Distraction to purposefully fulfilling his current Goal in Life. There's also a lot of pesky logistics cropping up like emergency evacuation procedures (should have paid more attention during fire drills!), event/location security (what kind, how many, armed/or not and with what?), and the weight-carrying ability of teenagers (how many sacks of potatoes do you think they can drag and can they do it while being pursued by a pack of purple bunnies?).
Oh and Alz mentioned last post that we recently gave one of our characters a crippling fear of snakes, which will now potentially be a Big Problem, considering we're about to head into a section involving a whole mess of serpents (or would that be a tangle of serpents?). Comedic effect, you better be worth the trouble!
Much like most climactic explosion-filled scenes are, things are very confusing and I'm not quite sure what's going on. I'm trying very hard to figure things out on the fly, much like my good friend Pi, who is getting into all sorts of trouble and wondering what she did to deserve it. Keep your fingers crossed for us. I know I am.
P.S. Next time, I try to figure out what my issue with bad guys is. It'll probably be a long post involving a lot of ani/manga people.
5.01.2008
Power through!
Krispy said yesterday that she thinks A Nudge is dead and she doesn't know what to post, so I will randomly update on our progress with...random updates on our progress.
So the other week, we decided that we needed more stuff to happen before the Final Showdown. Important details about certain characters needed exposition, other characters needed to actually do things, motivations needed to be clearer, and character development is always good. We'd gotten our outline down to the equivalent of the first stage of Dr. Wily's castle in the old Mega Man games, you know, the beginning of the beginning of the end type of thing. We might have been moving a bit too fast, but there's nothing wrong with that since this is just the outline.
We went back and added a new character who is and was basically a plot device--opening the way for more exposition and development, though, so it's okay, and it's a minor character. I like to think that the way we've incorporated said character into the story makes him better than just some schmoe shoved into the plot to make things happen, but let's say he serves his purpose, complicates things, and furthers the story at the same time, which is a good thing, right?
But adding this single small new role effected quite a few rather large changes. There was, in no particular order, a cosmic showdown in the sky (not the Final one, mind you), angelic interference, lies about engagements and imminent marriage, Time refusing to take sides, a happy anniversary dinner, ascension to Heaven, and revamped kidnappings, to name a few.
After catching up to ourselves and accordingly revising what was left, we've plowed ahead these past few days, hashing out a few names and details and (sadistically) deciding to give a main character ophidiophobia and working out reasons for things happening or not happening. That's part of how we've been operating, too, pointing out reasons why stuff shouldn't or wouldn't happen as much as why stuff shouldn't or wouldn't not be happening, and bam, there's a double negative right there! Hah!
Currently, though, we're in the mid-beginning of the beginning of the end, I think, but even so we still have to go back and add some sections for our antagonists to explain and explore what they've been doing. We kind of got caught upabusing developing our protagonists because such exciting things were happening to them. I suppose we'll just have to have exciting stuff happen to our Big Bad Baddies too--after all, there's always retroactive revision to take care of little things like plot holes, continuity errors, and sudden inexplicable death.
So the other week, we decided that we needed more stuff to happen before the Final Showdown. Important details about certain characters needed exposition, other characters needed to actually do things, motivations needed to be clearer, and character development is always good. We'd gotten our outline down to the equivalent of the first stage of Dr. Wily's castle in the old Mega Man games, you know, the beginning of the beginning of the end type of thing. We might have been moving a bit too fast, but there's nothing wrong with that since this is just the outline.
We went back and added a new character who is and was basically a plot device--opening the way for more exposition and development, though, so it's okay, and it's a minor character. I like to think that the way we've incorporated said character into the story makes him better than just some schmoe shoved into the plot to make things happen, but let's say he serves his purpose, complicates things, and furthers the story at the same time, which is a good thing, right?
But adding this single small new role effected quite a few rather large changes. There was, in no particular order, a cosmic showdown in the sky (not the Final one, mind you), angelic interference, lies about engagements and imminent marriage, Time refusing to take sides, a happy anniversary dinner, ascension to Heaven, and revamped kidnappings, to name a few.
After catching up to ourselves and accordingly revising what was left, we've plowed ahead these past few days, hashing out a few names and details and (sadistically) deciding to give a main character ophidiophobia and working out reasons for things happening or not happening. That's part of how we've been operating, too, pointing out reasons why stuff shouldn't or wouldn't happen as much as why stuff shouldn't or wouldn't not be happening, and bam, there's a double negative right there! Hah!
Currently, though, we're in the mid-beginning of the beginning of the end, I think, but even so we still have to go back and add some sections for our antagonists to explain and explore what they've been doing. We kind of got caught up
3.26.2008
Back to work!
So Krispy and I have gotten back to work on our baby. These past couple of days, we've done a bit of work on characters—motivations, appearances, abilities, etc.—and we've also gone back and revised a bit so that things make more sense. Sometimes things just end up being too convenient or coincidental, you know? And you don't realize it until it's been sitting there for a while. We decided the story would be better off if two particular characters didn't really know each other after all; we'd planned them to have a casual sort of yeah-I-know-him/her relationship, which has summarily been reduced to oh-yeah-that-person-I've-seen-him/her-around-before status. This didn't really affect things hugely, but it's just one of those little things that has to be done.
We've also been developing a new character because we decided that there needs to be a Revelation, and this character will be, I guess, a sort of plot device to get this Revelation happening. It seems like it may be an uncharacteristically flashy Revelation, but, well, you know, when you're dealing with divine spirits and demigods and gods and emo punks and suchlike and so on, maybe some flashiness now and again is appropriate. They've got their pride too. Boy, do some of them have pride…
Anyway, this character will also serve to heighten tensions, hint towards the existence of our Big Bad Evil (because Big Bad Evil sounds cooler than Big Bad Antagonist), and generally move things along—less a nudge in the right direction than a signpost by the side of the road.
One of our other antagonists is proving a bit difficult (getting into his head and deciding what he would or wouldn't do, and how he'd act and react and why), but I think we've gotten a good grip on him recently, and have come up with some interesting ideas for our big finale. We still need to sort him out more, but Krispy and I are toodling along quite well once again, I think.
