Katherine Vick's Blog, page 6

On the Matter of Content Explosion - With Bonus Announcement!

On the Matter of Content Explosion

Now, anyone out there who has followed any of my fanfiction projects over the years may be aware that in respect of my writing, I tend to have something of a problem when it comes to estimates of length. My fanfiction projects were famous for turning into monumentally vast monsters well beyond the bounds of my original intent as chapter after chapter proved insufficient to hold the content I wrote for it and split out and split again.

Indeed, anyone who read my author interview for The Merry Band will also be aware that this phenomenon of my writing is not confined just to fanfiction, given the confessions I made there – that my novels were all originally intended as a single book, would you believe, and that I split it, first in half and then into a trilogy to accommodate fresh material that blossomed into life in the process of writing. Once I started writing, there was simply too much story for one book or even two books to hold.

Some might imply this is down to bad planning on my part. But I would like to assure you all that really isn’t the case. I always start with a plan. That’s just the nature of me. I have to make a plan, I’m just that kind of person. The problem I have is my brain. It likes to come up with new ideas. And being highly inconsiderate, it generally waits until I am well into a project in order to do so. So, I work these new ideas in and the plot expands. I write what I think will be a quick, simple few lines before a big scene starts and suddenly the characters grab it and start running and, without my ever intending it, it turns into a scene in its own right and then there’s a new idea and...

Well. There’s a reason I keep my plans in a Word document these days – annotating and re-annotating on paper just got too messy!

And the other problem is - I’m not one of life’s editors. I don’t like to lose content for the sake of losing content, everything I create is there for a purpose. If I feel it shouldn’t be there or it doesn’t work in the story, I do take it out. But if I have a good reason for it and feel it is of value, I won’t rip it out for the sake of an arbitrary conciseness. At the end of the day, I don’t like to kill off perfectly good writing and dilute my storytelling just because I’m incapable of limiting my brain to a word count. If it’s there, then it matters to me.

And why am I telling you all this, you may ask? On a trilogy that is already written and finished, surely things such as this will no longer be an issue?

Yeah. You’d think, wouldn’t you?

But… it turns out on this matter, I can transcend even myself.

The final book of my trilogy, named The Taskmaster, was always a bit of a monster. The biggest attacks of idea expansion occurred within it and it weighed at close to double the length of its predecessors in its unedited state. But it was still just about within the limits of acceptable novel length, especially for a fantasy tome, which do tend towards the epic. I’d considered splitting in two myself but just couldn’t find a place where I felt it would work – the only spot I considered suitable would have resulted in a very short last book. So I was hoping it would pass muster as a doorstop and as such, sent it to my publishers.

As a result of this, I now find myself here to make an announcement. In the finest traditions of Douglas Adams, the Plot BanditsTrilogy will now consist of… four books.

Yep. Here we are again! My doorstop was stopping the door a bit too much. My diligent editor located a better placed spot that, with some work and a bit of scene placement jiggery pokery, could serve as a break in the action and the monster has been prized apart. So newly born now is the conjoined twin of my final book, The Taskmaster, next up to follow The Merry Band - Book Three of Four…. The Narrative!

Very Short Story - The Apprentice

I wrote this piece to a challenge prompt of the word "weave". It’s written by me, so it’s weird and slightly warped and very strong with my own opinion on certain matters though I have updated some of the names, since they were about a decade out of date. Some choices may be a bit British, but persons of whatever nation may feel free to insert their own offenders as appropriate. Because I know you’ll all have some…;p

The Apprentice

Okay, I admit it. I may have made a few mistakes.

But I mean, this soul-weaving lark – it’s not easy, is it? The apprenticeship is a thousand years for a reason and how much help do you get? All those other weavers, they sit there glued to their looms, churning out visionaries and artists and geniuses and did one of them bother to show me the threads? No. They just sat me down and told me to use my instincts.

