Log: Set and Setting

The difficulty with the exercise of using two drafts together was that none of them fit together. They were all different moods.

I solved this by picking up my draft on "J" and then finding a good scene for her. I resolved on a theatre, where she would be in charge of the ticket booth.

I searched the internet and found three suitable photo's: one of a chinese theatre, one of a ticket booth and one of a cluttered office.

The building was as old as she was, the office as long, and the booth gave nothing away. Voila. Simple.

The end.

Log:2.2.1-3D4 Sense of Humour Failure

I rewrote it. Well, tidied it up. It became like beating my head against a brick wall. Rather than add more scenery, I moved the paragraph closer to the beginning to give a sense of place first off.

I think the principle "write what wants to be written, not what you think should be written" is a good one to have. It'll be more valuable, I think, to have feedback on what needs to be said than have a well-written piece that I won't use for anything.

And maybe I'm not sticking so strictly to the guidelines and simply creating a character and a scene because I know I can do that. Maybe I should do that. Maybe I should work on one of my character sketches and another scene and mix them together. Trouble is, I don't want to write about the same thing twice, so when I try to merge them they jar initially, and then become something completely different.

I think I will also modify my approach further than getting more sketches. I may take the approach of writing a novel, then when I create characters they will have that purpose, and the same with scenes. Now I'm tempted to write a synopsis - and that won't be in the course until second year.

I woke up with hair all over my pillow this morning. I'm pulling it all out, and certainly not approaching the blank page lightly.

Never mind one hour being too short, 24 hours is too short a day. I want to go back and rewrite "Amicus" as a ghost story, but I don't have the damn time. I've spent three days writing about this bloody funeral.

Log:2.2.1-3D4 ISSUES.

After many hours I've done the exercise for the second part of the second project of the course. Reflecting the character in the scenery and the scenery in the character. Its the most difficult exercise so far.

In the end I used two character sketches, created two characters and put them at a funeral. Trouble was, the scenery was only described once, in one paragraph. The characters are reflected in their relation to the other guests - the guests, in a sense are the scenery.

Really, though, I've written a completely new piece. I start writing, it comes together, and the scenery isn't so important. What do I do then?

Fuck, I don't even have any lengthy analysis to give. I'm finding it difficult to adhere to the mix of scenery and character. It only takes a sentence to give a scene, and only a sentence to describe a character.

In the end I described the emotion of the protagonist through his relationship to the other guests. What am I supposed to do now? Rewrite the whole damn thing and lose all the good bits because I want some goddam scenery?

Hell, I even gave him possessions, which described his personality/psychology, and that exercise isn't until the next part of the project - I did it anyway, because it needed to be done. I hadn't read the exercise when I did it. So I have relationships, two characters that work well together, a history, motivation, possessions, and action but no fucking scenery.

My god, its endless. I'll have to just leave it as it is and move on to the next exercise, otherwise I'll end up in the same predicament as last time when I worked endlessly on drafts and didn't do any sketches. But its really troubling me. Whats important in this scene is whats happening - am i supposed to just bin that because I didn't get enough scenery in, or is one paragraph enough? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Argh. Bollocks.

Fuck it.

I should write what I want to write and get feedback on that, not try and write what I should write. I should copy and paste that sentence and pin it on my wall, because thats what writing is - if you have something to say, you say it, and then you get feedback on how to say it better.

Fucking hell, though - I said "when he arrived at the hospital" because thats all that needs to be said. Not "he arrived at the greying concrete box of the isolated hospital" because all of thats in the mood. Shit, when did anyone need to point out that a hospital isn't a good place to be, especially when arriving at 2am (not at "the small, cold hours of the morning").

NO - fuck it again - I AM GOING TO REWRITE IT. I'm going to go through with a red pen and pinpoint all the places where a measly little bit of geography might make the space a bit clearer. But then its going to fuck with the flow.

HOW AM I MEANT TO DO THIS IN AN HOUR FOR CHIRST SAKE?

There are all kinds of awkward bits and pieces, like a camera that turns up. I'm now going to have to go through it again to substantiate the camera. Even if it only takes a single word, thats still 15 minutes of thinking and jigging about. I want to meet some of these students that manage to do these things in an hour. I don't believe they exist.

Log:2.2.1-3 Splicing Again

It took me an hour to read through my drafts. It has now taken me at least 12 hours to merge them. I have a good 8 drafts. It was complicated to mix them; i lost some of the good details, and some of the atmosphere, but I have coherence.

I am trying something complicated - in the same way that I'm trying to fuse character and scene, I'm trying to fuse two genres: ghost story and spy thriller.

Its early to be so ambitious, but its the way I approach my writing with intent. I read a good part of Kings "On Writing" and one of the phrases that stuck was:

"You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it anyway but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page".

It took me an hour to read through the drafts, highlighting and editing. I cut them up, rearranged them, stuck them to my wall, and then tore them all down again. I did a brief mind map last night, rewrote it, plotted this morning, defined the character history, why he is where he is, what he wants, and what the action is, 99% of which I didn't put into the draft. Then I spent three hours rewriting it again.

