Writing goals are essential to getting anything completed. The main reason aspiring and frustrated writers fail is because they cannot find or make time to write, or if they can, they do not have a viable goal to reach for other than the concept of having an idea for the story and wanting to write it. Now wanting to write something is awesome but that's the easiest part, having an idea is even better but it's still kinda easy to have an idea. What matters is getting that damn thing completed!
There's nothing more fulfilling than just getting that beginning in and introducing your awesome character (you know, that scene at the beginning of your manuscript where the character has a long look at themselves in the mirror and you get to describe their hair color, skin type, bone structure, and what gemstone their eyes match). After that, you get to set the plot rolling by writing the catalyst scene that throws your character into turmoil and jeopardy and might even introduce them to the dreamy love interest or some other important character who is quirky, or cool, or tortured, or terrifying. There is such a RUSH in being able to breathe life into those scenes you've been rolling over in your head and at that point you can't stop writing!
The words just flow from your fingers. You find yourself laughing as you write or smiling smugly at your words. YOU ARE A MASTER OF WORDS and you get such a thrill at knowing how everyone is going to read this story and... and then...
The feeling leaves. It starts with hitting scenes that just don't excite you. They're important scenes but they don't feel right. You know you can come back and fix them later because of the rule of NO EDITING the first draft. Still, they're not as exciting as the scenes you can't wait to write.
So then you leave it a few days and then try coming back to work on more interesting scenes hoping to fill in the less interesting scenes later. That works for a short time but then even that loses it's luster. Writing becomes less and less every day, and what once was a torrent of words has become a drought. The manuscript gets put away and nothing more gets written.
That's burnout... fizzle out.... whatever you want to call it.
A good way of fighting burnout is by setting wordcount goals and making sure to meet the wordcount every day. It locks you into moving forward and even if the writing is bad the urge to turn back and delete or edit is curbed because you need to keep those precious words on the page so you can meet wordcount. It's the whole reason why National Novel Writing Month is so successful.
Sometimes, though, you even reach wordcount burnout! D: D: D: It's like, that goal of 2000 words becomes a goal of 1500 which becomes a skipped day which becomes a weekend off. Then it gets depressing when you find you haven't reached your weekly wordcount and it becomes easier to declare oneself defeated.
The only remedy I can see for this, if one does not want to abandon the story that is, is accepting the dwindling wordcount as a victory over writer's block rather than a failure to meet the self imposed standard. Writer's are naturally skittish creatures and it does no good to feel inadequate and depressed over something like the number of words written per day. Feeling like a failure only encourages giving up.
It's better to suffer a week or two, or even a month of writing days where only 200-600 words are written and trudging towards a second wind of epic writing than it is to become frustrated and give up completely on a manuscript when a daily wordcount of 1000-2000 is not met. Accepting the tiny wordcount results in a constant movement forward. The alternative of feeling inadequate and abandoning the manuscript only ends up in ashes and broken dreams.
I know they say "don't force it" but if you are really serious about finishing a longform manuscript I think you should force it when you've hit the wall. Squeeze out 200 painful words every day, even if they're words you are ultimately gonna overhaul or delete. Nothing about writing is easy, and pushing yourself to your limits even if your brain is tired, can only serve to toughen you up and prep you for sitting with a manuscript for the long haul.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Moribund Tales by Erik Hofstatter
Moribund Tales by Erik HofstatterMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Children are never safe, neither are expectant fathers or philandering girlfriends in this devilish collection of short fiction from author Erik Hofstatter.
The tales collected in this slim volume range from revenge and comeuppance fables to the horrifying and harrowing. There is a consistent theme of how violent the emotions dredged up by jilted love or infidelity can make an unstable person, and there are also tales gleefully turning upside down any notion that children or babies have any safe spot in this world.
The prose is very poetic minded and descriptive, and although some might call that "flowery" , I rather liked it because it made me think of early Anne Rice or writers like Edgar Allen Poe. There is a lot of Victorian influence to the style of writing and the subjects, and the bleeding heart of the collection is very romantic minded.
I will note that there is one story that literally made my drop my kindle and gasp! But I will not say which one as I do not want to give away any spoilers.
I heartily recommend this book! Download it now!
View all my reviews
You can purchase Moribund Tales on Kindle for 2.99.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Mad Writer's Club Week 7-- Clashing Storylines
One of the strangest thing about the manuscript I'm working on, (for all those keeping track it's my cracked out modern hockey rewrite of "Dangerous Liaisons"), is the schizoid differences between the various storylines of over a dozen characters.
