This was a fairly easy writing day. Usually the weekends are
full of errands and going out. This weekend has not had any of that stuff. I
have been able to sit back on focus on this novel.
I realized today that my story is rather empty of
characters. I have my four main characters and they have all spent long
sections of the story remembering or wandering around the desert landscape or
talking to themselves or interacting with each other. I think that is all okay.
This is story about looking into the past or thinking about the future. Yet
there is still some stuff that should be done as dialog. When I get to one of
those scenes I have no one for main characters talk to. So I created a
Chancellor for the Queen of the insects to talk to. I immediately thought of
the Chamberlain from The Dark Crystal. I happen to have
the concept art
book for that movie so I was able to look up his name – SkekSil. I
love his preening, cooing way of manipulating everyone in that film. But he’s
not afraid to get his hands dirty (and stabbed) when he needs to. He’s the
perfect model for a male insect fighting to hold on to some authority in the
nearly all-female insect society.
I actually had to take a short break and brainstorm about
the Chancellor and how he came to power and what interests him and motivates
him. That line of thinking led me to wonder about the insect males in general
and what kind of place they would have in insect society. Some of this ground I
covered way back in 2008 when I worked on Deep Dark. I think I have a different
take on it this time. Besides, this whole pile of ideas about cultural elements
and secret societies and missions to uncover lost knowledge is largely
irrelevant to this story. I like that I have these ideas now and some of that
will show up no doubt, but the further adventures of the Chancellor is not
going to be part of the story. That is why I took only a small break. I have to
get back to this novel.
The benchmark word count for today is: 28339
My total word count so far is: 29384
No comments:
Post a Comment