And I’ll admit, it hasn’t always gone well. It is possible I got a little confused with my backstitch when I was working on Henry VIII’s benevolent, eternally loyal and forgiving nature. I might have overestimated the amount of thread I’d need for Nero’s ego. I admit that perhaps I over-egged the pattern with Genghis Khan’s desire to help his people. But I learnt from these small, insignificant errors and I reined my work in. And if tiny, tiny little mistakes like Elvis’s appetite, Lennon’s taste in women, Boris Johnson’s ambition and well, Kanye West crept in, it was hardly my fault, was it?

And now I’ve reached the end of my apprenticeship, finally, after all these years of effort, and then they punish me like this?

Making the souls of reality TV stars?

It’s cruel, it really is. So hollow, so vile! Somewhere I’ll do less damage, huh? Well, I’ll make them pay for this. I’ll make them sorry. When they see the abominations unto human nature that arise from my loom such as Rylan, anyone from The Only Way is Essex and the true and terrible horror of the plastic souls of the Kardashians...

All designed to destroy the souls of others. My brethren’s hard work reduced to nothing, the imagination and depth of their creations rendered null. Let’s see how many visionaries and geniuses are left to thrive when I’m done!

Ask The Author - January 2022

 Ask the Author – January 2022

Well - I tried. But I think everyone was understandably a little preoccupied with Christmas so my appeal for questions on this occasion resulted in a grand total of one. So for this short but sweet blog entry, I shall simply wish everyone a very Happy New Year and proceed to answer it!

From Sarah Awa: Will there be a dragon in the third book? Any other magical creatures like unicorns, mermaids, etc?

I feel that Maw has rather had his moment of glory – anything further might be a little much for his delicate constitution. ;p In terms of magical creatures, the story at this stage is really more focussed on the people and how they handle the erupting goings on of their Realm rather than the wider universe of beasts and beings – but rest assured, there will be plenty of AFCs and one glorious and significant appearance from a monstrous special guest. ;)

Poem - A Christmas Tale

In honour of the approaching Christmas season, I thought I'd break out a poem I wrote for a Christmas writing challenge a number of years ago. It was for the prompt "a walk through a house from the perspective of a child" because I wanted to write something with some rhythmic hurly burly to it as that’s the kind of poem I like best – something with a bit of gallop and a cadence – and that seemed to fit the bill, given that in my experience, small children do not so much walk through a house as push it out of their way as they pass. ;p.

 

A Christmas Tale 

 

The day was barely dawning when I woke on Christmas morning,

As excitement filled me up right to my core,

I flung aside the blanket as I leapt from bed all frantic,

Skipping, tripping, skidding, slipping to the door!

 

Christmas day was here now! The best day of the year! Wow!

What glories waited down beneath that tree?

Had Father Christmas called by, left the presents piled up knee-high,

In all colours shapes and sizes all for me?

 

But the clock said it was early and my parents would be surly

If I woke them before seven, so they’d said.

It seemed wisest not to rouse them, to poke them or to douse them,

So I headed down the passageway instead.

 

Behind the nearest bedroom door, I could hear my Daddy’s snore,

And my Mummy’s little whistle through her nose,

I stepped with care past Jess the cat, fast asleep upon her mat,

And headed for the staircase on tiptoes.

 

I knew the stairs were creaky so I needed to be sneaky,

I padded down on stockinged feet with care.

And then squinting through the dark, I saw the lights, the glow, the spark,

Of our Christmas tree… And presents waited there!

 

Heedless now of sneaking, I rushed forwards but NO PEEKING!

Was emblazoned on the paper in Mum’s scrawl.

But still I grabbed the nearest gift, no longer caring she’d be miffed,

And wow, look, cool! A bouncy, trouncy leather ball!

 

I kicked it high in to the air and it smacked into the chair,

Ricocheting off the armrest with a whack!

Hurtling past my outstretched fingers, it burst free towards the windows,

Before walloping the mantle with a smack!

 

And there was smashing, bashing, trashing as the big vase came a’crashing

Down against the purple carpet with a crack!

And I ran tumbling, bumbling, stumbling as I heard the floorboards rumbling

Overhead and footsteps barging, doors flung back!