We've also been developing a new character because we decided that there needs to be a Revelation, and this character will be, I guess, a sort of plot device to get this Revelation happening. It seems like it may be an uncharacteristically flashy Revelation, but, well, you know, when you're dealing with divine spirits and demigods and gods and emo punks and suchlike and so on, maybe some flashiness now and again is appropriate. They've got their pride too. Boy, do some of them have pride…
Anyway, this character will also serve to heighten tensions, hint towards the existence of our Big Bad Evil (because Big Bad Evil sounds cooler than Big Bad Antagonist), and generally move things along—less a nudge in the right direction than a signpost by the side of the road.
One of our other antagonists is proving a bit difficult (getting into his head and deciding what he would or wouldn't do, and how he'd act and react and why), but I think we've gotten a good grip on him recently, and have come up with some interesting ideas for our big finale. We still need to sort him out more, but Krispy and I are toodling along quite well once again, I think.
3.13.2008
Pros of Collaboration 2: The Sequel Post
As Krispy noted previously, we have slowed down a bit. I too place the blame on midterms and the tantalizing approach of Spring Break, though a recent negative reason for the lack of productivity is my potentially ill computer (not virus-ill but hard-drive-making-disturbing-hacksaw-noises-ill) because, as noted previously, we do 98.5% of our plotting via instant messaging and I've had limited internet access these past couple of days.
However, a slowdown in our mad headlong rush towards our novel is not necessarily a bad thing. It provides time to look back over what we've planned and spot plot-holes and inconsistencies. Also, since we have gotten around to some more substantial world-creation, building things from the ground up, and now we have time to explore what we've created and work out some of the finer kinks and details. We get to add to and refine our cast of characters, work on the little details that will show their personalities and motivations, and give them their little quirks and mannerisms that will hopefully make them unique and noteworthy instead of being cardboard cutouts. For this, they need to have backgrounds and reasons for doing things, which are of course not at all mutually exclusive.
Like angst. I abuse the term generally and broadly, but we decided that one character needed a better reason to stick around than the vague one we'd started out with, and so want of reason led to want of angst, and want of angst led to suffering. Things were going just too easy, you know, and we can't have that. (This is frequently how it works when I'm writing solo: I'll decide that things are going just too jolly well for said characters, so it's time to complicate matters and beat them up and add a judicious touch of betrayal, maybe a sprinkle of angst, a dash of guilt or shame, suffering and self-recrimination. Character development calls for a complicated recipe unique to every character, after all.)
Krispy, I believe, is far too disparaging of herself in the previous post. She's a great one for those little details that make our characters into people, and for keeping things reasonably realistic. Like, you know, I'm all for great plot twists and drama-llamas galore and maaaad ideas, and I know that sometimes I get a little too excited (particularly when the sugar-and-caffeine-highs hit late at night) and start blurting out random crazy things, and Krispy is like my combination psych and muse, able to sift through this barrage of semi-lucid images and semi-idiotic plot devices and pan the gold from the gravel. (Not that there's a lot of gold, or even gold every time. Would that there were.) And from these raw nuggets of inspiration and even from these coarser granules of stupidity, she's able to dredge further ideas that are usually great and sometimes brilliant. Pulling a diamond from a pile of pebbles? That's my Krispy.
Our general plan so far has been to just plow through the general story and get that basic outline finished, after which we'll go back and flesh out further and revise and edit and eviscerate and adjust and add all our bells and whistles, our stripes and spots, our fangs and claws, our laser-vision and fireballs, and generally polish it up just fine and dandy, spruce and dashing, and then get down to the actual business of writing it out. We're constantly editing and revising as we go along, too, going back and adding key scenes and inserting new characters. And our antagonists do need quite a bit of rounding out, some spit and elbow grease, polish and varnish and lacquer until they're shining examples of—you know what? I don’t even remember the metaphor I was going for right there. Oh well.
Like Krispy, I have no frelling idea how we're going to go about the writing. I suppose one way to do it would be to split up points of view and scenes and split the characters between us, in which case the difference of voice could be used to an advantage, though that does seem rather limiting as I think there are characters and scenes we'd both like to write. Or we could actually write it together a piece at a time, sending bits back and forth, which seems terribly cumbersome and like it would take forever and a day. Or we could do as we've done in the past and simply write segments and take up where the other leaves off. Or we could do a combination of these things, or work out something new. No idea at this point.
(Krispy, by the way, exaggerates my huge vocabulary, because I'm pretty sure I don't use hugely impressive-sounding and gobbledygookish words in my normal writing. I only toss around words like "defamiliarization" , "dystrophic", and "thalassocracy" in analytic papers in a vain attempt to sound all smartful. And because my professors said to remember them because they were cocktail-party words with which to impress slightly drunken people. And then tell Krispy these big huge words I learned, from which she receives her false impression.)
I fear matching my writing to Krispy's marvelous voice for beauty. Seriously, there are times when she writes and what comes out is as much poetry as prose, be it drama or dialogue. Because, see, when I say "beauty" I don't mean just pretty images, but, like, beautiful prose. Not purple prose, not melodrama, but just quite frankly beautiful writing.
I guess we'll just have to do our best to live up to each other's legacy, Krisp.
However, a slowdown in our mad headlong rush towards our novel is not necessarily a bad thing. It provides time to look back over what we've planned and spot plot-holes and inconsistencies. Also, since we have gotten around to some more substantial world-creation, building things from the ground up, and now we have time to explore what we've created and work out some of the finer kinks and details. We get to add to and refine our cast of characters, work on the little details that will show their personalities and motivations, and give them their little quirks and mannerisms that will hopefully make them unique and noteworthy instead of being cardboard cutouts. For this, they need to have backgrounds and reasons for doing things, which are of course not at all mutually exclusive.
