Sunday, November 11, 2012

Just enough to make you interested

There is something about that blinking cursor on a blank page that is absolutely torturous. Something about the idea that is buzzing about in your skull, but for some reason refuses to show itself on the page in front of you. It just hides in the corners of your mind, only to show itself again when you are the most inconvenienced by it. Or when it is impossible for you to capture it and wrangle it on a page.

 Most of my writing exercises are parts of stories, snapshots of things taken out of the context of a larger work. But I feel like so much is lost when I write that way. There is no build up, no reason why the reader should care about what is going on. I have been watching a lot of shows recently where something dramatic happens and I am so involved in what is going to happen next. But not because of what is happening at that moment. It is more because I understand the connection between the characters and know their history. That makes the moment much more than if I were to just turn it on and see that moment without the context of entire story.

Unfortunately, for the build up I want, I feel like so much more has to be established and that takes lots of time and effort and writing. And then there are times when I feel like I go too far back. For example, I remember writing something and being told that the first two chapters could go and I should have started at the third. But I thought that laying the foundation would be important for understanding what was going to happen later on in the story. However, the person reading it wanted to get straight to the action and found the first two chapters to be very slow.

And it is not the first time I had done that. There was a story that I wanted to write and climax was going to happen when the main character had to fight his rival. Of course this fight happens when he was an adult, but I wanted to start the story when he was a child. I felt it needed to start there for the reader to understand how the situation at the end came to be.

But is there such thing as too much? Too much foundation, too much explaining of things, too much setting of the scene that the point of the story totally gets drowned in factoids and the reader gets bored. Where do you find that happy middle ground where you have told just enough to get the reader invested in what you have to say?

Anyway, those are my thoughts for this morning.

Daily Write - In My Own Image

The characters of Nicodemas and Erad are borrowed while Cixi is mine. I have been playing around with an idea for a story and the relationship between these three characters interested me. So I have playing around with some "what if" scenarios. If I ever write anything seriously, I will most likely be changing some names around. Definitely don't want to be stealing characters.


The door slammed with a loud finality, shaking the frame it hung in. Nicodemas had stayed upstairs, listening to the yelling that had come from below. It was unsettling hearing the two of them go at it, Erad and Cixi. They never screamed, especially at each other. But it was all over now. The only thing left was the angered brooding silence hanging thick in the air.

"You shouldn't be so hard on her," Nicodemas replied, trying to keep his voice as low as possible, making his way down the stairs, "Youth are prone to making mistakes. You know that better than most."

In all the time Nicodemas had known Erad, he had never seen him so visibly enraged. Erad was usually calm and distanced. But not tonight. Tonight, Erad's eyes burned and his  white knuckled fists would not unclench themselves. Nicodemas tried to reach out and place a calming hand on his friend's shoulder, but Erad only shrugged it off, pacing to the other side of the room.

"She was given implicit instruction never to use that technique on anyone unless it meant the loss of her life. And she ignored it," Erad growled out through clenched teeth, "Not only ignored it, but used it against a friend."

"Well let's be honest, Cixi and Calendre aren't really friends at this point."

Erad threw a glowering look into Nicodemas' direction. Nicodemas quietly sighed, lowering himself into a chair near the fireplace.

"I know. I know," Nicodemas replied, "That's beside the point. Look, she made a mistake, Erad. One I'm sure that she won't make again. But you can't simply refuse to train her over it. You have to take her back as your student. She was starting to do so well under you. The Commander was just beginning to think something of her. You stop training her now and you take all that away."

"You didn't see her fighting out there, Nic. I did."

Some of the fury was starting to ebb away from Erad's tone, being replaced with something else. Some other emotion that was just as burning.

"She executed that move without so much as flinching. Not a spec of doubt in her eyes. She did it just to see if she could best Calendre."

"But she never actually intended to strike Calendre down with it. Cixi said so herself," Nicodemas pointed out. "She was just showing off, trying to make Calendre back down."

"And that is what makes it worse."

Erad finally slid into the chair across from Nicodemas, leaning his head back and staring at nothing. He ran his fingers through his silver-white hair. Nicodemas didn't say anything. The silence was still heavy, but less charged than before, as if someone had opened a window and traded anger for regret and disappointment.

"Our Cixi would have never tried something like that on anyone," Erad began, his words forming slowly on his lips, "At least not before she started training under me. I had thought perhaps I had changed. That maybe I could pass on my knowledge differently this time. But I suppose that monsters can only make monsters."


"You aren't a monster, Erad," Nicodemas whispered.

"And yet I watched as one of the most gentle people I know decided to practice killing on one of our friends just to see if she had mastered it. So tell me, what else would you call that?"