Ideally, I outlined and intended to do a tongue in cheek rewrite just using the templates for the major characters, Valmont, Merteuil, Cecile, and Madame Tourvel. I really wanted to pay homage to the novel I am such a fan of, but also, I wanted to add a little bit of fun and humor to it, while also paying note to my rabid love of professional ice hockey. Even at THIS point it's already gone too far haha.
As the draft moved along though, weirder stuff began to pop up--like the talking goalposts, and a weird secret society that has its roots all the way up to the Vatican, and the appearance of a living saint! Truthfully, a lot of those storylines have a lot to do with my adolescent adoration for Anne Rice and the original "Dark Shadows" TV series. *salutes them*.
The storyline that surprised me the most, however, was how deeply I began immersing into the lives of the children of the characters. Initially they were just to be background fodder, only brought forward when needed as an excuse to bring character A (a nanny or parent) into a situation where they could interact with character B (another parent). Or they could pop forward with a cute scene or a reason to give a typically "bad" character a "see, she really has heart!" moment.
I couldn't bring myself to stay so distant though. Argh! I began to probe into the lives of the kids and spin tales for them. While the adults in this story are busy plotting, and seducing, and being seduced, what could the kids possibly be going through? Kids aren't stupid, even if things aren't spelled out for them they still notice when things are off. What sort of effect does all this craziness have on them?
And just like that, a door opened. Things in this reality are so weird that I began to write story-lines for the children that open doorways for them to other realities. A world where cursed mummies attack, flying monkeys descend, evil doppelgangers threaten, and magical scepters can transport them to different times and places! And this is not stuff just in the children's heads, this is REALLY happening to them right under their parents' noses and NO ONE notices.
Now the fun of it, is that none of these adventures are completely experienced upfront for the reader. The reader sees only slightly more than the parent sees, but not the whole picture. It'll just be a tease of the world that is mostly hidden from adults but is present and perfect for the children to escape into while the authority figures in their lives prance around their own soap opera.
Will any of this work? DOES THIS WORK?
I DON'T KNOW!
We'll see. The point is, I get to put in a mummy's curse. Woo!
*scampers*
Ideally, I outlined and intended to do a tongue in cheek rewrite just using the templates for the major characters, Valmont, Merteuil, Cecile, and Madame Tourvel. I really wanted to pay homage to the novel I am such a fan of, but also, I wanted to add a little bit of fun and humor to it, while also paying note to my rabid love of professional ice hockey. Even at THIS point it's already gone too far haha.
As the draft moved along though, weirder stuff began to pop up--like the talking goalposts, and a weird secret society that has its roots all the way up to the Vatican, and the appearance of a living saint! Truthfully, a lot of those storylines have a lot to do with my adolescent adoration for Anne Rice and the original "Dark Shadows" TV series. *salutes them*.
The storyline that surprised me the most, however, was how deeply I began immersing into the lives of the children of the characters. Initially they were just to be background fodder, only brought forward when needed as an excuse to bring character A (a nanny or parent) into a situation where they could interact with character B (another parent). Or they could pop forward with a cute scene or a reason to give a typically "bad" character a "see, she really has heart!" moment.
I couldn't bring myself to stay so distant though. Argh! I began to probe into the lives of the kids and spin tales for them. While the adults in this story are busy plotting, and seducing, and being seduced, what could the kids possibly be going through? Kids aren't stupid, even if things aren't spelled out for them they still notice when things are off. What sort of effect does all this craziness have on them?
And just like that, a door opened. Things in this reality are so weird that I began to write story-lines for the children that open doorways for them to other realities. A world where cursed mummies attack, flying monkeys descend, evil doppelgangers threaten, and magical scepters can transport them to different times and places! And this is not stuff just in the children's heads, this is REALLY happening to them right under their parents' noses and NO ONE notices.
Now the fun of it, is that none of these adventures are completely experienced upfront for the reader. The reader sees only slightly more than the parent sees, but not the whole picture. It'll just be a tease of the world that is mostly hidden from adults but is present and perfect for the children to escape into while the authority figures in their lives prance around their own soap opera.
Will any of this work? DOES THIS WORK?
I DON'T KNOW!
We'll see. The point is, I get to put in a mummy's curse. Woo!
*scampers*
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Mad Writer's Club Week 6 --To Trigger Warning or Not to Trigger Warning?
You know how everything comes with a trigger warning these days?
It's an increasing trend I'm seeing, this whole trigger warning business.