Like angst. I abuse the term generally and broadly, but we decided that one character needed a better reason to stick around than the vague one we'd started out with, and so want of reason led to want of angst, and want of angst led to suffering. Things were going just too easy, you know, and we can't have that. (This is frequently how it works when I'm writing solo: I'll decide that things are going just too jolly well for said characters, so it's time to complicate matters and beat them up and add a judicious touch of betrayal, maybe a sprinkle of angst, a dash of guilt or shame, suffering and self-recrimination. Character development calls for a complicated recipe unique to every character, after all.)
Krispy, I believe, is far too disparaging of herself in the previous post. She's a great one for those little details that make our characters into people, and for keeping things reasonably realistic. Like, you know, I'm all for great plot twists and drama-llamas galore and maaaad ideas, and I know that sometimes I get a little too excited (particularly when the sugar-and-caffeine-highs hit late at night) and start blurting out random crazy things, and Krispy is like my combination psych and muse, able to sift through this barrage of semi-lucid images and semi-idiotic plot devices and pan the gold from the gravel. (Not that there's a lot of gold, or even gold every time. Would that there were.) And from these raw nuggets of inspiration and even from these coarser granules of stupidity, she's able to dredge further ideas that are usually great and sometimes brilliant. Pulling a diamond from a pile of pebbles? That's my Krispy.
Our general plan so far has been to just plow through the general story and get that basic outline finished, after which we'll go back and flesh out further and revise and edit and eviscerate and adjust and add all our bells and whistles, our stripes and spots, our fangs and claws, our laser-vision and fireballs, and generally polish it up just fine and dandy, spruce and dashing, and then get down to the actual business of writing it out. We're constantly editing and revising as we go along, too, going back and adding key scenes and inserting new characters. And our antagonists do need quite a bit of rounding out, some spit and elbow grease, polish and varnish and lacquer until they're shining examples of—you know what? I don’t even remember the metaphor I was going for right there. Oh well.
Like Krispy, I have no frelling idea how we're going to go about the writing. I suppose one way to do it would be to split up points of view and scenes and split the characters between us, in which case the difference of voice could be used to an advantage, though that does seem rather limiting as I think there are characters and scenes we'd both like to write. Or we could actually write it together a piece at a time, sending bits back and forth, which seems terribly cumbersome and like it would take forever and a day. Or we could do as we've done in the past and simply write segments and take up where the other leaves off. Or we could do a combination of these things, or work out something new. No idea at this point.
(Krispy, by the way, exaggerates my huge vocabulary, because I'm pretty sure I don't use hugely impressive-sounding and gobbledygookish words in my normal writing. I only toss around words like "defamiliarization" , "dystrophic", and "thalassocracy" in analytic papers in a vain attempt to sound all smartful. And because my professors said to remember them because they were cocktail-party words with which to impress slightly drunken people. And then tell Krispy these big huge words I learned, from which she receives her false impression.)
I fear matching my writing to Krispy's marvelous voice for beauty. Seriously, there are times when she writes and what comes out is as much poetry as prose, be it drama or dialogue. Because, see, when I say "beauty" I don't mean just pretty images, but, like, beautiful prose. Not purple prose, not melodrama, but just quite frankly beautiful writing.
I guess we'll just have to do our best to live up to each other's legacy, Krisp.
3.12.2008
Pros of Collaboration
I really need to stop using the blog for procrastination.
Recently, on the novel plotting front, things have slowed down quite a bit. I blame this mostly on midterms and the teasingly close whiff of Spring Break floating on the air, but I think it is also because we're getting into the nitty gritty of plot and character. We've gotten into the mechanics of the world and the logistics of the organizations involved, which is fun and also very frustrating at times.
This leads me to the pros of collaboration. It's great having Alz to bounce ideas around with and to discuss issues. I tend to take an idea and run with it, thinking I'll figure things out along the way, but this style is perhaps too free-form. It certainly explains how I get writer-blocked so often (I mean, Real Life aside) and also why I have issues finishing stories. My idea tends to be too general or too vague, and then I have to spend a lot of time pondering things. I ponder a lot, let me tell you. It's possibly a reason why I take long showers.
Having a partner changes that because when I don't have an answer, she might, and if neither of us has any idea, we can try to figure it out together. It's kind of the same concept as ranting to your BFF about your woes and asking for their advice.
Alz also writes things out and has been keeping a nice outline/note-sheet for us. This is the most I've ever known about anything I've attempted to write--it's kind of insane--and the most organized. Again, this may explain why I'm such an erratic writer and fickle poetry flirt. I'm aware of this tendency of mine, but I know that having Alz around will keep me disciplined.
I'm not sure what exactly I bring to the table other than general randomness and enthusiasm, but Alz seems to think I'm at least somewhat useful. The point here being that collaboration works when partners complement and support each other and they get things done. I feel that is certainly happening for us as we flesh out events, characters/relationships, and motivations. We're beginning to complicate things too with a few new players, but I think we still need to show the antagonists a bit more love. We also need to make sure certain characters who need to be sympathetic actually are.
The question that looms in the future though is for when we start writing. How are we going to go about with the actual writing, and how are we going to blend our voices? I think the latter will be less difficult than it sounds since I think I'm not a bad mimic (I'm not sure if I should be proud of this or not, but I kind of am?) and I've written a little with Alz before. The issue is that we've only written fun, comical, and completely not serious things together, which is much easier for voice-blending, but we write somewhat differently when we're "serious." At the very least, Alz tends to show more of that giant vocabulary of hers and big words that I may or may not understand appear, and my skills in mimicry don't cover vocabulary like that.
But we'll deal with all that when we reach that bridge.
Recently, on the novel plotting front, things have slowed down quite a bit. I blame this mostly on midterms and the teasingly close whiff of Spring Break floating on the air, but I think it is also because we're getting into the nitty gritty of plot and character. We've gotten into the mechanics of the world and the logistics of the organizations involved, which is fun and also very frustrating at times.
This leads me to the pros of collaboration. It's great having Alz to bounce ideas around with and to discuss issues. I tend to take an idea and run with it, thinking I'll figure things out along the way, but this style is perhaps too free-form. It certainly explains how I get writer-blocked so often (I mean, Real Life aside) and also why I have issues finishing stories. My idea tends to be too general or too vague, and then I have to spend a lot of time pondering things. I ponder a lot, let me tell you. It's possibly a reason why I take long showers.
