Stories are a way of life

 So I'm back.

What to say? I've been writing and brainstorming and drawing more in the last few days than I have in awhile. It's...like being on a sugar rush but with ideas and stories and characters. I'll probably try to go a little low key this weekend, so as not to burn out.

But as to the actually Challenge #2 (Nights of Heroes)...

Well, spend a lot of time today setting up how I wanted to start it. The revisions I've done up to this point had suffered from a lack of focus in the first scenes: what the characters want, what's happening, that sort of thing. So I asked myself, well, here's what I worked out:

What’s supposed to happen in the scene?

What would I want readers to know or understand about him first? And so on?

1.      He’s good, but not enterprising. He’s giving, but not attached. He’s an optimistic realist without ambitions (for reasons)

a.       How do I show this?

                                                              i.      Gives bread to children – he’s nice and selfless and giving

                                                            ii.      Helps fix a roof – he’s hardworking and giving and helpful

                                                          iii.      Finds shoes for someone – he’s nice and giving and mindful of others

                                                          iv.      Retrieves a doll for a child – he’s nice and kind

                                                            v.      Rescues an animal – he’s nice and protective and good

                                                          vi.      Steals back money for a poor tailor (family/father flashback) – good but underhand, and empathic and selfless

1.      Also sets up that he can steal

(I decided on the last option.)

So I now have a focus and something I aiming for. It helps.

Furthermore, I played out a major character backstory (+ another story quick synopsis that said character is part of) in my head this morning. And it gave me so many feelings. The character and the story and I just -- I finally got, I think, what Robin McKinley meant in her author notes in Rose Daughter when she talked about how a story -- a real one -- is like a puppy. You'd know when she came across one, rather than a stone. 

See, I have other stories that I really like the ideas of them. And I have at least one story that I like the characters in. But I realized there are the stories that are interesting (they have idea I like and when I explain them to myself it's about the precision or what I'm showing in the story). And there are stories that I just have strong FEELINGS for. Nights of Heroes is one of them. My Moon-demon Lineage is another. This other story I outline this morning is. And the good ideas or themes in the others, I can still use them in other work. I don't need to tell that theme in that story. It just felt like a really important thing to realize.

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part of the Every Single Day for my charity challenge to WWF | next update will be on 9 Jan 2017!