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Robots Give Me Pause

Going to give myself another pass of narrative tonight.

I keep a record of every writing idea I’ve had or stolen in Evernote.  This past week I organized the straggly bits it and discovered I am frequently drawn to stealing photos and art of mech.  Robotic exoskeletons, pure robots, scifi weaponry and vehicles, and armored soldiers.  I probably never write about such things though—once (I checked).

Each time I see these martial themes in print I respond as most men might, “That’s bad ass.”  As I consider writing though, I struggle to find ideas that do more than just shoot shit up.  I’m all for explosions and improbably aerial vehicles–the starker and more angled the line the better—but I how do you wrap a storyline around pyrotechnics and gunships?  My instinct tells me the Millennium Falcon suffers serious loss of cool points in an all text rendition.

Not that it couldn’t be done.  I think you’d need to treat the mech as a character of sorts or maybe like a pet.  Give it coincidental dialogue or make it an aspect of a character’s personality the same way you might a horse or dog.  You’d need a memorable possibly poetic name.  A name that could stand in for the whole character when needed.

You risk humanizing a piece of metal, of giving a bolt more significance than a nail and both more significance than they deserve.

Also, I don’t know how well I’d do at a military storyline implied by many of these types of inspiration.  I often career off opposite to the initial reaction I have about such things.  How can I make this weapon an instrument of peace?  How can I make this robot a gardener?  How can I make this soldier a life bringer?

I wish I didn’t do that.  Writing anything is hard enough without me making it harder.

Day 353

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Wholesale Razing

In part to remind myself what I’d written regarding the Chronicaller thread and in part out of curiosity for what someone else recently read on 1000 Days I just read back through about ten of my entries.  I suspect my positive opinion of what I’ve written is a shortcoming of an inexperienced writer.  If I knew better I would have been scandalized by the terrible things I’d written and the terrible ways I’d written them.

I wasn’t.  Or at least not universally.

Enjoying reading your own writing is a good feeling.  I’m left somewhat more heartened about what I might write in the future than I have been in the past months.

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Screenwriter John August edits dull or bad passages from scripts in videos on his blog.  His near complete replacement of the original words reminds me of these house remodeling shows.  The episodes where the photogenic carpenter opens with a house situated on a particular parcel of land, then brings in a bulldozer to raze the house, then closes with a shiny new home.  Sure there is a home where another home once stood, but not exactly what I’d define as a remodel.

This analogy is unfair because words and walls aren’t exactly equal, but still technically correct in that John’s edits aren’t tweaks of grammar or upgrades on non-visual words.  He starts with a boy stealing a car and he ends with a boy stealing a car, but much better.  Either the result is more efficiently lined or more compellingly visual.

I hope I’m not overlooking portions of my own writing in need of wholesale razing.

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More on Margaux

Original image: http://ffffound.com/image/508c657e21642aca5803abf6521b9a672bef4ea3
More Margaux: https://1000days.douglasblaine.com/tag/margaux/
From Jasper: https://1000days.douglasblaine.com/tag/jasper/

Following my hiatus, I’m not ready to go full spontaneous narrative.  This morning I’ll merely speculate spontaneously about Margaux’s role in this growing but unnamed thread.

Possibly I should get a name for it?  Or did I have one and forgot?  Rummaging…nothing definitive.

The artwork of the two inspirational images ties Margaux to Jasper in my mind.  I may have found them around the same time, but I’d have linked the two images regardless as the engender thoughts of a similar theme for me: children of responsibility, earthy human magic, and tainted whimsy.  I saw Margaux as maybe something of a Hermione to Jasper’s Harry–though I’ve only just articulated that thought in those terms just now.  At he very least I saw her in opposition of Ned Who-needs-a-last-name.  As Jasper also opposes Ned that paired the two.

Margaux is tied into a classical oracular magic.  Something a bit more business-like I suppose.  She’s especially skilled at it, but I’m thinking technically anyone the dons the Chronicaller would be able to tap into it’s powers.  Maybe she otherwise possesses a general level of magic like most folks, but in regards to the Chronicaller she’s exceptional.  Seems unlikely that she’d gain access to that helm through typical means.  I’ll need to address how she gets involved in the more adult magic.

Maybe not.  Maybe adults don’t have magic.  Maybe that’s how Jasper ends up writing his fifth and final spell (rather than dying–which is what I thought before).  Still, since Margaux is otherwise typical there would need to be an explanation of her coming into contact with the Chronicaller.

I wonder if she runs around with Jasper or if they merely bump into each other from time to time.  I don’t see this as a team-up situation.  The later seems more likely so I suspect I’ll need a way for them to contact each other over distances.  Cell phones and texting or something my magical?  I like the practical common option the most.  So now I need a reason for Jasper to be out there running around and Margaux not to be.  Could be she’s in a wheel chair or bound by circumstance or geography.

What does Margaux want in all this?  I’m not finding much conflict here.  Maybe she wants to be the best Chronicaller she can be.  She doesn’t much care about what she finds or does, she just wants to be the most precise, the most accurate, the fastest to the answer.  And the Chronicaller gets stolen.  And since her magic is due to evaporate as she becomes an adult they need to get it back to get the best prophecies for the future?

Day 351