Having a partner changes that because when I don't have an answer, she might, and if neither of us has any idea, we can try to figure it out together. It's kind of the same concept as ranting to your BFF about your woes and asking for their advice.
Alz also writes things out and has been keeping a nice outline/note-sheet for us. This is the most I've ever known about anything I've attempted to write--it's kind of insane--and the most organized. Again, this may explain why I'm such an erratic writer and fickle poetry flirt. I'm aware of this tendency of mine, but I know that having Alz around will keep me disciplined.
I'm not sure what exactly I bring to the table other than general randomness and enthusiasm, but Alz seems to think I'm at least somewhat useful. The point here being that collaboration works when partners complement and support each other and they get things done. I feel that is certainly happening for us as we flesh out events, characters/relationships, and motivations. We're beginning to complicate things too with a few new players, but I think we still need to show the antagonists a bit more love. We also need to make sure certain characters who need to be sympathetic actually are.
The question that looms in the future though is for when we start writing. How are we going to go about with the actual writing, and how are we going to blend our voices? I think the latter will be less difficult than it sounds since I think I'm not a bad mimic (I'm not sure if I should be proud of this or not, but I kind of am?) and I've written a little with Alz before. The issue is that we've only written fun, comical, and completely not serious things together, which is much easier for voice-blending, but we write somewhat differently when we're "serious." At the very least, Alz tends to show more of that giant vocabulary of hers and big words that I may or may not understand appear, and my skills in mimicry don't cover vocabulary like that.
But we'll deal with all that when we reach that bridge.
3.01.2008
On Plausible Villainy
Iago of Shakespeare's Othello is widely touted to be the epitome of villainy. Why? Because he's just so damn evil. The dude's got it down on Othello and wants him to suffer, suffer, suffer, and suffer some more for good measure, and manages to contrive Othello's downfall with a smiling face and everyone's full trust. Why does he do this? Because somebody else got promoted, not him, and Othello gets to take the brunt of the blame. There's not really much reason beyond that given for his absolute hatred of the Moor. Dim-witted Othello trusts Iago completely which fact of course Iago takes shameless advantage of in order to manipulate and betray his "friend", and this is supposed to be why Iago is the quintessential evil villain. And because Shakespeare is revered as such a noble figure within the realm of English literature, and he's been dead for centuries, and scholars say so, it seems to be one of those general "facts" of the academic world.
Iago's kind of one-dimensional if you just take him straight out of the play.
No, seriously. Think about it. Iago haaaaaates Othello and wants to nail his tender bits to the wall and to make him suspicious of and despise his wife so that he'll smother her with a pillow and then feel terribly, terribly guilty about it when she finally dies of it a half-dozen agonized soliloquies and dialogue exchanges or so later. Cassio got promoted instead of Iago, and this fills Iago with vitriolic rage and loathing for Othello's littlest skin particle, never mind the rest of him. Speculation as to why he hates Othello so damn much is all well and good, of course, and ripe pickings for fanfiction (leave the temptation to slash alone, please, oh gods please leave it alone), but within the bounds of the actual play itself—let's face it, there's no real concrete reason given why Iago loathes Othello so much. We're just supposed to concentrate on the fact that Iago feels betrayed, the loathing is there, and now he's acting on what he feels and doing what he does best: being a manipulative bastard. He can gain dimension for possible reasons, and this is where the analysis and interpretation takes place, but there are characters who come off to me as deep and full of inner conflict and motivations and twists and turns of psychology that form an elaborate pretzel-knot, and then there are those who just leave me going double-you-tee-eff. Needless to say, Iago's one of the latter.
An Iago-type villain holds thin water nowadays, having become a stereotype: "You passed me up, so I'm-a kill you, you son of a bitch." I mean, most villains seem to be ambitious and aspiring towards power (for either destructive I'll-show-them-all-and-destroy-the-world or constructive I-can-make-the-world-a-better-place purposes), or because they've got vengeance cooking hot on their brains (this is Iago, who takes it to an extreme), or they lust after fame/infamy, or they're lusting for somebody that they can't have or want to impress, or they're just insane (which though it can be done well is more often used as a cop-out, like the typical oh-it-was-all-just-a-dream trope), or sundry other reasons. But it's a rare villain indeed who exists simply as a plot device of Sheer and Absolute Evil for the Sake of Hating So-and-So For a Reason of Some Kind. I mean, check out the Wikipedia section talking about Iago's possible motives—about the only clear and text-citable reason for hatred is that he was passed up for promotion. (Granted, it's been a while since I've read Othello, but I'm pretty sure I remember Iago having not very many clear reasons for his absolute hatred of Othello.)
Thus there are "evil" villains. But there are also villains who are not so much villains as antagonists, opposing the protagonist without necessarily being what you'd nominally call "evil". Look at the works of Hayao Miyazaki. His films are notorious for having villains who turn out to be not quite so villainous after all—they may not exactly be paragons of pure goodwill and altruism, but they tend to have a decidedly human air of reasonability about them. Check out the invading force in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Lady Eboshi of Princess Mononoke, or Yubaba of Spirited Away. I'll not post spoilers here, but they are human (or have humanizing qualities) as much as they are villains, and they're not pointlessly evil—or even exactly evil at all, since "evil" becomes a matter of perspective. As characters, they come off more multi-dimensional than Iago right off the bat without a great deal of analytical or interpretive work—and to my mind, if you need to work really hard to even identify (much less deconstruct) a villain's motivations and mental workings, then that means you're probably stretching things.
Want an example of a more one-dimensional "evil" villain? Check out Baron Von Rothbart of Mercedes Lackey's The Black Swan. He's a magician with a vendetta against unfaithful women—but why? The blurb on the back of the book says it's because he considers his wife's death some years previously to be the ultimate betrayal, but this isn't mentioned anywhere within the pages of the actual book, and it's a sad, sad day in literary heaven with the analytic angels of fiction weeping tears of blood when we have to turn to the summary on the back of a book in order to figure out character motivations within the story. (I mean, come on—I'm pretty sure the authors frequently have very little or nothing to do with the blurbs on back covers and on the insides of dust jackets, and there's been more than one occasion where the back blurb actually got facts about the story inside wrong.)
