The Ramble

This month, Brandon took advantage of his ability to ask questions about my process.  I’m going to try to answer those questions in tonight’s post, with apologies for the delay! (I’ve been fighting a cold since just about the day he asked me)

The Question: What sort of thought do you put into dialogue and how it reflects on the character?  Like word choice, manner of speaking, and such like that — is it a big deal or just something that kind of develops along the way with a character?

The Short Answer: It’s both.

The Longer Answer:  In a lot of ways, it really depends on the character, but typically their manners of speaking and word choice develop pretty quickly in the process of writing them.  There are some characters where I’ve consciously gone into it thinking about certain types of phraseology that they’d use, certain colloquialisms, accents, and other things like that.  A good example of this is characters like Bryn Knight and Kate Berkshire, both of whom are from the UK, so their manner of speaking and their word choice is a little different from their counterpoints.  Characters like Reverend Stonard from What Angels Fear and Erakiah from Measure of Dreams also had some very deliberate choices made about how they speak which reflects on their character as a person and the image they want to convey to the world.  By the same token, at certain points characters speak in ways that aren’t necessarily totally in their character (Tim at points in Measure of Dreams) and that is also meant to show a shift in the character.

At the end of the day, though, the manner of speaking does tend to develop with the character.  Each of them have their own voices which I hope is more or less distinct and reflective of their characters overall.

Did a livestream of some plotting for the rest of When All’s Said and Done!  Trying to maintain at least some accountability.

For some reason the recording missed the first couple minutes of the stream (mostly while I was fighting a little with the software because I was dropping framerates and such at random), but you get most of it here!

Enjoy.

In an effort to make myself accountable to more than just myself, it’s time to talk about February’s writing goals (woo!).

February is going to be a month heavy on some planning for When All’s Said and Done, which is really the cornerstone work in the Lost Angel Chronicles.  It’s also the month where I start plotting out Epsilon: Redeemer (hopefully for the last time, but we’ll see!) and a new project in the UNSETIC Files universe…but more on that project when I start actually working on it.  I’ll also be writing at least two more chapters of Lost and Found this month (possibly more).

All of this on top of academics–which should be interesting this semester as well.

The breakdown:

By 2/10:

• Plot the rest of When All’s Said and Done

By 2/15:

• Determine what needs a rewrite for When All’s Said and Done
• Determine if i’m keeping first person narration or switching to third person narration (and possibly adding another narrator)

By 2/20:

• Determine who my narrator (narrators) will be for When All’s Said and Done

By 2/28:

• Determine if I just need to rewrite some parts of When All’s Said and Done or completely start over
• Write the blurb for When All’s Said and Done

By 3/1:

• Write 2 more chapters of Lost and Found
• Determine setting for the untitled John and Tim bonding project
• Determine POV (first of third) for the John and Tim bonding project
• Determine who’s going to be the lead for the John and Tim bonding project (may be both of them)

Ongoing:

• Outline and plot the current draft of Epsilon: Redeemer

I’m also planning on at least two writestreams this month–if not more!  One of those might be one spent plotting out a project.  Time will tell!

Here’s to another fun month (I hope).

Just a little stream of Lost and Found–finished off chapter 24.

Enjoy!

Working on chapters 23 and 24 of Lost and Found!

Happened to finish Chapter 23 in the midst of the stream and then started in on Chapter 24.  Enjoy!

  

A shadow briefly crossed his features, then it was gone. I squeezed his hand before I gently disengaged my fingers from his.

“This is where she said she’d be,” I said softly. “Hopefully, she’s here and we’ll have at least a few questions answered.”

“A few,” he murmured. “Like what?”

“Like whether or not she found out you’d escaped,” I said, watching his face. We were getting closer to the edge of the warehouse district. The streets beyond would be lined with businesses and apartment buildings, most of them still dark at this hour. The rhythms of Deneer had their mornings starting later—usually around midmorning local time—and lasting well into the night. Our arrival just before sunrise might as well have been three or four AM back home, the silent hours between last call and the morning rush, the graveyard hours, the third shifts.

He sucked in a quiet breath, glancing at me. “You mean—”

“In December she came looking for Kate and I. She needed our help and there was an off chance that you might have been there. It was a chance we couldn’t pass up.”

Tim’s expression went slack. “But I was already—”

“We didn’t know that. Neither did she. Do you see, now? Do you see why all of the bullshit going on was such a big deal?” I shook my head, struggling to keep my voice down in the face of rising anger and frustration, two things I hadn’t really let myself feel until that moment. “I’m not saying that we wouldn’t have gone to help if there hadn’t been a chance we could find you, but I will say that it changed how we approached the whole situation.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Something sparkled against his lower lashes—tears, I realized. A lump rose in my throat. I threaded my fingers through his again and squeezed.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing at all. Okay?”

“Okay.” The word came quietly, but with only the barest hesitation. Maybe I was finally getting through. I doubted it, though. If there was one thing I knew hadn’t changed about my brother, it was his propensity to hang onto guilt even when he was told something wasn’t his fault. He took another deep breath and sighed quietly, his gaze drifting to Kate, a dozen yards ahead of us. She didn’t look back as she crossed the street, clearly trusting that we were still with her.

“You’re safe,” I whispered to him. “I promise.”

A laugh bubbled up in his throat, though there was a faintly bitter edge to the sound. He squeezed my hand. “I love you, sis. Y’know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You really think you’d stand a chance protecting me against them if they came hunting? If they—if they somehow seized control of me again?”

I looked up and met his gaze, his eyes shining in the light of the streetlamps and the moon. “Absolutely,” I said, my voice quiet and level. “We just got you back, Tim. There is no universe in existence where I would let you go again.”

“You think you could stop them?”

“I know I could stop them,” I said. “I promise you that.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

I stopped and he stopped with me, turning to face me. “Do you really want to know the answer to that?”

“Maybe,” he said.

“I have more tricks up my sleeve than you realize, Tim.” I turned and started walking again. Kate and Brigid had stopped ahead of us, watching, waiting. We were out of earshot but I could tell even from this distance that Kate was concerned and I was willing to lay odds that Brigid was, too. “I’ve gone up against them and won before.”

“I almost killed you when they still had control of me.”

“But you didn’t,” I said, glancing back at him. “You didn’t. We’re both here and we’re both alive and we’ve got work to do. Are you coming or not?”