Barbara Eberhard's Blog, page 2

Breadcrumbs and Plot Points

Usually, I write most weekends, several hours on both Saturday and Sunday. It's how I've managed to write and publish 15 books in 14 years (two nonfiction, seven fantasy, and six women's fiction). A question many people ask me is how I have written so many books, since I'm also still working full time. The answer is I write from 10-4 Saturday and Sunday, with very few breaks. My husband can attest to this.
Because I write most weekends, if I'm writing a single book, I generally remember most of what I've written recently. I have 3x5 cards with the overall plot points outlined. I usually have another card for each of the main characters and perhaps some characteristics of each - hair color, eye color, tall, short, etc. I use these cards as I write to ensure continuity among the characters' physical attributes, and to move the plot along.
With the current trilogy, I've not only written 3x5 cards of each book's major plot points, but I've also put them into the book, with tentative chapter titles, as well. Think of it as a meta-outline. Because my overall process includes flexibility in the plot details, this meta-outline serves as guardrails, within which I can play. They also help me know where I am relative to where I want to be, both in place and time.
Because the other thing I have is an overall timeline file - where each character should be and when. This is critical because each character - each book - happens in in parallel. But certain things that happen in one book are mentioned in the others or affect the plot of the others. As I've written before, I generally don't have a lot of description in my books about place and time. I like this flexibility too. I don't really know, for example, how long it takes to get from one of my fictional towns to another. It's a fictional world after all. So, all I've done in my timelines file is try to be similar in all the books about how long it takes the characters to get from one place to another, when the two places are about the same distance apart on the map of the world included at the front of each book. I don't know that anyone will ever take the books apart to such a level. But if they do, I'd like the distances and times to be reasonably aligned.
Anyway, all this to say that while the meta-outline means I know where I'm going eventually, the books also have breadcrumbs - hints of things to come. Sometimes these breadcrumbs relate to the main plot points, and therefore to the meta-outline. Sometimes these breadcrumbs are characteristics of the characters - decisions I've made about how characters will behave or stories of their lives before the time of the book.
When I'm writing a single book, I generally remember all those things from weekend to weekend. I remember the meta-outline. I remember the timeline - mostly. I often have that file open as I write. I remember - mostly - the characteristics of the major characters, to be repeated again and again for the readers. And I remember most of the breadcrumbs I've laid along the way.
One of the things I do when I edit a book is make a 3x5 card of breadcrumbs, which I then cross off as they are resolved along the way. In that way, I know I've left no breadcrumb without a resolution. And of course, my meta-outline and timeline files means there's continuity in those aspects as well.
All of these things are SO MUCH HARDER when writing three books at once. I find myself having to spend half of my Saturday writing time - when I'm returning to a different book than the previous weekend - just "catching up" on what I've already written. While this is good in that it also means I'm editing along the way, it means I'm less productive on Saturday than I would normally be.
On a normal Saturday - when I'm not writing three books at once - I would write at least one chapter, possibly two. Same for Sunday. Three or four chapters of writing in a weekend makes a whole book come together pretty quickly.
Keeping track of the breadcrumbs and plot points in each book, across all three books, is not something I'm capable of storing in my brain week to week. So, I have to review. And remember.
Thus, the writing is definitely slower.
Today, I wrote again in Kymri. And only wrote a small chapter. Because mostly, I read her story again. And noted the breadcrumbs and plot points. For tomorrow's writing.