But back to Von Rothbart. The only hint we have of this wife's death = ultimate betrayal thing is a brief passage from Von Rothbart's daughter's perspective concerning violets. Yes, violets. Apparently Lady Von Rothbart loved violets (which the daughter Odile vaguely remembers) but there are no longer any violets growing on Von Rothbart's land because he has every patch of flowers found rooted ruthlessly out. (The poor woman doesn't even get a name—by calling her "Lady Von Rothbart" I've already given her more name than she gets in the story.) As far as I recall, that's the sole mention of any kind of wife-related angst, and the only possible hint of motivation for his going out and stalking young women to see if they're unfaithful, transforming them into swans when he finds them cheating on their men, and then kidnapping them away to his estate where they spend their days as swans and their nights as women clad in thin silk dresses. (Personally, I think Von Rothbart is a power-mad pervert with a major fetish for swans and cheating wives and way too much time on his hands, but I sadly have the feeling that my interpretation right there is giving him more character than is really there.)
So what of Krispy and I? We've been working on the "villains" lately. Motivation, background, and personal history, ambitions and deceptions and relationships with other characters. Several times we've had to back up and rethink character structure and motivation, and we're probably going to be zigzagging back and forth for a good while longer yet. Developing a plausible villain is tough work, particularly when there is a surfeit of villainous clichés lurking like potholes to trip up unwary feet. We want more dimension than simply single-minded ambition or a single life-changing tragic incident in the past, and I don't think either of us has brought up madness as a suggested motivational force or excuse for a character's actions. These elements can be present, but they have to be well-done and they can't be reason enough alone—not without turning said characters one-dimensional, or two-dimensional if they're lucky.
Iago's kind of one-dimensional if you just take him straight out of the play.
No, seriously. Think about it. Iago haaaaaates Othello and wants to nail his tender bits to the wall and to make him suspicious of and despise his wife so that he'll smother her with a pillow and then feel terribly, terribly guilty about it when she finally dies of it a half-dozen agonized soliloquies and dialogue exchanges or so later. Cassio got promoted instead of Iago, and this fills Iago with vitriolic rage and loathing for Othello's littlest skin particle, never mind the rest of him. Speculation as to why he hates Othello so damn much is all well and good, of course, and ripe pickings for fanfiction (leave the temptation to slash alone, please, oh gods please leave it alone), but within the bounds of the actual play itself—let's face it, there's no real concrete reason given why Iago loathes Othello so much. We're just supposed to concentrate on the fact that Iago feels betrayed, the loathing is there, and now he's acting on what he feels and doing what he does best: being a manipulative bastard. He can gain dimension for possible reasons, and this is where the analysis and interpretation takes place, but there are characters who come off to me as deep and full of inner conflict and motivations and twists and turns of psychology that form an elaborate pretzel-knot, and then there are those who just leave me going double-you-tee-eff. Needless to say, Iago's one of the latter.
An Iago-type villain holds thin water nowadays, having become a stereotype: "You passed me up, so I'm-a kill you, you son of a bitch." I mean, most villains seem to be ambitious and aspiring towards power (for either destructive I'll-show-them-all-and-destroy-the-world or constructive I-can-make-the-world-a-better-place purposes), or because they've got vengeance cooking hot on their brains (this is Iago, who takes it to an extreme), or they lust after fame/infamy, or they're lusting for somebody that they can't have or want to impress, or they're just insane (which though it can be done well is more often used as a cop-out, like the typical oh-it-was-all-just-a-dream trope), or sundry other reasons. But it's a rare villain indeed who exists simply as a plot device of Sheer and Absolute Evil for the Sake of Hating So-and-So For a Reason of Some Kind. I mean, check out the Wikipedia section talking about Iago's possible motives—about the only clear and text-citable reason for hatred is that he was passed up for promotion. (Granted, it's been a while since I've read Othello, but I'm pretty sure I remember Iago having not very many clear reasons for his absolute hatred of Othello.)
Thus there are "evil" villains. But there are also villains who are not so much villains as antagonists, opposing the protagonist without necessarily being what you'd nominally call "evil". Look at the works of Hayao Miyazaki. His films are notorious for having villains who turn out to be not quite so villainous after all—they may not exactly be paragons of pure goodwill and altruism, but they tend to have a decidedly human air of reasonability about them. Check out the invading force in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Lady Eboshi of Princess Mononoke, or Yubaba of Spirited Away. I'll not post spoilers here, but they are human (or have humanizing qualities) as much as they are villains, and they're not pointlessly evil—or even exactly evil at all, since "evil" becomes a matter of perspective. As characters, they come off more multi-dimensional than Iago right off the bat without a great deal of analytical or interpretive work—and to my mind, if you need to work really hard to even identify (much less deconstruct) a villain's motivations and mental workings, then that means you're probably stretching things.
Want an example of a more one-dimensional "evil" villain? Check out Baron Von Rothbart of Mercedes Lackey's The Black Swan. He's a magician with a vendetta against unfaithful women—but why? The blurb on the back of the book says it's because he considers his wife's death some years previously to be the ultimate betrayal, but this isn't mentioned anywhere within the pages of the actual book, and it's a sad, sad day in literary heaven with the analytic angels of fiction weeping tears of blood when we have to turn to the summary on the back of a book in order to figure out character motivations within the story. (I mean, come on—I'm pretty sure the authors frequently have very little or nothing to do with the blurbs on back covers and on the insides of dust jackets, and there's been more than one occasion where the back blurb actually got facts about the story inside wrong.)