Voila, coherence. Not enough atmosphere in the right places (so, yes, I'll write it again, and probably again) but a coherent and consistent sequence of events. Nothings really too out of place.

As an aside, one of the comments my tutor made on "Amicus" was that the "vampire" was at times a socio-path and ended up as a business man. Exactly my point - I wanted a socio-path, not a vampire. And I want spooks, not ghosts. And I want a history that unites these things. Han Soe is a philosopher who writes ghosts stories in Burma. Ghost films were banned in Burma from 1960-2005. Ghost - spook - ritual, I want to unite it all. Mwuahahahahahaha.

Shit, I'm tired.

Log:2.2.1. Splicing and I NEED TO GO OUT SKETCHING MORE OFTEN

First off, I really don't understand how anyone could possibly do these exercises in an hour. At first I thought I was just working hard, now I don't know what to think......to do them in an hour i think I'd have to not really care what they turned out like. I just spent over an hour reading through the two drafts I want to mix together - one character and one scene - highlighting, underlining and questioning where I'm going.

I'm stuck now. It was easy to mix Amicus and Itch, but what happened was that too much went unsaid and it became a little incoherent. I knew where I was going, but my readers wouldn't.

Thing I have to remember is that I'm tired. I can't write anymore tonight, so I'm not going to trouble myself over it. I'm sure I'll get something good down when I'm fresh on saturday, or even tomorrow night.

Point is: it took me an hour just to read through the drafts, and that doesn't include looking through my notes and deciding which ones to use. How can it be possible to read through them AND decide how to use them together, AND fit get some action going, AND rewrite them in an HOUR???

Somewhere out there is a god laughing his ass of at me.

Again I've realised that my approach needs some modification, in the sense that I work really hard on getting one thing right before moving on to anything else. Thus, I have a shortage of drafts to turn to - a shortage of scenes, a shortage of characters. I have enough, but I don't have much of a choice.

Again, how would I have enough if I only spent an HOUR on the exercises in the first place?

Anyway, what I need to do is go out sketching more often.

I NEED TO GO OUT SKETCHING MORE OFTEN.

I'm going to bed to read Stephen Kings' 'On Writing'.

Goodnight computer.

LOG:2.1.5-1/2 How do other writers describe a character?

I have one half of the first exercise 5 in project two left to do, so this is it. The question is: how do other writers describe characters.

I've been reading a good bit over the last few months, so I will start with first thoughts:

1. I have noticed that the protagonist in novels is often not described at all. Not physically, anyhow. It seems that protagonists are a good example of showing rather than telling, since it is their reactions to events that inform us of what they're made of. Occasionally we learn why they do or don't like rocky road ice cream, you learn what kind of car they have and what, if any, credit cards, and I wonder whether this absence of physical description is designed to make the character more accessible, or whether it is simply a case of showing rather than telling.

2. I read Chuck Palanwhatsits "Pigmy" a couple of months ago and noticed that the most immediate way he describes a character is by the inner monologue, which is in broken english. It is often short, sharp, stocatto, full of references to obscure and fantastically named kung fu moves, and has a militant brevity to it. You get the sense of someone in the thick of a mission from page one, someone who is thinking as they have been trained to think.

3. I began a novel called "Jeremiah 8:20" and it is one of the few over the last few months where the protagonist is described; fat, insecure. I found it boring. The character was sort of one-dimensional.

4. In the 'Anansi Boys' by Neil Gaiman, the protagonist is called "Fat Charlie". Thats one way of describing a character. We learn that he is no longer fact, and wasn't fat for very long, through a brief sojourn into history. Refreshingly, its narrated in the third person - I keep finding new books written in the 1st person, and wonder whether its a trend or fashion in vogue at the moment, or whether its always been that way.

Fat Charlies Father is the god Anansi, and is described quite colourfully, from his leprechaunesque clothes to his death by karaoke and flirtation with the young women at the karaoke band. He appears in a hospital with a full brass band, but isn't playing anything. It's not so much his dress, which is briefly mentioned, but what he does that defines him.

5. In Buchanan's "The 39 Steps", which I've just started, there is an element of history again. A brief account of the protagonists time in London (I guess..) is coloured by his listless and sickened response to it, which is simply described as "I was sick of it". That interested me - the introduction really tells a lot, in the first person, rather than showing it. It is as if Buchanan has a lot of ideas he wants to get off the ground, and is giving the reader a briefing. It works because it isn't drawn out, and again a lot happens.

Having said that, the character is outstaged by the vagrant that visits him in the first chapter - a character who gets much more description. What sticks in my mind is the description of his nervous movements, his ticks, his looking over his shoulder, and his hiding away in a study. Perhaps this being outstaged is part of the authors wider plan, since the protagonist is, after all, rather despondent when first met.

In Conclusion: it seems that what a character DOES, and how they RESPOND to events, is what really gets a character colourful - often there is something that happens immediately that draws you into the character. In the case of "Pygmy" its the broken english and threat of kung fu around every corner - from the first secondary character we meet, the airport guard, Pygmy is planning a way to kill him. This happens with every single character, and - while at times I got bored - I couldn't help wondering who he would eventually kill, and how.

