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

Was plugging along on a story.

Knew there was a character, a servant, who knew about a cursed prince. Needed him as a plot device to keep the prince alive, and also he gave me a way to keep the prince busy. Made him a big solid guy, a huntsman.

So writing along on the outline and realized that I had to name this servant. I dug up a name, decided it looked good, and if it's a diminutive, it's ironic he has it.

Put it down on the character list. Character started to wonder whether he could be a lean and wiry huntsman instead.

Ah, the game of names.

Revising along, revising along -- and stopping dead. No, these characters are acting illogically, they need to have reason to believe she's who she claims to be.

ponder, ponder, ponder

Oh, yes. I grab a minor character from earlier, who would recognize her, and plop her forward in time.  She recognizes the heroine from before.

Still doesn't get a name.

One thing to remember in stories is that characters continue to exist after their plot purposes.  Particularly inbetween their plot purposes.  Send them elsewhere if you must, but minor characters must continue to exist somewhere.

Even when cats.

Trudging along on the journey the children are going on.

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There are people about. There are, in fact, a LOT of people about, it's a city. A fair number would be interested in what the heroes and villains are doing. (Some of these people are even alive. )

Now, the story tends to sprout subplots when I start working on the first draft. But should I be considering them in the outline? They could complicate things there. And there's always the effort of fitting them into the story, juggling the story times, and having effects and causes interlace.
decisions, decisions. . .

Was poking at an outline. Moving along, glancing at the image I had used for inspiration -- a man and a woman, with her helping him -- the thing is, she doesn't match any of the three women I have as characters --

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There I was throwing in "The Twelve Huntsmen" into the fairy-tale mash-up -- mostly because parts occur in the woods, so my heroine could meet them there -- and then I had my hero meet them to pull the threads together -- 

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When stealing ideas from other stories and fililng off the serial numbers, one of the best ways is to steal something that was a part of the backdrop -- a character's back story, a minor character's comment, history.

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You shouldn't slap a significant detail into a story and then forget about it.  If you give a character background and motivations, the readers expect that character to be more than wallpaper for one scene, if you have a newspaper and mention titles, the readers expect at least one article to be significant, if you plant a gun in the scene, the readers expect it to be fired -- and by the end of Act 3.

That  goes for themes too.  Some issues can be touched on -- just as some details can , but others need to be grappled with, or ignored entirely.

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Ah the details of bit characters.  Sometimes they need tying off firmly. . . .

The three princes wooing the oldest princess when things go wrong -- or rather, the three that had been wooing her, one having come to his senses and started to pack even before she vanished.  The other two decide that they aren't going for the rescue, the hand in marriage, and half the kingdom either.

Looked fine in the outline, actually writing their rejection of the matter makes me wonder what will happen with them.  Hmmm.  Hmmm.  Hmmm.

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