But back to Von Rothbart. The only hint we have of this wife's death = ultimate betrayal thing is a brief passage from Von Rothbart's daughter's perspective concerning violets. Yes, violets. Apparently Lady Von Rothbart loved violets (which the daughter Odile vaguely remembers) but there are no longer any violets growing on Von Rothbart's land because he has every patch of flowers found rooted ruthlessly out. (The poor woman doesn't even get a name—by calling her "Lady Von Rothbart" I've already given her more name than she gets in the story.) As far as I recall, that's the sole mention of any kind of wife-related angst, and the only possible hint of motivation for his going out and stalking young women to see if they're unfaithful, transforming them into swans when he finds them cheating on their men, and then kidnapping them away to his estate where they spend their days as swans and their nights as women clad in thin silk dresses. (Personally, I think Von Rothbart is a power-mad pervert with a major fetish for swans and cheating wives and way too much time on his hands, but I sadly have the feeling that my interpretation right there is giving him more character than is really there.)
So what of Krispy and I? We've been working on the "villains" lately. Motivation, background, and personal history, ambitions and deceptions and relationships with other characters. Several times we've had to back up and rethink character structure and motivation, and we're probably going to be zigzagging back and forth for a good while longer yet. Developing a plausible villain is tough work, particularly when there is a surfeit of villainous clichés lurking like potholes to trip up unwary feet. We want more dimension than simply single-minded ambition or a single life-changing tragic incident in the past, and I don't think either of us has brought up madness as a suggested motivational force or excuse for a character's actions. These elements can be present, but they have to be well-done and they can't be reason enough alone—not without turning said characters one-dimensional, or two-dimensional if they're lucky.
2.26.2008
What's In a Name?
Let's be frank. Names are ridiculously important, and they are a big issue for me and Alz. If you ever have the (mis)fortune to peek in on one of our brainstorming sessions--whether it be for our joint work or individual work--you'll see how much we trip and stumble. Indeed, the list of "Project ____" names that Alz posted a few posts back should be indicative of this.
For this collaboration, we just went for the hit or miss style of naming people. We tended to do very quick character sketches before attempting to find a name for said characters. Interestingly enough, the method we've been using the most is "So what letters don't you use a lot?" and then we instant message names starting with whatever less-used letter we've settled upon. (Let me tell you, names beginning with U and Q prove to be difficult.) Surprisingly, this method has worked well for this unnamed novel.
We take other factors into consideration as well, such as the sound and spelling of the name in relation to how we think a character is or what a place ought to be like. We also like looking up name meanings or using root words and translating them into another language. I'm especially into names with meanings because I think it adds another layer to characters. It's like randomly clicking around on a DVD menu and finding a hidden Easter Egg.
The most important thing is, of course, "fit." The name and the character have to click. This part is more on the subjective side of things and is too hard to explain since it's more of a feeling than anything else, but I still find it of utmost importance. A name can be hilarious or beautiful or incredibly clever, but if it doesn't somehow capture the character--if it's not "right"--it's all for naught. Names are, after all, an integral part of identity. It's a word (or maybe a handful of words depending) that identifies a person to him/herself and to the rest of his/her society, making it powerful.
We see this for ourselves in our literature and culture. In folklore and fantasy, there's the idea of the true name, in which the knowledge of names is power and in which names are thought to reflect some true aspect of the thing being named. In a similar vein, an article published in Psychology Today a long while back interviewed people who had changed their names, and these people said they'd done it because they were unhappy with their given names, that those old names did not reflect who they really were. Naming practices reflect the belief that names can help shape a person's character/personality and/or guide their destinies. Just look at all the baby name books out there! Chinese names are written and spoken with the surname first, expressing a cultural emphasis on the importance of the family and one's place in a family group. And finally, my specific literature example is from the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. At the end of the play, John Proctor cannot bring himself to sign a false confession and says
I thought this would be an interesting topic on its own, but also because in our current story, Alz and I have found ourselves with more than one character who dislikes their name or at least goes by something other than their given name (i.e. a nickname). This is abnormal, at least for me because I don't often have characters who go by nicknames. Although, I do touch on the "true name" idea passingly sometimes.
So what are some of your favorite names for anyone, real or fictional? How do other people go about naming the Proper Nouns populating their stories? And to reiterate, what's in a name?
P.S. A fun fact related to all this is how Val was named. (I know, I already mentioned him. I can't help picking on the poor dear.) We used our original method of just throwing out names and even looked a few up, but nothing seemed to stick. Then finally, Alz said, "Happy Valentine's Day!"--(and it literally was)--"VALENTINE. HIS NAME SHOULD BE VALENTINE." To which the conversation continued as follows:
K: I guess...we could call him Val and then he can be really embarrassed about it later.
A: I don't know. I just thought, you know, it might be a sign.
We didn't actually name him Valentine, but it's something else, and it's still shortened to Val.
For this collaboration, we just went for the hit or miss style of naming people. We tended to do very quick character sketches before attempting to find a name for said characters. Interestingly enough, the method we've been using the most is "So what letters don't you use a lot?" and then we instant message names starting with whatever less-used letter we've settled upon. (Let me tell you, names beginning with U and Q prove to be difficult.) Surprisingly, this method has worked well for this unnamed novel.
We take other factors into consideration as well, such as the sound and spelling of the name in relation to how we think a character is or what a place ought to be like. We also like looking up name meanings or using root words and translating them into another language. I'm especially into names with meanings because I think it adds another layer to characters. It's like randomly clicking around on a DVD menu and finding a hidden Easter Egg.
The most important thing is, of course, "fit." The name and the character have to click. This part is more on the subjective side of things and is too hard to explain since it's more of a feeling than anything else, but I still find it of utmost importance. A name can be hilarious or beautiful or incredibly clever, but if it doesn't somehow capture the character--if it's not "right"--it's all for naught. Names are, after all, an integral part of identity. It's a word (or maybe a handful of words depending) that identifies a person to him/herself and to the rest of his/her society, making it powerful.
We see this for ourselves in our literature and culture. In folklore and fantasy, there's the idea of the true name, in which the knowledge of names is power and in which names are thought to reflect some true aspect of the thing being named. In a similar vein, an article published in Psychology Today a long while back interviewed people who had changed their names, and these people said they'd done it because they were unhappy with their given names, that those old names did not reflect who they really were. Naming practices reflect the belief that names can help shape a person's character/personality and/or guide their destinies. Just look at all the baby name books out there! Chinese names are written and spoken with the surname first, expressing a cultural emphasis on the importance of the family and one's place in a family group. And finally, my specific literature example is from the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. At the end of the play, John Proctor cannot bring himself to sign a false confession and says
"Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!"showing what a name represents and its importance to his personal and moral integrity.