Prophecies and Revelations

One of the ways in which fantasy writers move the plot forward is with a revelation or a prophecy.
Revelations - in my definition - are things the characters realize, not necessarily divinely given, but that nonetheless change the direction of the plot or are the resolution of a breadcrumb. Examples might be when one character shares something they thought everyone else knew, but didn't. Or when a plot idea from the beginning of the book is tied to something that happens toward the end of the book, which makes the reader remember the breadcrumb from earlier - or go back to try to find the previous reference - and the reader gets a sense of satisfaction from seeing how the different sections connect.
Prophecies, on the other hand, come from the gods or powers that be or whatever higher power you may be using in your particular fantasy novels. In both the Reunion and Jewels and Gods trilogies, I had the same set of gods, one for each country. I'll totally admit I stole that idea from David Eddings' brilliant Belgariad, though I'm not sure he was the first to think of it either. At any rate, in those trilogies, the main characters get prophecies from the gods that point them in a different direction or confirm they are on the right path. In both cases, prophecies also started the quest.
So, it should come as no surprise that Dichotomies, my in-process trilogy, would also have both revelations and prophecies. In fact, one of the first things I did when I embarked on the process of this new trilogy was create a series of prophecies to be revealed as the quest went on. One, in particular, would help the "chosen ones" know where they needed to go to complete their question and fulfill the prophecy.
The second thing I did was determine where those prophecies would be revealed in the plots. Now, in the case of Dichotomies, because the three books are happening concurrently, the prophecies needed to come out in each book. But I decided they would not always come in the same order or at the same time. Thus, one main character might know something the others did not. I mapped each plot out by where the main characters were, with a rough sketch of what would happen at that point in the story. But then I also filtered in the prophecies. It was fun to try to figure out which prophecy's revelation would have the greatest impact during what part of which book. Got it?
There are also revelations, obviously. In this case, there are wise nagas who are mentoring each of the main human characters. They know things they share with their charges - the chosen ones - along the way. Some of these revelations are unique to that bonding. Others have to appear in each book of the trilogy. For example, how humans lost their magic is something humans don't know. But the nagas remember when it happened, and why. And the naga mentors to the chosen ones explain this to their charges, but not always at the same time or in the same way.
In today's writing, I came up with another revelation. This one is that the nagas knew when the humans lost their magic, and they knew it was related to the dichotomies that had divided humanity over time. But what they didn't know - and what they and the chosen ones will come to find out - is that the dichotomies not only severed the emotional connection among humans - as the Canian and Resani came to distrust each other - but also the loss of magic broke physical connections between the "can" where the Canians live and the "res" where the Resani live.
Because losing emotional connections can have the consequence of losing physical connections, and vice versa.

Three in One?

As I wrote a while back, I'm writing a new fantasy trilogy.
Usually a trilogy follows a timeline - first book covers the start, second book the middle, and third book the finale. The challenge with these kinds of trilogies is making each book also have an arch. Otherwise, the reader gets bored or frustrated, not getting a sense of completion in any of the books until the third.
But this trilogy is different. I'm writing each book from a main character's perspective, covering the same timeline in each book.
This is similar to the very first book I wrote, which had three stories in one, each the same main characters but with a different perspective. In that book, the husband of the couple dies at the beginning of the first story, and the rest of the story is about how they met and how she will get along. The second story tells the story of them living and loving until old age. The third story is much of the truth of the tale, which is loosely based on real events.
So this trilogy is similar in that it's the same story - sort of - with different perspectives.
But it's different in that each book is really the story of fulfilling the prophecy from the perspective of one of the three chosen ones. It's not until the final chapter that the three come together.
And so, as I write, the three stories are separate but intertwined. Things that happen in one book may affect what happens in the others. And since things "come up" as I write - regular readers will know this about my writing - I'm writing the three books simultaneously. That way, I can incorporate the pop-up ideas in the other two books - if appropriate.
As a result, I don't think I'll publish until all three books are completed. So, instead of publishing every 9 months, as has been my norm, it might be a couple of years.
That's scary for me. I don't know that I have an audience waiting for my books. But it's still a long time between new books.
So we'll see. I may try to focus on one of the three and publish sooner than that.

Agency

Today, I gave one of my main characters agency. And she loved it!
Kymri is blind, and for all of her life, her family thought she was pretty useless. She helped with the farming, true. But she was a drain on their resources, without being able to do as much as her siblings. She didn't get much, as a result. Her clothes were hand-me-downs. Her siblings got more food, and certainly, only they got dessert. She did have a room of her own, but no control over anything she did in her life. She wasn't able to go to school, because there was no means to teach her in her small village. Concas - her only friend growing up - teaches her some things verbally, by explaining words to her. Kymri has never been taught to read, obviously, nor to write.
But now that she's with Sze, her mentor, he's given her agency. She's got say over when she wakes up, when she goes to sleep, when and how much she eats. And she gets dessert. She's training to be a warrior, so although she has agency over her body in the sense of being clean and clothed for the first time, in her own clothes and with her own bathing room, she has to listen to Sze to learn how to use her body, to learn to fight.
She's also going to learn to read and write, though only somewhat, through magic. Enough to be able to start educating herself using spell books - grimoires - and histories. But not enough to be able to see in the conventional sense of seeing. It's important for the books that she remain blind, but not helpless.
And because she now has agency, she is learning that she's not helpless at all.