 

Well Daddy, he was staring but my Mummy, oh, was glaring,

As with steely eyes, she raked over the mess.

And though it made me feel a rat, I quickly pointed to the cat,

“It wasn’t me, Mum, honest it was Jess!”

 

Very Short Story - Toil and Trouble

 The below was written for a long ago writing challenge somewhere across the internet but in honour of yesterday being Halloween, it seemed appropriate to post today. ;)

Toil and Trouble

“What do you mean, you forgot the eye of newt?”

“I mean it just slipped my mind! It was so busy at the Wicca market, there were so many stalls and the slug juggler was flirting with me…”

“Well, you got to admit, dearie, he is a fine figure of a man….”

“Shut up Ursula! Just keep stirring that cauldron!”

“Fine by me, dearie, fine by me…”

“I’m sorry, Medea. Do you want me to go back?”

“Well, there isn’t time now, is there? We’ll have to make do. Did you get the fillet of fenny snake?”

“Umm… they were out…”

“Of for the love of Hecate… All right, the toe of frog?”

“They were out of that too. There’s this recipe for wart growth in Circe’s latest compendium that’s proving very popular, you see…”

“I don’t care what’s popular! We need those ingredients! Please tell me you at least got the wool of bat and tongue of dog!”

 “Oh, I got the tongue of dog! Here!”

 “What… is that?”

 “Tongue of dog!”

“What king of dog?”

“Well, they only had Chihuahua…”

“And that? What is that?”

“They didn’t have wool of bat either. But I did find this lovely crochet kit…”

“So, tell me Glenda. On this four hour trip to the Wicca Market, what exactly did you buy to make that bag so full?”

“I picked up some green tea. Oh and some Jammy Dodgers.”

“So let me get this straight. Any minute now, the hapless plaything of fate will be riding his big strapping horse over that moor and what will he find when he gets here? No eye of newt, no toe of frog, no wool of bat and a tongue of dog you’d lose if you sneezed. But instead of a dread hell-broth, we can offer him some green tea and a Jammy Dodger. Oh, and we can crochet him a hat.” Sigh. “Well, at least we have a nice, bubbling cauldron….”

“Umm… dearie?”

“What?”

“The fire’s just gone out…”

World Building – The Perils of Exposition

 World Building – The Perils of Exposition

I think anyone who has tried to write a fantasy or science fiction story set in its own unique universe will understand me when I say – setting up a world is hard.

Creating it isn’t, at least not for me. I love creating new worlds – drawing maps, thinking of cultures and rules and how things work – that’s as much fun as writing itself as far as I am concerned. In fact, in many ways, it’s more fun – it’s use of the imagination without the pressure of having to word it properly. I get to play with my favourite things - history and geography and magic - all at the same time. I love world building.

But transmitting that information to poor, innocent readers – aye, there’s the rub. Because once a world is created, it’s important those reading it can get the hang of it for the story set within it to make sense. But exposition is dull. Many a writer has lost their readers with a big, fat factual overload dump early on. So how to introduce the concepts of a whole new place and culture without losing the reader along the way?

I think this very difficulty can contribute sometimes to the popularity of writing fan fiction. Speaking from experience, fan fiction is an easy in for someone who wants to play in a scifi or fantasy realm because the world and the characters in it already exist. And better, the target audience already knows the world. They know how it works, what the rules are – you don’t have to explain expelliarmus to someone reading Harry Potter fanfic or starburst to a fan of Farscape – if they didn’t already know, they wouldn’t be reading the story. The writer therefore doesn’t need to bother which much of all that – they just assume the reader knows already and get on with the story they want to tell. Fan fiction in that regard is a lot more straightforward.

But what to do when starting fresh? Well, if you’re looking for a definitive answer here – sorry, bad luck, because I don’t think there is one. Probably the most popular way to handle it is the innocent abroad – a character who either doesn’t belong in that world or has led a sheltered, cosseted life and has to have everything laid out for them. They stand in for the reader and as it is explained to them, it’s explained to everyone. Legends are also good, the telling of old stories to reveal background information and important facts – always pay attention to an ancient legend, especially about a long dead sorcerer because the odds are he’s coming your way. Magic-induced flashbacks can also be handy. Everyone has their own techniques, their own approach and all work or not in their own ways. It’s just about how the writer handles them.

