Tag: grumphook

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More Thoughts on Grumphook

Each time I consider the Grumphook and Gertrude storyline “How to Train Your Dragon” floats up. I don’t mind my brain making the obvious comparisons and I don’t mind the likelihood readers would call that movie to mind as well, but I’d rather it not be the very first thing either of us thought. The alliterative title doesn’t help much.

For the opener I’m tempted to start at the point the king and soldiers are departing Kindlewind village. Some tense but polite words between the King and Gertrude regarding the state of the village stores. I’d follow that with an exchange between Gertrude and some second to expand on the depleted, but potentially workable situation. The King will of course promise to return with the prizes of battle…and in time for winter.

I’m tempted to do that instead of the alternative: starting sooner to show the ‘invasion’ of soldiers and the king’s lack of concern. Then I can contrast that with the dragons’ siege. This pleases me from an artistic sensibility but bothers me as too uptight for a dragon story. Additionally, there’s that well-known writing saw about starting as late in a scene as possible, so I’m back to the first option.

Maybe I get better artistic compare/contrast food looking at the similarities between Gertrude as a mother and Grumphook as a near mother. And…the best way to do that and the miraculously simple way to give the dragons a continued reason to stay in Kindlewind is to put Grumphook’s egg in the middle of it all. The egg gets stolen by the village and gets found by the dragons before the villagers can crack the egg. It shouldn’t be hard to concoct a situation in which the dragon decide to leave the egg be…probably just a matter of keeping it warm.

Now I just have to come up with a plausible way for the villagers to heist the the egg in the first place. Foolish boys sounds like the easiest bet. Using incautious teens saves me from too much rationalization on the part of the village to acquire the egg. Not that I don’t need some, but I think the king’s men depleting the resources of Kindlewind probably gets me 80% of the way there and the boys another 15% I just need a third small impetus to put me over the top for excuses.

What good is separating these same boys from the village? It splits the story in two or worse leaves me a convenient and lame out for resolving the siege in the endgame with a somewhat camouflaged deus ex machina unless I tell the boys’ story as well. However, doing that would rob Gertrude of her sole hero status and I’m inclined not to do that. What I do like about sending the boys off—letting them escape—is the struggle it introduces between Gertrude who plans to resolve the situation locally and other elements of the village incline to await the various external saviours.

Maybe I could just bring the boys back with the ancient book on dragon lore. Make them seemingly the heroes. In here I’m also thinking that the book not be bullshit as I’d previously indicated but that the ‘rules’ for engaging a dragon into a formal duel have already be satisfied with Gertrude’s prior encounter following the escape of the boys—that one of the rules is a double jeopardy sort of thing that allows Grumphook an out when Gertrude comes to make her informed proposal.

I sure have a knack for writing similar length paragraphs. That bothers me more than a little bit.

602 words on day 655

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Grumphook on the Wing

Last two day I wrote elsewhere.

Pinch 1 – Grumphook discovers an early effort of some boys to escape and flames the terraced farmland.

This scene seemed like something I could work on without getting too caught up in and easily throw away if needed. I’ll probably stick with imagery rather than delve into Grumphook’s character.

Grumphook lay sleeping in the cool mud of the pig pen she’d modified to suit a dragon. Those modifications included smashing the mill pond upstream to divert more water to make more mud and removal of the pigs via ingestion—the final pig cowered in the broken nearby shed. She heard the alert in her dreams, and for a momemt it mixed incongruosly with her rending of a fat just-sheared sheep. Her body reflexed into the air, wings shifting back before unfurling upward then than flapping down and around as if she were trying to hug the air beneath. Her legs kicked the ground in mostly the right direction with mostly the right traction. She instictively rolled downmountain to gain speed and loft with less energy. A stone chimney crashed into her left shoulder before she completely abandonned the squeeling dream-sheep.

An upslope wind bent the tops of Douglas firs as it approached the village and the dragon. Grumphook timed her climb to coincide with the favorable wind and rose into the mountain sky higher than her sisters. It didn’t take long for her to spot the cause of the call that woke her. She saw the warmth of the boys huddled near a cool rock spur. It would have been a sufficient hiding place if dragons had human eyes.

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I was planning to go into how she didn’t much care if the boys got away or not. That she did of course try to flame them or at least scare them. But she decided to take her retribution on the village instead, so she flamed the terraced farmland.

The boys who excaped thought they had caused the eradication of their village and never returned while the village which doesn’t get razed thinks the boys were lost as well. Then maybe I can bring them back somehow. Maybe one of the boys is Gertrude’s son.

374 words on day 650

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Grumphook and Gertrude

This 20 master plots book is organized rather rhythmically. Thus, following the rescue plot, is the escape plot.

I find it a little frustrating to have these core plots in mind as I compose each point, but not to see the evidence of such in the end. I suspect it’s the manufactured use of the plots from a list combined with my desire to do my own thang that causes the problems, but I ought to be able to adhere to the plan better I think.

The plot book indicates that in the first part our hero should be imprisoned, in the second planning her escape or making failed attempts, and in the third escaping. I’ll try not to make this sound like The Shawshank Redemption.

Theme –

Setup – The passage and quartering of the king’s troops in a tiny mountain village leaves Gertrude, our stout matronly Mayor, little choice but to scour into dragon lands for food. A single dragon egg is said to be able to feed a army for months.

Hook –

Plot Point 1 – Upset with the villages transgressions, Dragons surround the little mountain village. Grumphook is particularly upset since it’s her egg in question.

Pinch 1 – Grumphook discovers an early effort of some boys to escape and flames the terraced farmland.

Mid-point Twist – Gertrude discovers in an old text that dragons operate by a rigid code of ethics. From this she determines to challenge Grumphook to a dual.

Pinch 2 – Grumphook not only soundly defeats Gertrude but also informs her the book on dragon ethics was historical BS.

Lull – The dragons depart with no explaination. Initially elated the cautious villagers become confused and suspicious. Stockholm syndrome(?). Zoo syndrome(?).

Plot Point 2 – the dragons return with evidence of having slain the kings men, so no army will swoop in to save the village.

Conclusion – as in all great escape stories, they tunnel out. Duh.

348 words on day 643