Creating Conflict

One of the key elements to any writing is a climax. Usually, a climax involves the resolution of conflict. And then the denouement shows the characters continuing on in their lives.
When I start to plan out a new trilogy, I have an overall plan for the trilogy. In the case of Dichotomies, I needed to figure out what the dichotomies were going to be. I started with land people and sea people - half the human population lives on "islands" created by magic generations earlier. Those islands - called res - are sinking. Whether that's because the sea - or moc - is rising or because the res are sinking, no one knows. All the sea people - the Resani - know is that the change is occurring. They don't know that magic created the islands; therefore, they don't know that they need magic restored to fix the islands.
From the land people's perspective - the Canians - they don't seem to need magic. They get along just fine without it. Except their lands are not as fertile as they used to be. And as a result, the Canian population has reduced. This population decrease has happened naturally; people just aren't having as many children. But towns are being deserted (pun intended) due to lack of population. The governments of the Canians are worried.
The two ethnicities have grown to distrust each other. Each thinks the other is "evil", though specifically how is unclear. I haven't yet decided if there will be some big event that created the distrust in the past or whether it's just the result of distance and lack of communications. People who don't know each other tend not to trust each other.
The two ethnicities have also evolved to have different physical characteristics. This, too, creates some conflict - the continued feeling of "other". Some of the conflict among the three mages who have to save the world comes solely from them not trusting the other ethnicity.
But each book also needs a conflict to create the arc to the climax. The words of the prophecy tells us something of what that arc looks like.
When darkness sees the light, when the silence joins in the song, when pain finds happiness, the truth will be restored.
There has to be more to the story than just finding light, song, and peace.
Today, I figured out the storyline for Hallas. I have the barest of sketches for Kymri and Tyagi. I know Kymri has to learn to be a warrior and lead an army despite being blind. I know Tyagi has to proselytize to all the humans, to get them to believe. Still working on the details.

Decisions, Decisions

Writing involves making many decisions.
The first, of course, is to write at all. It's a brave act, if I do say so myself. To put words to the page and, especially, to let anyone else read them. It's a vulnerable act, even when the words are fiction.
But once you've made the decision to write, and to publish, there are many more decisions to be made. In my case, I've created a world. And in creating a world, there are many decisions to make. I wanted my world to be full of dichotomies. Not only are there people who live on the land and people who live on the sea, but those peoples have evolved differently. The land people - the Canians - can see in the dark. The sea people - the Resani - have a soft glow to their skin. Canians are engaging and talkative. They love the arts, particularly music. Resani are more reticent, not as open. They also are mathematical, engineering-oriented.
The keepers of the prophecy - the ones who have believed for generations - are the nagas, or dragons as most readers would know them. Here again, there are land and sea nagas. The land nagas as similar to the dragons you might see in Game of Thrones, with large wings they use for flying. My land nagas aren't as large as the ones in GOT, though. The sea nagas are more like where the term "naga" comes from - from Eastern lore. They are more snake-like, with smaller wings. They don't fly, but can swim in the waters at great speeds, like their land counterparts in the sky. I made the decision not to name the land and sea nagas, as I did the humans, because the nagas still consider themselves one race, unlike the humans.
The division of the humans - their dichotomies - have caused them to lose their magic. Another decision.
There will be three new human mages who will need to come together to fulfill the prophecy. As I've written about before, the three will be the subject of each book of the trilogy. Another decision. In my first trilogy, the world-saving was reliant on two mages - a man and a woman, who had to come together in love and reunite magic, hence the title of that trilogy, Reunion. In the second trilogy, set in the same world, the world-saving was reliant on a prism of gemstones, wielded by mages from each country on the planet, and representing the gods of each as well - Jewels and Gods. This time, the world-saving is a trilogy of mages who need to get the humans past their Dichotomies.
Other decisions: the names of the directions are unique to this world. The Resani cities all have names that end in "res". The Canian cities all have names that end in "can".
More decisions to come, I'm sure.

First-Person vs. Omniscient Narrator

There are many considerations to make in writing. One of the most important is the type of narration.
First-person narration is used when the novel will be from a single perspective. I call my women's fiction novels "fictional autobiographies" because I use first-person narration when I write them. They tell the story from the main character's point of view, like a autobiography would.
But there are disadvantages to using first-person narration. It means that the main character has to be "in the room" for everything that happens and/or she has to hear about what happened in rooms where she was not. Other characters can - and do - recount things that happen elsewhere, of course. But everything is filtered through that one lens.
My fictional autobiographies require the life of the protagonist to change, often significantly. Such transformations are more impactful, in my opinion, when written from that person's perspective.
I suppose it might be possible to write a fantasy in first-person narration. But more often, as I have, authors choose to use an omniscience narrator. The narrator knows everything about everyone and everything. Thus, you can switch perspectives from one character to another. You can present information that the reader should know, but the characters may not yet.
For my Dichotomies trilogy, I'm combining the two. The first and last chapter are written in first-person narration. This establishes the main character - the title character of each book - in their own "voice". And allows the climax and denouement to also be from his or her perspective, adding more interest to those parts.
But the main body of the novels will be using an omniscient narrator, because that's just easier when telling a story with lots of characters with lots of their own ideas, not to mention a prophecy.
I personally have never seen this done before in a novel. I think it will give the Dichotomies trilogy an interesting twist.