So, me. Being an idiot, I decided to create a complicated, very different world in which those techniques just wouldn’t work. You can’t tell a legend to practical people who know the world’s not like that and everyone in my Realm knows how things work and their place in it. So, where did that leave me? It left me with my characters pulling the weight. Fodder’s mental ponderings on the unfairness of normal life. A bunch of characters chewing the fat in the pub while a minstrel tells tales of the other side of things. A prince who just loves to theorise and discuss absolutely everything going on around him. A princess who really doesn’t know a darned thing about anything outside her own circle. Discussions. Thoughts. Things that are part of the people and work as part of the plot.

But the important thing is – I feel exposition needs to be part of the story. It needs to be woven in. I did my best to try and weave in all the things you’ll need to know when I was writing without bringing the story to a narrative jolting halt. Only you can judge if I’ve succeeded.

More Merchandise from The Realm!

For any and all who might be interested, further RedBubble merchandise is now available themed around Pleasance and Flirt. Check it out below:

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What Do They Teach Them In These Schools – History is People

 You know, I never used to pay that much attention to history. It seems odd to say it now sitting in my house crammed with history books and my medieval re-enactment kit piled up in crates just to my left. And the odd thing was – it wasn’t that I wasn’t interested. The problem, much as I hate to say it as an undisputed Hermione Grangeresque swot, was school.

I’m not sure exactly how things stand in school these days, but I know that back in ancient times when I was being educated, the problem with history was that no one was interested in teaching you the interesting bits.  We rushed through Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome in primary school, cantered through the Dark Ages to the English Civil War before I even hit my teens and then, just as I was of an age to start appreciating history, what did we stick on?

The Industrial Revolution.

Oh God. We stayed there. For years, all through high school. We never even made it to the World Wars. And I can say hand on heart that there is nothing on this earth more likely to kill any kind of interest in history in a child or young person than studying the Industrial Revolution the way I studied it. Enclosure. Crop Rotation. Jethro Tull’s Seed Drill. The difference between the Spinning Jenny and the Water Frame. Workhouses. Factory Conditions. Humphrey Davy’s mining lamp. The endless, endless parade of dates to learn, Acts of Parliament to study, technical facts to keep in mind. It was so dull.

And so I moved on as soon as GCSE was done, leaving history behind except for a few childhood books I owned and focused on Geography and English for the furtherance of my academic study. And I didn’t think much more about it. Until...

A number of years ago now, I went with my family to a nearby open air museum which was holding a medieval festival. It was great fun and in the course of it, I acquired the card of a re-enactment society taking part. I girded my courage, I rang them and I was invited to come along and try it out for myself at a re-enactment of the Battle of Bosworth. Except... I had absolutely no idea what the Battle of Bosworth was about. I had a vague idea of when and sort of knew who had fought but I hadn’t the foggiest why or about any of the context. I had found a period in history my school had not even skimmed but had completely skipped. I knew nothing of the Wars of the Roses.

Such is the kind of thing public libraries were invented for. In search of background on my possible new hobby, I raided mine.

And that was when history changed for me. That was when I learned. Because the history taught in schools – dates, facts, technical information, a person’s name attached to a thing with no other context – that isn’t real history. That’s just information. History is people.

Some folks may be aware that George RR Martin based his Game of Thrones novels on the shenanigans of the Wars of the Roses. He picked his material well. In researching the Battle of Bosworth and the events leading up to it, I had found a fascinating period of history about which I had never been told. An astonishing well of characters, treachery, unbelievable events that all hinged not on facts and figures or dates and times but on people, on the decisions they made, the actions they took and how those decisions and actions shaped everything that followed. And from exploring that unknown period of past time, I ventured forward and backward to ancient times and Tudor palaces, hidden wars and forgotten people, to the history of my nation and of others too. I’d finally discovered the side of history that fascinated me. I’d found the characters. I’d found the story.