The first time I saw the trigger warning tag was back in the days of fan-fic and it was sandwiched among stories that held tags like M/M, non-con issues, bdsm, trigger warning: contains ass babies. Readers of all sorts traversed the world of fanfic and the writers, intoxicated with their strange sort of internet fame (every now and then someone got a cease and desist email from a famous person's lawyer, eeeeef!) began to oblige sensitive readers who demanded stories should have ratings on them because sometimes they just want to read a cute Harry Potter fanfic where Hermione takes initiative and wins Harry's heart, and they don't want to be surprised by Professor Trelawny getting it on with the Weasley twins while Ron is being forced to watch while gagged and bound on a chair.
The trigger warning increased, however, as readers wanted trigger warnings for more than just the bizarre, but also for the potentially emotionally upsetting. Everyone is unique in personality and experiences, and so one cannot anticipate the traumas a potential reader has gone through, and how they process reading scenes that may or may not remind them of bad things. This has always been true as long as there has been fiction writing, and as long as there have been people who have gone through traumas. In the old days, the only way a reader could avoid something with a triggering moment would be if someone else had read a certain novel or story and warned their friend off it, in case it might upset them.
The first time I ran afoul of the trigger warning code was when I posted a fanfic of pirates, and bad piratey behavior happens in it, which basically means murder, looting, rape, and mayhem. The pirates were not good guys by any means, and I wasn't presenting them as such, nor did I condone the bad stuff they were doing. It was just a pirate story.
Feeling pretty satisfied with it I posted it, got a few good reviews and then a very long, very upset review appeared. In it, I was called out for not putting a trigger for the bad things in it. I had ruined her day. I had ruined the characters she loves. The "R" for violence and sex tag I had put on it did not come close to covering what she had been assaulted with while reading. The bottom line, I was rude and uncaring and insensitive to her as a human being. I needed to apologize.
I didn't apologize. She felt bad after reading it, yeah that's sad, but... well... her existence did not come into play as I was writing the damn thing and after posting it? Well... I still don't know what I am supposed to feel. I've seen and been through some horrible things in my own lifetime, just as countless other people have, and those horrible things often show up in my writing. Of course those things are upsetting, they're supposed to be. That's why there are horrible things.
One way of coping after experiencing horrible things is to pretend horrible things do not exist. Now, it's understandable and good for someone who is fresh off a trauma to avoid that particular trauma if they can until they've healed enough to process the badness of the world again, but to avoid it completely for the rest of their lives and ask complete strangers to shield them as well? I'm just not on board with that.
I have had editors tell me "this scene might be triggery", and although I have done what I can to tweak certain scenes to appease an editor I still can't shake that nagging irritation I feel at being told I have to self-censor to avoid hurting someone's feelings.
I don't think I'll be including one in the manuscript I'm writing. There will be material that is violent or aggressive, or hair raising or whatever. Perhaps there will be a reader or two who will be happily reading along and then they'll run into a chapter or scene where they go, "WTF this shit is upsetting!" They'll fling their kindle aside and never read it again.
I am not answering to an editor, and potential readers are not my editor either. Sure, there will be some scenes and storylines that might upset someone or other... but I think we can all get through it and survive.
It's an increasing trend I'm seeing, this whole trigger warning business.
The first time I saw the trigger warning tag was back in the days of fan-fic and it was sandwiched among stories that held tags like M/M, non-con issues, bdsm, trigger warning: contains ass babies. Readers of all sorts traversed the world of fanfic and the writers, intoxicated with their strange sort of internet fame (every now and then someone got a cease and desist email from a famous person's lawyer, eeeeef!) began to oblige sensitive readers who demanded stories should have ratings on them because sometimes they just want to read a cute Harry Potter fanfic where Hermione takes initiative and wins Harry's heart, and they don't want to be surprised by Professor Trelawny getting it on with the Weasley twins while Ron is being forced to watch while gagged and bound on a chair.
The trigger warning increased, however, as readers wanted trigger warnings for more than just the bizarre, but also for the potentially emotionally upsetting. Everyone is unique in personality and experiences, and so one cannot anticipate the traumas a potential reader has gone through, and how they process reading scenes that may or may not remind them of bad things. This has always been true as long as there has been fiction writing, and as long as there have been people who have gone through traumas. In the old days, the only way a reader could avoid something with a triggering moment would be if someone else had read a certain novel or story and warned their friend off it, in case it might upset them.
