Finding my inner Elsa…
I have probably mentioned before the mistake I made between writing books 3 and 4 of the 30 Stones Saga when I took a, what seemed then, well-deserved break. That break turned into about two months and getting back to writing again was more difficult because of it.
This time, I started grinding right away, with a goal of having book 5 out by the end of March. I figured, 1,000 words a day for 90 days and I’d be good. So far, as of Jan. 7, I’m about 10 days ahead of myself with ten chapters and just over 18,000 words completed.
Book five is a bit complicated because it’s where I am starting to bring together a lot of moving pieces from the other four books in the series; part of that included a few bits that were, to put it bluntly, difficult to write. I won’t say I cried, but I was a little emotional as I did what had to be done, and it made me think that I’m getting better at not being quite so concerned as I used to be about how ‘plausible’ everything is.
I’m one of those people who, while watching a movie, says stuff like, “that wouldn’t happen” or “You can’t do that” or “how many bullets does this gun have?” This is especially true when watching movies featuring military hardware being used in ways that are totally incompatible with the way these things work in real life. However, I’m also the person who has a wife who says, “if you’re going to do that for the whole movie, feel free to leave the room!”
And so, when writing ‘fantasy’ I always find myself trying to figure out how something might actually happen – how that wagon would be pulled without horses, and how the people know where they are, or how they are getting to wherever, and where do they go to the bathroom… And here’s what I’ve discovered … I don’t need to.
Look at some of the most popular works of fiction, and specifically, fantasy and you’ll see enormous contrivances, and McGuffins – things that are just ridiculous. For instance, how come nobody in Harry Potter’s world seems to have discovered the internet? And where is the RAF when the Weasely’s are flying Ford Anglias around London? How come no one in the station sees kids running into a brick wall – they can obviously be seen as Harry asked a porter which way to the platform? Where is the “I Swear it’s Magic” YouTube channel? And in Lord of the Rings (one of my personal favorites) why aren’t we bothered that the Giant Eagles could have saved poor Frodo a lot of headache (and a finger) if they’d just flown him over Mt Doom and let him drop the ring instead of making him hike through hell and risk failure? It’s not like they hadn’t had hobbits ride on them before. (Admittedly, there is a line where the Eagles say they won’t fly near men etc etc yada yada, but when the world is on the line, I’m thinking they’ve got as much to lose as everyone else)
So, in my own writing there are times now when I’m trying to figure out how to make go from A to B that I just call upon my inner Elsa and … let it go.
That’s not to say that I’m leaving giant plot holes lying around or disregarding some semblance of ‘making sense’ but I’m also no longer trying to shoehorn common sense and science into something that is patently neither.
Basically, what I’m trying to say, is that the more I do this, the more I’m allowing myself to have fun as I write – even if things as unpleasant as the death of a character need to take place. Because, you know, it makes sense.