Because there is no history without the story. And we all know history is written by the winners, that every source has its own agenda to push and axe to grind and that none of them can really be trusted for the whole story – can you imagine if you were trying to interpret the history of the early twenty-first century and all you had to do it was a tabloid newspaper? I dread to think what the future would think of us! And I also know it’s out of fashion to take an interest in just royal or noble history and not the conditions of the ordinary folk and that’s fair enough – but historical sources are written about the big names at the end of the day. As Fodder can tell you, nobody much bothers to record what’s going on with the little people. Tough as it is, the big names are where the characters are. I would love to know the worries and concerns of the average peasant but sadly for us all, they so rarely wrote things down.

I love the psychology of history. I love trying to get into the heads of people in the past, to study their motives, their motivations and their characters, as far as they can be ascertained. And it helps teach us a different way to look at things, a different cultural and emotional perspective. You can’t judge the people of the past by the standards of the present. These are people who believed in different things to us, looked at the world in a totally different way and had an utterly alien concept of ordinary and acceptable and yet they are part of us. They made us. And that matters.

We are the sum of our history and history is the sum of those who lived through it. Because at heart, be they a famous king or a soldier in the ditch, people are what history should be about.  People who were just like us - living their lives in different times to different rules but fundamentally just human. That’s where the interest lies, not in seed drills or the date of an Act of Parliament. It’s about who we were, who we are and who we might have been. It’s about seeing the mistakes made by those who went before us and trying not to repeat them. It’s about how the world then has made the world now. It’s about everyone.

History is everyone’s story. And knowing it can only make us richer.

The Disposable Merchandise!

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The Name Game - The Sequel

 The Name Game – The Sequel

In honour of the release of The Merry Band, my sequel to The Disposable, I have been seized by the urge to write a sequel to my previous blog, where I discussed my naming strategies. And my premise is simply this – if you had to name yourself in the manner of my Realm, what name would you give yourself?

Because on thinking about it for myself, it’s really not as simple as it sounds. Would you want to chose your own name or have it chosen for you? Would you want a name that genuinely reveals an aspect of your personality or would you prefer to keep your true self and any accompanying expectations privately behind a less accurate or less specific one? And what part of yourself would you chose to advertise if you did choose an accurate name – positive or negative, self-promotion or warning?

A Realm name is like a badge. It tells a bit of your story to whoever hears it. But much like The Narrative, it depends on what side of the story you want to tell. Would you really want to walk around with a name that told people who you truly were? A name that creates expectations of you in everyone who hears it? Much in the way in our society, we are programmed by our culture and upbringing to leap to instinctive conclusions on people we meet based on the way they look and dress and speak, a Realm name would create expectations in the person meeting them as to what they would get. What expectation would you want?

And so that would be the choice. Do you give people the self they expect or the self you feel you are? I mentioned in my previous blog at the irony of making Prince Dullard a genius but from his perspective, he would probably feel the name quite suited his modest efforts in the various fields he dabbled in because he doesn’t see himself that way. Princess Pleasance would certainly feel that her name fitted her, even if her beleaguered captors would fervently disagree. Shoulders would probably accept the accuracy of his name while heartily resenting it and Fodder would certainly agree with his designation as the kicking post of the universe while striving with all his heart to set that assumption aside.

So the nature of Realm names really isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. While they seem to tell a great deal, at the end of the day how informative they are really depends on the person carrying it, whether they want to present a face to the world or show an inner soul and whether they way they see themselves is the same as the way the rest of the world sees them. Does the name shape the person or the person shape the name? What you choose to call yourself may say a great deal, but not necessarily in the way you intend. And if you let someone else choose for you, you will, for good or bad, get an insight into how the rest of the world looks at you that can’t be taken back.

All things considered, it might be easier just to name yourself after some part of your job. Or maybe stick a pin in a dictionary…;)