I needed a name for a canal. For those who haven’t heard me say this a thousand times, I hate coming up with names. My go-to tool for this dreaded task is Google Translate. I run several words characteristic of the name-requiring thing through every available language, make a list of promising results, and then smash syllables together until I get something I can live with. Today’s Nameless One was a canal. “Canal” is possibly the most boring word to which I’ve ever applied translation, as it is canal, canal with a K, or canal with an additional vowel at the end in many, many languages. Since elsewhere I have described this urban waterway as smelling like three centuries of accumulated piss, my next characteristic word was “urine,” and here we hit pay dirt.[efn_note]One translation of “urine” was a letter off from a character name in a book I just finished reading, and I cackled at the notion that author used a similar method to name that dude “Piss Guy,” which would have been fitting.[/efn_note] The outcome is a syllable mash and shouldn’t be obvious to speakers of any particular language, so consider “Urine Canal” a gift of exclusive knowledge for long-suffering blog readers.
I wrote the little introductory section (currently labeled chapter “0” and only 247 words to minimize digression). I wanted a working version before I go into the next round of revisions because I’m a holistic author and every little thing has to connect to something else. Since I’m only halfway through this revision, I may have opportunities to pull from and add to it along the way. I already know it defines a made-up word so I can remove that explanation from the story proper. And in its current incarnation, it contains enough cynicism to be a statement from the character I was certain it wouldn’t be from, so even I am not sure of the source at the moment.[efn_note]Perhaps I’ll be able to echo phrasing with multiple characters and further confuse the issue…[/efn_note] Ambiguity achieved!
I’ve been working on how to structure the series. The middle three books take place during the same time period, so their order doesn’t matter chronologically. All three are setting up the final book, so they end not necessarily with the same event but at some part of the same event, and it might be important to have those parts fall in a particular order. I want certain reveals to escalate, so either the story order has to shift or the stories in which those reveals occur have to change. And I’m debating how much the next book to be released needs to be set up at the end of each when the stories are ending at the same time rather than one leading into the next. The next MC staggering into the final scene singing “just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip”[efn_note]So begins “The Ballad of Gilligan’s Isle” by George Wyle and Sherwood Shwartz. A lot of staples of my childhood get adopted by the streaming generations (who have the kind of access to everything that would seem magical to Kid Me, who was limited to live TV and brick-and-mortar store inventory), but I don’t think I’ve come across any Gilligan’s Island discourse. Quick check does, however, confirm the existence of fanfic on AO3.[/efn_note] seems extremely gimmicky even once, much less repeatedly. Doesn’t affect this book much, but this one definitely ends in a way that you’ll reasonably expect the next book to be about a certain thing, and if that actually needs to be the third book instead, I need to counter that reasonable expectation with an excerpt of the real next book, which means not waiting until the last minute to make far-reaching decisions. When I send this one off for editing, that downtime needs to go toward outlining the remaining four books to clarify things and committing to a course of action. That’ll be easier if it goes in the slow cooker NOW.
CJ Leede, author of Maeve Fly, recently wrote about the agency of monstrous women. I have no particular yearning for “fun” villains, but a lot of her points resonated with me beyond that focus.[efn_note]I started writing an essay to collect the thoughts provoked into an essay, but it quickly unfurled tentacles in directions that were never going to meet again and reminded me why I’m not an essayist. I want to explore and expand and connect the far-flung, not focus.[/efn_note] As pertains to this revision, the point that tapped me on the forehead is the obligatory centering of men in everyone else’s thoughts and actions. In the real world, we do it because men hold the umbrella of privilege and everyone else must huddle around them to get even a degree of the protection they enjoy. But that is not the world I’m writing. I don’t claim to have eradicated every vestige of sexism from this fictional society, but compared to the world I live in, it feels remarkably absent. So that “brilliant” idea I had back in Act 1 to use an item acquired from a man to taunt a hostile woman who feels territorial about him is a product of the setting I live in, not the one I’m writing. Heroine can still be amused these two dorks are oblivious to their mutual pining—that’s equitable—but she wouldn’t be catty about prodding jealousy because “neener neener, I’m a threat to the relationship from which most of your security is derived” isn’t a thing. Adding a man actually dilutes their longstanding antagonism. Instead of thinking “these two hate each other because they’re too much alike” upon reading their one interaction, people will think it’s all a catfight over a boy, and bleh to that. Everybody, characters and readers alike, deserves better.
At some point, I want to do a post about how simply not establishing a system of male privilege so that men are never the only people getting an education (and consequently the money, power, and respect that come with possessing ostensibly superior knowledge) reshapes the world. What does religion look like without promoting oppression? What’s the state of medicine when people who live in different types of bodies have always been involved in research and practice? What’s the standard of beauty and fashion when attracting a man has never been crucial for women’s survival? How much better is government when there’s enough diversity among the decisionmakers for someone to say “Absolutely fucking not because your shitty idea actively harms everybody who doesn’t look like you, Kevin”? I’m not talking about a utopia where everybody’s nice all the time and peace and happiness reign, but when there was no mass agreement to designate any group of people less-than, when there is no support if anyone ever gets the idea to get such a movement going, individuals who want to be assholes have to be bold enough to do it without cover. No “that’s just how he was raised” or “that’s how things are where he’s from” or “that’s what they believe in his religion” because that shit would get smacked down every single time it came up in public, everywhere, and there would be consequences for continued failure to treat other people like human beings. If you wanted to be an asshole, you’d really have to commit. I have met enough committed assholes in real life to know some people will go for it, whether in familiar forms or new and exciting ways, so there’s no danger of universal pleasantness.[efn_note]And this is why Fiction World has a robust assassination industry. If your ambition in life is to be unpopular, be my guest, but hire really good security and always err on the side of paranoia because even peasants can crowdfund and there’s frequently a discount for irrefutable shitweasel disposal.[/efn_note] [efn_note]I thought “shitgibbon” might be overused, but browser spellcheck, to which I’ve added no words, considers “shitweasel” commonplace enough to earn its non-mark of approval.
[/efn_note] But things fundamentally change when “of course everybody gets the same rights” has always been the rule.
*reels in the tentacle* But for now, we’ll leave it at no “neener neener” over a boy.
Trimmed the conversation with a wise character to create a smoother entry to the educational portion of the encounter. At this point, I know what the crucial portion of every interaction is, and the goal is to cut or alter everything else to enhance that crucial purpose. Heroine is going to ask for the truth behind a myth, so near the beginning of the scene, we add an observation that the meaning of stories changes depending on what the audience believes to be true. Heroine can later refer back to that and tighten a bolt on the scene’s scaffolding.[efn_note]If I do a better job exploring what Heroine thinks of this myth earlier in the story, change her understanding here, and then change it again later with additional information, I will deserve a treat.[/efn_note]
Took out another tiny complication that seemed like a good idea at the time but didn’t get developed and isn’t needed at this point. *slaps hood* I can fit so much mess into this baby! But it’s more fuel efficient if we’re not carrying a ton of useless crap, so we make a quick stop at the dump and unload the junk from the trunk.
This was an extremely fertile stretch for series development, probably because so many of the key players are in this location, and specifically characters who will be responsible for resolving the overarching plot in the final book. This is where I’m supposed to say something fanciful like the characters are emerging from the dark, misty forest to lie trustingly at my feet and begin telling me their stories, but it’s really just another case of chucking everything into the ADHD slow cooker a while ago. I already had every single element involved in these revelations, but they weren’t connected and now suddenly they are because “ding!”
Fuel an author!