I thought this would be an interesting topic on its own, but also because in our current story, Alz and I have found ourselves with more than one character who dislikes their name or at least goes by something other than their given name (i.e. a nickname). This is abnormal, at least for me because I don't often have characters who go by nicknames. Although, I do touch on the "true name" idea passingly sometimes.
So what are some of your favorite names for anyone, real or fictional? How do other people go about naming the Proper Nouns populating their stories? And to reiterate, what's in a name?
P.S. A fun fact related to all this is how Val was named. (I know, I already mentioned him. I can't help picking on the poor dear.) We used our original method of just throwing out names and even looked a few up, but nothing seemed to stick. Then finally, Alz said, "Happy Valentine's Day!"--(and it literally was)--"VALENTINE. HIS NAME SHOULD BE VALENTINE." To which the conversation continued as follows:
K: I guess...we could call him Val and then he can be really embarrassed about it later.
A: I don't know. I just thought, you know, it might be a sign.
We didn't actually name him Valentine, but it's something else, and it's still shortened to Val.
2.24.2008
The Birth of Suilong
Krispy and I decided that we needed another cosmic serpent (who doesn't?) and so we decided that we'd rather create one than steal borrow one from an existing mythology. Then we decided that we should have this cosmic serpent be the Asian-inspired one we'd talked about before, and therefore being Asiatic, this cosmic serpent needed an appropriately Asiany name, as I continue to abuse and create various Asian-related adjectives.
We'd talked before about Japanese/Chinese/Asian names and words, including hebi (Japanese word for "snake") and nure (what Alz believes might be a possible alternate reading of the kanji for "snake" in Japanese, but isn't sure) and various other Japanese and non-Japanese names and words, which lead to a discussion of how sucky it would be for said snaky to be a snake named rabbit (Japanese, "Usagi"), a snake named lion (Arabic, "Usama"), or a snake named bear ("Ursus", Latin). I also suggested the combo name of Usaginure ("Rabbitsnake"), but we eventually got distracted and moved on, never deciding on a name for our new serpent.
Last night we once again turned to the name problem.
Says the Alz, "What's the Chinese word for dragon?"
To which replies the Krispy, "Well, dragon is Long."
Says the Alz, "What about the Chinese word for snake?"
To which replies the Krispy, "The word for snake sounds like you're saying 'uh' but with an S in front and the tone goes upward at the end."
What followed was Alz trying out various combinations of potential spellings in order to mentally sound out this word (remember, this was all text via instant messaging): Su, sa, si, sui? And since sui means "water" in Japanese, we decided to randomly moosh languages together to create a semi-bastardized Asianish name for our newly-designated water-elemental cosmic serpent. We did go through a number of variations concerning punctuation, including Sui-Long, Sui Long, and Sui'long, and I since I had come up with the name, I got to force Krispy to decide on the spelling of it. Reasoning that the apostrophe looks a bit weird in the name and apostrophes in names is off-putting to many people (yours truly often included), she settled on Suilong.
After a bit more discussion concerning a rather nebulous previously-envisioned-but-still-unnamed cosmic serpent, we decided the color scheme of the previous nebulous cosmic serpent we'd envisioned wouldn't match Suilong because the previous serpent is bony-white and spiky. This wouldn't really suit a water-themed snake, we thought, and so we went all out on Suilong, whom we also decided is female because we have too many males running around.
She can fly without wings à la Asian dragons, we decided, and Suilong is seriously deadly lethally viciously venomous. Her venom eats through glass. It'd probably kill you just from a drop touching your skin, never mind getting injected into your body. Or at least that's what I so far imagine.
But what color to make her? Blue? White? Blue and white? We already have cosmic serpents that are on the white/silvery color scheme, so Suilong ought to be different. And then Krispy said, Omg maybe she should be gold, and Alz said, Ooooho I like gold it's shiny omg like a goldfish?
We talked about koi fish, being tricolor with black and white and gold/orange/red, and the beautiful shiny gold of goldfish scales, and Krispy suggested gold with red markings around her eyes, with an orange fin running along her spine. For a while we mused on eye color, because while I thought blue would make a nice contrast in all her gold and red glory, the aforementioned other cosmic serpents already have blue eyes. We talked about her having dark eyes or golden eyes or dark golden eyes like various kinds of fish. Red we discounted because her eye markings are already red, and when I suggested creepy pearly white eyes, Krispy said it was too creepy and too much like a cooked fish. With that image in mind, I was inclined to agree.
Finally I suggested dark red eyes, midnight-red, while Krispy suggested copperishly colored eyes like a shiny penny. Now, I happen to be very partial to shiny things (this may have been evident earlier when talking about making Suilong gold), and when Krispy threw the choice on me because she'd decided on Suilong's name format, I chose coppery eyes for our water snaky. More contrast against the red and gold, I said.
Krispy is supposed to draw our new cosmic serpent, by the way. That's right, Krispy, I'm putting this in the blog. DRAW SUILONG. And in color would be nice too. ♥
We also plugged along further plot-wise last night, found Suilong a nice place in the story to settle in, did a little chronological rearranging of points, added to and clarified some scenes, started a new scene, and worked out some "research" for our researchers to, well, research. Things are coming along nicely—our baby is developing steadily and well. I'm so proud.
We'd talked before about Japanese/Chinese/Asian names and words, including hebi (Japanese word for "snake") and nure (what Alz believes might be a possible alternate reading of the kanji for "snake" in Japanese, but isn't sure) and various other Japanese and non-Japanese names and words, which lead to a discussion of how sucky it would be for said snaky to be a snake named rabbit (Japanese, "Usagi"), a snake named lion (Arabic, "Usama"), or a snake named bear ("Ursus", Latin). I also suggested the combo name of Usaginure ("Rabbitsnake"), but we eventually got distracted and moved on, never deciding on a name for our new serpent.
