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Yggdrasil House: Ghosts
Jul. 19th, 2011 11:39 pmDUDE. I will post the story later once I've typed it, but I had to announce somewhere:
I just finished a rough draft.
It's 33 pages long, handwritten on looseleaf. By my estimation, that's about 11,000 words, give or take a hundred.
Also, I did this in four days. That's the fastest I have written in an extremely long time.
The story is sort of a story, sort of a character sketch, but in either case, it's a rewrite of the story I gave the horrendous title of What Child Is This, only less 'every character is a cardboard prop here to be in awe of the mysterious main character'. I tried to give it more of a feel of Nyali's place in Yggdrasil House, that while his story is the one being told, there are others going on in the background. To that end, it's far more leisurely. I wrote what I felt like writing, and while it has problems, I like it. I like that it meanders a bit, going in to explore a bit of Felix, and Chatma, and Nameless Telepathic Komodo Dragon, as well as the dynamics of living in Yggdrasil House. Best of all, while I knew that it would end with Tsuya returning, and them dying together, I was completely surprised at everything that happened in the middle. And yet it still worked out. It was wonderful. Because I had no idea what was going to happen, the plot doesn't start until page 6, and there are a couple of lackluster passages that I need to get rid of or change. But it was fun. I got to write something fun, and I was able to do it in my own voice, not in the voice of a character. I was able to write it and just cram as much world building into it as I wanted, and I could show off without worrying because it's on its own separate continuity -- not Revolutionary or Apocalyptic.
The title is now 'Ghosts', because that turned into one of the ideas of the story: that Tsuya and Nyali are stuck in the way that they are because they needed each other so badly that the Rift World itself froze them in time until they were able to find each other. That reminded me of ghosts, and how one common superstition is that ghosts linger in the world because they have unfinished business. So I made it so that there were other 'ghosts' (I called them something else in the rough draft, but I'm going to change it to ghosts) like them, who all wanted something so desperately, to such a ridiculous degree, that they literally froze themselves in time until such time as they could find what they sought. For instance, a catalyzing character, Juan de Sayil, needs to feel religious. It's been such a strong part of his upbringing, which was Catholic, but he never truly felt any spiritual presence. So the second that he wandered into the Rift World from colonial New Spain, the mental torment that this was causing him made him freeze in time. Eventually, about two weeks before the story takes place, he does find a religion which speaks to him, probably an obscure local religion, and is able to die into that religion.
Yay! It was also fun to age Nyali by 560-odd years, and make him old and well-educated and world-weary, but still quintessentially Nyali. I think I succeeded for the most part.
Now is the time of sleeping, and tomorrow will be the time of typing. Then, eventually, editing.
I just finished a rough draft.
It's 33 pages long, handwritten on looseleaf. By my estimation, that's about 11,000 words, give or take a hundred.
Also, I did this in four days. That's the fastest I have written in an extremely long time.
The story is sort of a story, sort of a character sketch, but in either case, it's a rewrite of the story I gave the horrendous title of What Child Is This, only less 'every character is a cardboard prop here to be in awe of the mysterious main character'. I tried to give it more of a feel of Nyali's place in Yggdrasil House, that while his story is the one being told, there are others going on in the background. To that end, it's far more leisurely. I wrote what I felt like writing, and while it has problems, I like it. I like that it meanders a bit, going in to explore a bit of Felix, and Chatma, and Nameless Telepathic Komodo Dragon, as well as the dynamics of living in Yggdrasil House. Best of all, while I knew that it would end with Tsuya returning, and them dying together, I was completely surprised at everything that happened in the middle. And yet it still worked out. It was wonderful. Because I had no idea what was going to happen, the plot doesn't start until page 6, and there are a couple of lackluster passages that I need to get rid of or change. But it was fun. I got to write something fun, and I was able to do it in my own voice, not in the voice of a character. I was able to write it and just cram as much world building into it as I wanted, and I could show off without worrying because it's on its own separate continuity -- not Revolutionary or Apocalyptic.
The title is now 'Ghosts', because that turned into one of the ideas of the story: that Tsuya and Nyali are stuck in the way that they are because they needed each other so badly that the Rift World itself froze them in time until they were able to find each other. That reminded me of ghosts, and how one common superstition is that ghosts linger in the world because they have unfinished business. So I made it so that there were other 'ghosts' (I called them something else in the rough draft, but I'm going to change it to ghosts) like them, who all wanted something so desperately, to such a ridiculous degree, that they literally froze themselves in time until such time as they could find what they sought. For instance, a catalyzing character, Juan de Sayil, needs to feel religious. It's been such a strong part of his upbringing, which was Catholic, but he never truly felt any spiritual presence. So the second that he wandered into the Rift World from colonial New Spain, the mental torment that this was causing him made him freeze in time. Eventually, about two weeks before the story takes place, he does find a religion which speaks to him, probably an obscure local religion, and is able to die into that religion.
Yay! It was also fun to age Nyali by 560-odd years, and make him old and well-educated and world-weary, but still quintessentially Nyali. I think I succeeded for the most part.
Now is the time of sleeping, and tomorrow will be the time of typing. Then, eventually, editing.