Making Differences

Each of the three main characters in the Dichotomy trilogy has a role to play in fulfilling the prophecy.
But more importantly, each has his or her own quest. And I wanted those quests to be quite different.
So, Kymri runs away from home, finds her mentor in magic, and ends up fighting those who oppose magic in a war across the country of Seic, so she can get to where magic will be restored. Along the way, she finds the peace in her soul she never found at home, even as she's battling evil.
Hallas leaves home, as well, a misfit for having music in his soul among the engineering-based Resani (sea people). But then he is kidnapped by yet other bad guys who also don't want to see magic restored. They try to convince him that the naga who told him he was to be a mage is wrong. They almost convince him until the naga finds him again.
Tyagi is already a mage at the beginning of her book, though she doesn't know it yet. She is half Resani and half Canian (land people), with characteristics of both - as all mages do. She also runs away, but is almost immediately found by her parents and one of her mentors, a naga. Tyagi becomes an ambassador for mages, traveling the world trying to convince Canian and Resani that the prophecy must be fulfilled, that magic must be restored. She has her own challenges with disbelief and distrust.
The three must come together at a time and place to restore magic. Of course, they have no idea how...until they do.

Starting with the Ending

As I noted in my previous post, I'm writing a new trilogy. Each book will be story of the quest for that character, but will include references to the other characters and some of their lessons learned along the way. So that means that each book has to end up in the same place. Regardless of how each main character gets there - and their paths will be different - they all have to get to the same place in the end, to finish the quest.
So, this weekend, I wrote the end of the trilogy from a generic perspective. How the quest will end. How magic will be restored. And how the three main characters come together to make that happen.
I'm going to take that same ending and incorporate it into each of the three novels. But change it, as well, as each of the final chapters - as with the first chapters - will be written as a first person narrative. Thus, we start and end each book inside the head of the character about whom the book is written - and whose quest is described in the book. This is a style taken from my fictional biographies, which are always written in first person.
(However, the interim chapters - however many they might be - will be written with an omniscient narrator, as I've done with all my previous fantasy novels. It think the combination is interesting - and makes the trilogy unique.)
Today, I took the generic ending I had written yesterday and tailored it for Hallas, the main character of the second of the three novels. So, now that final chapter lets us know how he was feeling during the pivotal climax. With a bit of a denouement, as well.
I'm still not sure if I'm going to write all three books concurrently. But it's sure starting to look that way.

Another Trilogy

I've started writing another fantasy trilogy. This one is based around dichotomies.
A couple of things are going to be different about this trilogy than the others I've written - and from others I've read. Because each book will be the story of one of the main characters, written about their quest. And each book will have the fulfillment of the quest in it, from the perspective of that main character. I've never read a trilogy where the final part of each book tells the same ending from different perspectives. I think it will be an interesting - and difficult - challenge.
So far, I've been writing the books in parallel - taking up the writing in a book each weekend. The first book, about Kymri, has the most chapters, at three. The second book, about Hallas, just got its first chapter today. The last book, about Tyagi, has one chapter, as well. Each of the first chapters is written in first-person narrative, to establish the character's perspective before we move onto an omniscient narrator for the remainder of the books. I like this device - it's different.
I've got the basic layout for each book. I have a map of this world, which is always an important plot device - along with the places each of the main characters will go as part of their individual quest. (The map will be included in the books, though without the overlay of each quest.)
Because the endings will have to all tie together, obviously, I'm considering continuing to write all three books in parallel. At the very least, I probably have to write the end of each book before publishing the first one. To make sure the ends of the stories work to create a cohesive end to the overall quest, albeit one from three different angles. It might behoove me to write the ending from no one's perspective, and then tailor it to each main character? That's an interesting thought, too.
In 2023, I published three books. I've never published so many books in one year before. If I do decide that I have to write all three parts of this new trilogy at the same time, in parallel, then I likely won't publish for at least a year and a half, possibly two. Generally speaking, it takes me about nine months to write and edit a book. So, three books would be 27 months - or more than two years. I'm not sure I could stand to wait that long.
But it's an interesting question. And a heck of a challenge.
Welcome 2024!