The first time I ran afoul of the trigger warning code was when I posted a fanfic of pirates, and bad piratey behavior happens in it, which basically means murder, looting, rape, and mayhem. The pirates were not good guys by any means, and I wasn't presenting them as such, nor did I condone the bad stuff they were doing. It was just a pirate story.
Feeling pretty satisfied with it I posted it, got a few good reviews and then a very long, very upset review appeared. In it, I was called out for not putting a trigger for the bad things in it. I had ruined her day. I had ruined the characters she loves. The "R" for violence and sex tag I had put on it did not come close to covering what she had been assaulted with while reading. The bottom line, I was rude and uncaring and insensitive to her as a human being. I needed to apologize.
I didn't apologize. She felt bad after reading it, yeah that's sad, but... well... her existence did not come into play as I was writing the damn thing and after posting it? Well... I still don't know what I am supposed to feel. I've seen and been through some horrible things in my own lifetime, just as countless other people have, and those horrible things often show up in my writing. Of course those things are upsetting, they're supposed to be. That's why there are horrible things.
One way of coping after experiencing horrible things is to pretend horrible things do not exist. Now, it's understandable and good for someone who is fresh off a trauma to avoid that particular trauma if they can until they've healed enough to process the badness of the world again, but to avoid it completely for the rest of their lives and ask complete strangers to shield them as well? I'm just not on board with that.
I have had editors tell me "this scene might be triggery", and although I have done what I can to tweak certain scenes to appease an editor I still can't shake that nagging irritation I feel at being told I have to self-censor to avoid hurting someone's feelings.
I don't think I'll be including one in the manuscript I'm writing. There will be material that is violent or aggressive, or hair raising or whatever. Perhaps there will be a reader or two who will be happily reading along and then they'll run into a chapter or scene where they go, "WTF this shit is upsetting!" They'll fling their kindle aside and never read it again.
I am not answering to an editor, and potential readers are not my editor either. Sure, there will be some scenes and storylines that might upset someone or other... but I think we can all get through it and survive.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Mad Writer's Club Week 5 --Finding Repetitive Phrases
As I'm sludging through rewrites of my cracked out modernized hockey rewrite of Dangerous Liaisons, I am finding little annoying things. The worst things are little words and phrases used over and over again, they are sort of like... they must be the way my brain narrates naturally and they pour onto the page unfiltered and they MUST BE DESTROYED!
It's embarrassing finding little things like that but hell, just snip em and be done right?
What I am finding is that I have a tendency in rough drafts of describing everything as "a bit". She smiled a bit. He walked a bit. He laughed a bit. He moved forward a bit. She fell down the stairs, broke her arm, and fell down a pit of doom... a bit.
That's gotta be annoying for any reader to be met with. I know that sometimes when I read someone else's manuscript little word quirks like that will pop out at me and when that happens I cannot unsee them! It's aggravating! Argh! So when you read over a manuscript of yours, look for words that pop out at you frequently. If you notice words appearing multiple times in a paragraph, or worse, in a sentence, snip them out.
I recently had a manuscript rejected but with personal critique. The editor liked it but they noted that the frequency of the word "yet" was throwing them off in the story. WHAT! I gasped. And I looked over the manuscript and did indeed find a lot of "yet"... well maybe not a lot, maybe the editor was having a bad day and the word "yet" was just particularly irritating. Something . >_>
The point is, do NOT leave it to chance. Edit out those strays. Pluck em! NOW! DO IT!
Remember though, when you are writing a first draft, do not do anything to it. Just keep writing forward, and wait til second draft time to start plucking strays. If you keep backtracking and plucking strays or worse, getting paranoid about which words to choose while you're writing draft one you'll never get a thing done and this is what stops probably about 90 percent of aspiring authors who can never finish a draft of anything.
Awrite I'm done here. See ya next week. XD
It's embarrassing finding little things like that but hell, just snip em and be done right?
What I am finding is that I have a tendency in rough drafts of describing everything as "a bit". She smiled a bit. He walked a bit. He laughed a bit. He moved forward a bit. She fell down the stairs, broke her arm, and fell down a pit of doom... a bit.
That's gotta be annoying for any reader to be met with. I know that sometimes when I read someone else's manuscript little word quirks like that will pop out at me and when that happens I cannot unsee them! It's aggravating! Argh! So when you read over a manuscript of yours, look for words that pop out at you frequently. If you notice words appearing multiple times in a paragraph, or worse, in a sentence, snip them out.
