Shades of Grey

Bonnie Tyler once sang "I Need A Hero" and I suppose it's the Great Romantic Fantasy - the tall, dark and handsome stranger on his white stallion - but it's not actually mine. Heroes are... well, predictable. Good guys are the ones your mother likes, and while they make great friends, they're not exactly lust fodder (that was almost something much ruder, lol).

Guys that I do lust after have several things in common, but the largest factor is they're not portrayed as good. One of them not be a very long way, but I digress. They are antiheroes. Unpredictable, morally ambiguous, complex, complicated and deeply layered.

 The first character I remember being like that is one most people consider a hero - the Doctor. But he stood with his hand on the Big Red Button that would have wiped out the Daleks and considered genocide. Not particularly heroic, is it?

However it's dealing with uncomfortable moral issues that makes the antihero so much greater than the gun-slinging hero who would cut a swathe through the Armies of Evil and come out the other side with his hair untouched (but his shirt torn) and the line "It's what I do."

Oh, please. It might be, but kindly go and do it somewhere else. You are not the hero I'm looking for.

Bialar Crais, however, is.

I have mentioned him before, but I'm going to do it again because his character epitomises the antihero for me. His was the one that made me look for more than surface actions, that taught me that bad isn't monotone, that every character has a story they are the hero in.

Up until his last moment, the viewer was never truly sure whose side he was on. His character arc is, in my opinion, the best in sci fi. Possibly in television history. He grows and develops and becomes complicated enough that even eleven years on, I still find aspects I've not seen before, that surprise me, that wrench my heart (Crais remains the only character to reduce me to a blubbering wreck)

He was also indirectly responsible for my current crush.

Because without learning to see all the shades of grey in the dark characters, I'd not have realised how layered Baal truly is.

He's supposed to be bad - hell, he's supposed to be evil. Fortuntely someone failed to read that memo and what we're given is a character that most definitely breaks out of the given box.

Without a doubt, there are things Baal does that are bad. He is self-serving, determined to survive and quite frankly doesn't give a damn as to what measures that takes (which tends to be explosive).

However there are a lot of things he does that, on reflection, pose questions not only on his motivation, but on the nature of his species. The bad things are a given, putting himself in the line of fire for the greater good of the galaxy really isn't. He's not supposed to do that, he's not supposed to care. But he does, and he does it more than once.

The trick with the antihero is to make the audience think they know what's going on, then turn it on its head. It's Han Solo leaving the Rebels to fight the Death Star, only to charge in as the proverbial cavalry. It's Mr Darcy disappearing in a righteous huff, only to be shown to rescue Lydia. Bialar Crais apparently betraying Crichton, only to put into action the sacrificial plan to save his friends. Baal risking his life to help his "mortal enemies" save the galaxy.

We all expect the hero to fight the dragon, rescue the princess and save the kingdom. Sometimes though, it's more fun to have the less heroic guy do it, grumbling all the way.

Outline time again!

Flipside has throw up half a dozen questions that I don't know the answer to, meaning I'm going to have to figure out what is actually going on.

Outlining is a new venture for me - the first time I did it was for Ironhaven and was a steep learning curve. First thing I discovered was that I could actually hammer out an outline. Second was that the Perfect Outline is pretty much a myth. Thirdly I found that writing an outline did not kill my desire to write the story, probably because of how I wrote the outline down.

That was simply a breakdown of scenes and plot points. During writing those equated to everything from a paragraph to entire chapters. Some ended up dumped (and lo! outlines *can* be changed!) while others were adapted as the story evolved.

This is my advice - use the outline to work out your rough plot but let the story guide you. Your characters might not do that thng you thought sounded so awesome, or you might realise that Plot B is going to make things too complicated (especially if you're writing to a prescribed word count). Make those changes - do a degree an outline should adapt to your story, rather than the other way around.

But don't lose the plot! Whatever changes you make, don't lose sight of where you want the story to go. Your outline is a map, but you're allowed to make detours... as long as you make your destination.

Progress and Plotting

Look at my progess bar! Looooook at it! One week in and I'm a third of the way through Ironhaven. The deadline is looming (in my mind) though I'm trying my best to ignore it and just write.

Of course, hiccups occur. Today I realised that from tomorrow, my eldest three kids are off school. This is a Problem. It's much harder to concentrate on writing when there's bouncing off the walls and playing on the Wii going on around me.

As I chatted to the awesome Lori this morning and purused my outline, I also realised that I had a sex scene looming. If writing normal scenes is hard with kids asking for toast/a drink/a smack then writing sex scenes is nigh on impossible.

So, with outline in hand, I skipped ahead. The build up is full of angst (my FMC is scarred and scared of rejection) and the actual sex scene is more emotional than explicit. I knew that I needed to have full concentration to make both scenes work. I've written the build up and started on the actual sex. That'll be completed tomorrow, before the kids finish an hour earlier than they should do (nicely jabbing a hole in the plans to Go Out and have a Meal with Hubby).

Apocalypse, NOW

So there I was, planning further writing on an awesome (but not sci fi) story during the merry month of January, when due to certain influences I was assaulted by an idea for apocalyptic future sci fi with steampunk sprinkles.

Convinced this is the Most Awesome Idea Ever, I'm trying to just worldbuild and create characters and still write the (not sci fi) story in January. I suspect that I am going to fail in this determination.

Bother.

Countdown to NaNo: Three Days to Go

I still have no outline. I go blank after a certain amount of lines, because I don't know what my characters are going to do so how can I possibly plan beyond that?

So while other people are singing the praises of techniques like the Snowflake Method (tried and doesn't work for me), I'm still stuck on my planned two chapters and rough plot points.

Countdown to NaNo: Five Days to Go

After waiting almost all of October for Scrivener, I wasn't very impressed by the offering and so am using yWriter as usual. I'd use StoryBook, but for the annoying tendancy to label scenes with the actual day.

So the project file is started and saved, automatic saving enabled and my word count target set up. Time to start filling in the blanks. Today I'm concentrating on characters.

My MMC is Nath Valentine, the black sheep of a mobster family, living at the butt end of the galaxy in an attempt not to get involved. The FMC is Kara Montford, a diplomat trying to bring law and order to a gang war-torn solar system who quite literally crashes into Nath's life. Then we have Lucas Stewart, officer in the largely ineffectual galactic police who's been trying to close Nath's establishment for years and challenger for Kara's affections. There is also a small cast of secondary and incidentary characters who need names/development, which I've not really gotten around to as yet.

Happy New Year!

No, I'm not three months early but rather celebrating the new school year. Hubby has just left, kids in tow, and a great silence has descended over my house for the first time in six long weeks.

I'm going to take a while to bask in the quiet, then get to work.

My word count goal for September is 30K, of which I have about 2 so far. I desperately need to rack that up to something decent and here's how it's shaking down:

To Recover the Satellites - I've reached the First Encounter scene between Corin and Ella. This is tricky, because there are issues that need covering but I also have to remember that he's just come round after nearly dying and is still very ill. I need to get this scene down and out of betas, then I can move on.

Maps and Legends - I have 50K of brain vomit written during NaNo '08 to sift through. Some can be saved with a good edit, some is shite and needs dumping as such. I also have half an outline that needs clarifying. M&L is an erotic fantasy that has three volumes of roughly 50K a piece. I'd like to get volume one is some semblence of order before November, as I'm now planning on writing volume two for this year's NaNo.

And I may have submissions to deal with, depending on whether Spectra pick up To Reach the Dawn or not.

So that's September accounted for, then.