In Anansi, Fat Charlies Dad dies within a couple of pages. Even during this time there is a dog that has an unfortunate reputation established with amusing consequences, the scene in the hospital with the band - by the by, Fat Charlie isn't fat, and you don't often get bands, so there is a continuity here where the action is mirrored in the characters responses, and the responses are mirrored in the action, and there is a harmony of themes within these elements that I have yet to adequately define. I digress ---

In "The End of Mr. Y" (which I read on recommendation) the very first thing that happens is that the university where Mrs. Y works sinks into the ground. You then learn about how curious she is as to what happened, what shes does when it does happen, what she does after; within all of this a routine is established - the drinking of coffee with the neighbour - and interests and motivations are introduced. No where is there a physical description, as far as I can remember.

In short, the creation of a character is a complex thing. The character is not just your response to them, but their response to the world they inhabit. Its what they look like, but its also how they feel, what their history is. I think in every book I've read there has been a brief history of the character right at the start, entwined with or followed by - but rarely pre-empted by - a series of events that illustrate the characters interests and motivations. Within this there is a description of the world through the characters eyes.

Log.Innit.1. Where's me log gone?

Been slipping away from the blogger over the last 10 or so days, unsure why except a deadline approached and perhaps I was focussed more on that. Just back from work, fingers and toes numb but head in one piece (having said that I may have lost a memory stick for work, and don't know how long I'll be able to keep my head for once this is admitted to. My room's full of clothes, papers and books again - i promised myself I'd tidy it to look for the damn memory stick, if only i could remember where i'd put it, but...ah...i just want to write. Perhaps I need a routine, but perhaps I should enjoy being a 25 year old artist and roll around in it instead. But that wouldn't be writing either, so). [sic.] studious notes on developing routine.

PROJECT 2: Exercise 1 went well, although I spent about 6 hours on it (bare minimum) instead of 1. Project 2, by comparison, looked very weak by its third draft (Little more than freewriting and a couple of pertinent nouns). It seemed a lot harder to write about some one I know/knew, and of course I picked someone "juicy", which meant, by-in-large, buried in the darker recesses of my mind and resistant to creative endevour. I unearthed it, labouriously, spending about 8 hours on it (bare minimum). Now exercise 2 is stronger than exercise 1, and I don't think this is due so much to putting more effort into it, but to something else. A depth of emotional attachment, perhaps, which was harder to navigate but fuller of richness. Story of my untold life.

I got my feedback on my first submissions today, and should spend some time reflecting on those outside of this post-work preamble. I was suprised that "Rorschach Desk" was the better poem, since it felt scant, and i thought the title was naff. Yet despite being scant it was stronger, again probably because of depth of emotional attachment. I really want to rewrite it now, turn it into something stronger. "The Tower" i just want to put back in the closet. Too wordy, not enough feeling. And I made the mistake of using serendipity rather than intelligence in designing a "shape" (form) for the poem which was lost in the formatting, and was no more than a coincidence in the first place.

Still - unlike 'Rorschach Desk' it was an exercise in poetic description only, and so the main criticism levelled at it is that it is too full of abstractions, like "no fear, no things relation", the two things that I would show rather than tell if I were to write it again (which I might have to, given my compulsion for, if not perfection, my best possible effort. If I were in hell I doubt I'd need a rock to roll back down the hill for me to repeat the process, some demonic minion would only have to tell me that I missed a step).

AMICUS USQUE ADARAS got some very interesting commentary. Good description of scene that draws the reader in (score!), but there are a lot of gaps in the story. I needed to make the burial clearer (but then I added it in during its final stage, splicing several drafts together - HERE'S A POINT - i spliced several drafts rather than pick the best one. This i hope will change over the next project, since I have two drafts of two characters to begin with from the first two exercises, for example, innit. You know) and link the cat to the burial. Man, I was just pleased to have someone paid to read my work, even if I had to pay them myself. Payment and professionalism brings a different quality from friends and family.

I wasn't bearing my authorial responsibility, as I myself was caught up in the enchantment too much to make sense of it entirely. Thus elements slipped in without the clarity of authorial intent. Or somesuch. You know. It was almost as bad as my accidental inclusion of a poetic "shape" to "The Tower", in as much as some of the elements remained a little accidental. Cat? What the fucks a cat got to do with anything? The cat should have been the most important part, but instead it remained in the background. I could have told the whole damn thing from the cats point of view - now that would have been coherent!

Guido Fink: I mentioned in my commentary that I felt the line "outside the rain streaked and misted window" put a distance between the character and the world, creating a different tone from the suspensful one I started with. Csilla pointed out that too start with "thought he hesitated to recount" would have been a good start to a short story, in medias res, and "outside the rainstreaked.." would have been a good start to a novel. Interesting thought. Different paces for different styles.

NOTE: Get a glossary. I can't keep using form, shape and style interchangeably. I'm fairly positive that style is the wrong word for ....insert terminology here.....

So thats that. Good bye computer.

Guido Fink: