Yea, I know, I'm a few days late from my self-appointed schedule, and no, I don't have a good reason. Basically I spaced. I'd LOVE to be able to say I was writing so much on my latest project it slipped my mind, but that'd be a lie. Although, I have been doing some work on the latest and I think I'm ready to start talking about it, and that's what's REALLY important, right? ;)
As you may recall, I've been using this serialized project to work on plotting and arcs and such. Well, I've got the overall serial arc done, working on character arcs now - they are coming along slowly; some of these characters are slower than others in developing. And that's what's weird. The basis of this project is an RPG campaign I participated in over a decade ago, but I loved the premise, it's a classic quest adventure with a cast of unlikely characters thrown together by circumstance. Great right? Duh! Thing is, I only remember two characters from the original game - mine (obviously) and the hubby's. And yet it's these two characters in the ensemble that are giving me the most grief in figuring out motivations, character arcs, etc. When I realized this, I was amazed. How could I not know a character that I played? Then it occurred to me that while gaming and writing do have lots in common (really, GM'ing and writing are more similar, but whatever), that when you start writing you control all the characters, not just your own, and you plan for things like character growth and think about arcs and can plan plot beats to punch all the right places. In gaming, you build a cool character, figure out their quirks and then you play. It's rare to have real growth in an RPG character unless that's the plan from the outset. Short story long, I got Widow's (my character's) backstory fleshed out, along with all the others, and I gotta tell ya, she is the dullest of the bunch - flat and kind of a stick in the mud overall. Not sure how to correct that exactly, but I'm sure the first step is disconnecting this character I'm writing from the memories of the character I played and moving towards something more entertaining. In other news, I've got a Pinterest board for this WIP that I'm willing to share. None of this will ever be in the novel, obviously. But I love having visuals to refer to when I'm thinking about a place or a person or a thing and Pinterest is the King of all rabbit holes when it comes to visual info. Anyway, thought you all might find it interesting to see what I'm thinking about when I talk/write about these people going forward, so here ya go! As you will see, some I've zeroed in on, some are still loose but I'll continue to add things if you want to check back.
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May 2020
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