I recently had a manuscript rejected but with personal critique. The editor liked it but they noted that the frequency of the word "yet" was throwing them off in the story. WHAT! I gasped. And I looked over the manuscript and did indeed find a lot of "yet"... well maybe not a lot, maybe the editor was having a bad day and the word "yet" was just particularly irritating. Something . >_>
The point is, do NOT leave it to chance. Edit out those strays. Pluck em! NOW! DO IT!
Remember though, when you are writing a first draft, do not do anything to it. Just keep writing forward, and wait til second draft time to start plucking strays. If you keep backtracking and plucking strays or worse, getting paranoid about which words to choose while you're writing draft one you'll never get a thing done and this is what stops probably about 90 percent of aspiring authors who can never finish a draft of anything.
Awrite I'm done here. See ya next week. XD
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Mad Writer's Club Week 4 -- Jumping the Shark
Yeah we all know what Jumping the Shark is right? The legend of Fonzie jumping over a shark in "Happy Days" because the writer's had literally run out of all the plots and like... prolly drugs and stuff. Well even if you didn't know the origin of the phrase, you may have known the meaning which is basically when a writer has no clue what to do so they just open up the corral holding in the pink elephants.
I personally love when things jump the shark. I know it's considered a sign of a series, movie, television, or book hard up for fresh ideas and we're supposed to groan and stuff and moan about how things are just gonna get moar stoopit from now on in the story lines but whatevs man. I like shiny things. I love bizarre things.
So with my cracked out hockey rewrite of Dangerous Liaisons you can prolly say I began by jumping the shark, and that's prolly true, cause OMG WTF PREMISE! Well, if there's any doubt about it, I made sure to jump the shark early on in the manuscript. Mysterious intruder fixated on one of the wives? Bring it. Hockey player from a rival team so in love with another player that he sends him a deluge of tasty gift baskets to his hotel room? Check. Talking goal posts? Yup. Flying monkeys? Oh... they're coming.
There's going to be an experiment here. How willing will the reader be to traverse this messed up universe? How many genres can I mash into one tale? Can I mix both adult romance and children's fantasy into one storyline? Slapstick and melodrama, mush it all together! CAN I DO IT!
Well I sure as hell am going to try.
The thing that annoys me in anything, whether it's painting, or writing or music... whatever, is the words "You can't such and such...." . If it can't be done then it SHOULD be done. Everyone else is following rules so you may as well bend or break them. If it sounds stupid, it probably is but who cares if you're having fun?
:)
I personally love when things jump the shark. I know it's considered a sign of a series, movie, television, or book hard up for fresh ideas and we're supposed to groan and stuff and moan about how things are just gonna get moar stoopit from now on in the story lines but whatevs man. I like shiny things. I love bizarre things.
So with my cracked out hockey rewrite of Dangerous Liaisons you can prolly say I began by jumping the shark, and that's prolly true, cause OMG WTF PREMISE! Well, if there's any doubt about it, I made sure to jump the shark early on in the manuscript. Mysterious intruder fixated on one of the wives? Bring it. Hockey player from a rival team so in love with another player that he sends him a deluge of tasty gift baskets to his hotel room? Check. Talking goal posts? Yup. Flying monkeys? Oh... they're coming.
There's going to be an experiment here. How willing will the reader be to traverse this messed up universe? How many genres can I mash into one tale? Can I mix both adult romance and children's fantasy into one storyline? Slapstick and melodrama, mush it all together! CAN I DO IT!
Well I sure as hell am going to try.
The thing that annoys me in anything, whether it's painting, or writing or music... whatever, is the words "You can't such and such...." . If it can't be done then it SHOULD be done. Everyone else is following rules so you may as well bend or break them. If it sounds stupid, it probably is but who cares if you're having fun?
:)
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Mad Writer's Club Week Three : Meet My Characters--The Lafets
Week three has arrived! And I seem to be spending more and more time on the rewrites for my insane hockey romance soapie reimagining of "Dangerous Liaisons". So let's meet moar characters!
Well let's meet Cecile Danceny!
She is of course, based on the character Valmont is supposed to seduce in "Dangerous Liaisons"-- Cecile de Volanges. Perky, achingly young, and naive, (the love interest of Chevalier Danceny). In "Dangerous Liaisons" she makes a tasty target and provides like ZERO challenge for Valmont. Well, the poor kid is like fourteen, what sort of fight is she gonna put up against a skeezoid old French rake? *shudders*
The original Cecile is not much of a deep character, she is more like a lamb to slaughter. I originally intended the Cecile in my draft to be just as sweet and clueless. I began with her as a cheerful young nanny and a former parochial school girl, and I started writing her as a veritable sitting duck of girlhood and piety. The more I wrote of her, however, the more she began taking on the upstanding Madame de Tourvel's qualities, and well, I went with it.