Last night we once again turned to the name problem.
Says the Alz, "What's the Chinese word for dragon?"
To which replies the Krispy, "Well, dragon is Long."
Says the Alz, "What about the Chinese word for snake?"
To which replies the Krispy, "The word for snake sounds like you're saying 'uh' but with an S in front and the tone goes upward at the end."
What followed was Alz trying out various combinations of potential spellings in order to mentally sound out this word (remember, this was all text via instant messaging): Su, sa, si, sui? And since sui means "water" in Japanese, we decided to randomly moosh languages together to create a semi-bastardized Asianish name for our newly-designated water-elemental cosmic serpent. We did go through a number of variations concerning punctuation, including Sui-Long, Sui Long, and Sui'long, and I since I had come up with the name, I got to force Krispy to decide on the spelling of it. Reasoning that the apostrophe looks a bit weird in the name and apostrophes in names is off-putting to many people (yours truly often included), she settled on Suilong.
After a bit more discussion concerning a rather nebulous previously-envisioned-but-still-unnamed cosmic serpent, we decided the color scheme of the previous nebulous cosmic serpent we'd envisioned wouldn't match Suilong because the previous serpent is bony-white and spiky. This wouldn't really suit a water-themed snake, we thought, and so we went all out on Suilong, whom we also decided is female because we have too many males running around.
She can fly without wings à la Asian dragons, we decided, and Suilong is seriously deadly lethally viciously venomous. Her venom eats through glass. It'd probably kill you just from a drop touching your skin, never mind getting injected into your body. Or at least that's what I so far imagine.
But what color to make her? Blue? White? Blue and white? We already have cosmic serpents that are on the white/silvery color scheme, so Suilong ought to be different. And then Krispy said, Omg maybe she should be gold, and Alz said, Ooooho I like gold it's shiny omg like a goldfish?
We talked about koi fish, being tricolor with black and white and gold/orange/red, and the beautiful shiny gold of goldfish scales, and Krispy suggested gold with red markings around her eyes, with an orange fin running along her spine. For a while we mused on eye color, because while I thought blue would make a nice contrast in all her gold and red glory, the aforementioned other cosmic serpents already have blue eyes. We talked about her having dark eyes or golden eyes or dark golden eyes like various kinds of fish. Red we discounted because her eye markings are already red, and when I suggested creepy pearly white eyes, Krispy said it was too creepy and too much like a cooked fish. With that image in mind, I was inclined to agree.
Finally I suggested dark red eyes, midnight-red, while Krispy suggested copperishly colored eyes like a shiny penny. Now, I happen to be very partial to shiny things (this may have been evident earlier when talking about making Suilong gold), and when Krispy threw the choice on me because she'd decided on Suilong's name format, I chose coppery eyes for our water snaky. More contrast against the red and gold, I said.
Krispy is supposed to draw our new cosmic serpent, by the way. That's right, Krispy, I'm putting this in the blog. DRAW SUILONG. And in color would be nice too. ♥
We also plugged along further plot-wise last night, found Suilong a nice place in the story to settle in, did a little chronological rearranging of points, added to and clarified some scenes, started a new scene, and worked out some "research" for our researchers to, well, research. Things are coming along nicely—our baby is developing steadily and well. I'm so proud.
2.22.2008
Noteworthy developmental notes of development
So I suppose I ought to make a post of some kind, to make my mark upon this blog and also to hold true to the mission statement our dear Krispy has outlined below. If this blog is to be a bastion of evolutionary recollection, then we'd damn well better hop to it like bunnies on crack and get some recording down and done.
Every day has so far seen progress of some kind, be it the technical details of giving characters names and backgrounds or be it meandering along with motives and plot. Last night in particular we hacked our way through a couple of scenes, came up with a few more characters, and finally had main characters meet each other. Most of this consisted of us going, "OMG and then he ought to do this, don't you think?" and "omg YESSSS okay okay and that's because of what happened earlier, right?", followed by one of us going, "LOL yeah", and ultimately culminating in something akin to a little thing we like to call "plot".
Most of our progress takes this form via instant messaging. But this just goes to show that we are so awesome we cannot be stopped. Yes, that is a great big fat ball-and-chain of hubris I'm lugging around, but like our characters, everyone needs a "human" moment, their flaws, their quirks. Even when not all of them are exactly human.
Incidentally, just for kicks, I've decided to list the names we were coming up with when we were trying to figure out what our mysterious researchers would name their project. The abandoned list includes:
Project FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE
Project Ambrosia
Project Nectar
Project 42
Project Peach
Project Gnosis
There were a couple more, but those are the more interesting ones. In the end, we decided that the project name should be Project Apple--which was, actually, the second name Krispy suggested after Project FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE, which we regretfully decided was a little too obvious a name. Alas.
Every day has so far seen progress of some kind, be it the technical details of giving characters names and backgrounds or be it meandering along with motives and plot. Last night in particular we hacked our way through a couple of scenes, came up with a few more characters, and finally had main characters meet each other. Most of this consisted of us going, "OMG and then he ought to do this, don't you think?" and "omg YESSSS okay okay and that's because of what happened earlier, right?", followed by one of us going, "LOL yeah", and ultimately culminating in something akin to a little thing we like to call "plot".
Most of our progress takes this form via instant messaging. But this just goes to show that we are so awesome we cannot be stopped. Yes, that is a great big fat ball-and-chain of hubris I'm lugging around, but like our characters, everyone needs a "human" moment, their flaws, their quirks. Even when not all of them are exactly human.
Incidentally, just for kicks, I've decided to list the names we were coming up with when we were trying to figure out what our mysterious researchers would name their project. The abandoned list includes:
Project FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE
Project Ambrosia
Project Nectar
Project 42
Project Peach
Project Gnosis
There were a couple more, but those are the more interesting ones. In the end, we decided that the project name should be Project Apple--which was, actually, the second name Krispy suggested after Project FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE, which we regretfully decided was a little too obvious a name. Alas.
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