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

Went back to rework the opening and make it a firmer foundation. Had to know how the heroine discovered her powers up front to work on her making more subtle discoveries.

Am discovering bits and pieces that do not add up.

The heroine chooses which way to go based on severely limited information. She is going to have to learn what was the other way at some point -- in particular, because she meets some people on the way, and they had to have a reason to be there.


sigh

Was plugging along on the first draft, and realized that it might be more interesting with another character, the daughter of one I had in the outline.  Breezily wrote pages with her -- 

And realized that she doesn't work.  The hero has to be opposed by someone whose expectation is unreasonable, and so the daughter has to go.

I glowered and grumbled, and poked it to figure out where to set up the no-longer-a-mother do what was needed.  I realized that after what happened to the hero's mother, I could set up a kind-and-unkind-girls tale.  

Which relief lasted until I sat down and had to write it.  I still needed to plot out three scenes and put them in. 

Ah, well, at least the vague outlines have formed.

A character is sitting about when she realizes two others are gone in a way that makes it clear they may be up to something.

The first thing to do is depict her sitting about, so her situation is clear, and them too, so her motive is.

This is less fun than it may sound.

There's a subtle problem with striking and unusual settings, especially in fantastic worlds.

You can plant a Chekhov's gun there without realizing it. Indeed, you can plant a whole armory of them.

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I have two story ideas hanging in inspiration, for the want of an incident that is essential to later developments. Both of them require that a child be punished at the say-so of another child, who is actually the guilty party.

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Pondering a story, I realized I could move the inciting incident much earlier than I had thought.

But not to the beginning.  There was still some set up needed.

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My heroine needs some advice.  Fortunately, I have it to hand, having read it a while back, not in the original Spanish Renaissance advice book, but quoted in a book about that era:  a young woman who has fallen in love with an unsuitable young man and wants to fall out of love should engage in reading and horseback riding to occupy herself with other things, and if she does happen to think of him, to dwell on his faults.

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Revising though a story at a canter is wise.  Because it makes you wonder, sometimes, what you were thinking.

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Some forms of set-up are easier than others.  The heroine uses this bit of magic or that for minor things, and so you know, when we reach the climax, that she can unleash it on a grand scale.  That's because it doesn't affect the plot.

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