Mary Catelli's Erraticly Updated and Exceedingly Ill-Organized Journal

ding-dong the witch is dead --

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The muse is often so busy chasing after bright ideas that she misses the obvious.

So, if the story is rife with ghosts, AND the brothers of the heroine die, the question of whether they will be ghosts will arise.

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There are ghosts. Several of them, pale, humanoid spirits.

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In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.’
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When you are half way through the outline and you still haven't defined what exactly they are going after.

Not even whether it's a person or an object.

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And off goes my heroine with a flock of other pupils and two teachers.  For a field trip that involves circling the magical boundaries of their refuge.

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 The need to focus in a novel has repercussions that make for some harder to recognize difference between role-playing games and novels.

For instance, the characters need motives -- BUT -- not too much motive.  Particularly for the less important characters.

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Sometimes your fairy tale heroine needs a little protection, and it gets complicated when the hero's dead.

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Considering I know what the villains will do in the end, it's surprisingly hard to get the clues, like ducklings, in a row.
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Necromancy, you may know, means divining by means of consulting the dead.

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