Madame de Tourvel is the second target assigned to Valmont to seduce. The spotless wife of a member of French Parliament, she has attracted the disdain of Madame de Merteuil who wants to see her fall from her porcelain pedestal. Tourvel presents an epically tough challenge to Valmont and by the time he does get around to seducing her, he's fallen in love with her. (men, i swear!)
So in my rewrite, Cecile is going to have the qualities of both of these characters. She will start out as innocent, curious, girlish, but as the heat turns up and the Valmont character, Christopher Patrick, comes on strongly, Cecile becomes tougher, and begins to dip into her devoutly Catholic faith to try warding him off.
Not only that, but my Cecile belongs to a family tree that appears in and out of my manuscripts and short stories, The Lafets.
I like to connect almost all of my stories and manuscripts and poems together with reappearing characters. I have a few families that I like dipping into. I have the Forresters, the Bertrands, the Cromwells, and The Lafets.
The Lafet family is my most magical sort of family, and probably the most bonkers. They are very eccentric, and wealthy, the women in the family tend not to marry, generally have daughters, and are often tormented by madness and paranoia. They are prone to supernatural experiences and powers, and sometimes a Lafet woman can become quite powerful and apt to abusing that power. They're a perfect perpetual Greek Tragedy. Woo! :D
So the angle I want to work with my darling Cecile, who is a Lafet on her mother's side, is that she is young and innocent but as she matures, and finds her power and voice as a grown and increasingly sexual woman, she is also plagued by devastating fears about her family history and the possibility of madness. It's hard to talk TOO MUCH about her issues cause that will start giving away certain plot points. EEK!
Well that's all for today!
Thanks for sticking with this ~_~
Well let's meet Cecile Danceny!
She is of course, based on the character Valmont is supposed to seduce in "Dangerous Liaisons"-- Cecile de Volanges. Perky, achingly young, and naive, (the love interest of Chevalier Danceny). In "Dangerous Liaisons" she makes a tasty target and provides like ZERO challenge for Valmont. Well, the poor kid is like fourteen, what sort of fight is she gonna put up against a skeezoid old French rake? *shudders*
 |
| I mean just look at this poor innocent thing! Also, holy hamsters there was a time fairuza Balk was innocent! |
The original Cecile is not much of a deep character, she is more like a lamb to slaughter. I originally intended the Cecile in my draft to be just as sweet and clueless. I began with her as a cheerful young nanny and a former parochial school girl, and I started writing her as a veritable sitting duck of girlhood and piety. The more I wrote of her, however, the more she began taking on the upstanding Madame de Tourvel's qualities, and well, I went with it.
Madame de Tourvel is the second target assigned to Valmont to seduce. The spotless wife of a member of French Parliament, she has attracted the disdain of Madame de Merteuil who wants to see her fall from her porcelain pedestal. Tourvel presents an epically tough challenge to Valmont and by the time he does get around to seducing her, he's fallen in love with her. (men, i swear!)
So in my rewrite, Cecile is going to have the qualities of both of these characters. She will start out as innocent, curious, girlish, but as the heat turns up and the Valmont character, Christopher Patrick, comes on strongly, Cecile becomes tougher, and begins to dip into her devoutly Catholic faith to try warding him off.
Not only that, but my Cecile belongs to a family tree that appears in and out of my manuscripts and short stories, The Lafets.
I like to connect almost all of my stories and manuscripts and poems together with reappearing characters. I have a few families that I like dipping into. I have the Forresters, the Bertrands, the Cromwells, and The Lafets.
The Lafet family is my most magical sort of family, and probably the most bonkers. They are very eccentric, and wealthy, the women in the family tend not to marry, generally have daughters, and are often tormented by madness and paranoia. They are prone to supernatural experiences and powers, and sometimes a Lafet woman can become quite powerful and apt to abusing that power. They're a perfect perpetual Greek Tragedy. Woo! :D
So the angle I want to work with my darling Cecile, who is a Lafet on her mother's side, is that she is young and innocent but as she matures, and finds her power and voice as a grown and increasingly sexual woman, she is also plagued by devastating fears about her family history and the possibility of madness. It's hard to talk TOO MUCH about her issues cause that will start giving away certain plot points. EEK!
Well that's all for today!
Thanks for sticking with this ~_~
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