Foreshadowing Your Action

Do you foreshadow what going to happen in your story?  Like, drop tidbits of information in the early chapters that are important to your finale?   Or, does a character wander aimlessly through your narrative ... until suddenly s/he does something that twists the plot the way you want it to go.  The latter is harder to accomplish in a multiple viewpoint story, but still can be done when none of the important characters clues into the motivations of the stealth-character.

The Read ...

Tamora Pierce is a past master of tying up the loose ends and still leaving a hook for the next installment.  My favorite example in Beka Cooper, Bloodhound was a crippled, nasty-tempered pigeon by the name of Slapper.  To understand what I'm saying, you should know that Beka is a young adult set in a medieval fantasy world of Tortall where magic works.   While Beka has magical talents (speaking with the dead who ride pigeons to the Death God and hearing scraps of dialog caught in dust-devils, aka spinners,) --  the stories read like police procedurals.

Slapper appears as part of a greedy flock of pigeons that Beka feeds in the beginning of the day [and other times] -- while writing in the journal that becomes the book.  After the beginning character intros and plot hints are set in the first third (+/-), Slapper appears on the ship taking Beka and her partner to the "scene of the crime".  He annoys Beka regularly by demanding hand-outs 

About 2/3s the way through, one of the minor villains is killed by the super villain's henchmen  and ends up riding Slapper because he had "unfinished" business.  The finale is well-motivated, by a henchman killing Slapper who attacks three of them trying to escape capture.  Beka ignores her orders to stay out of the way to wreck vengeance for Slapper's death.  The problem?  One of the people she chases is the super-villain whom she was ordered to leave alone.

Just in case you didn't notice, I'll repeat.  The book ends like all great young adult books where the fledgling accomplishes what the adults can't do -- find the villain.  Beka's adult partner did link up with her in the end and helped save her bacon.  The scene also resolved the first problem introduced at the beginning of the book.  Beka's bad luck in keeping a partner.

The book would be good study in how to construct a book.

Web Notes ...

Perhaps you've seen agent Nathan Bransford's article in the Huffington Post about the "rejection letter of the future".  He thinks that agents will only respond to queries for stories they want to see more of.  I expected more of an explosion even though I agree with him.   Responding to 500+ queries a week must get tedious at best even if the agent considers themselves a miner.  I'm all for it ... if the agents also gives an automatic response when they receive the query ... and a definite time for a positive response.  No response = rejected.

Don't worry too much, though.  As there are agents who still insist on paper queries, some agents will continue to send "written" rejections. 

Progress (?) ...

By Tuesday, I had over 1,000 words of Voices down.  Then, I dinked.  Adding a bit here and a bit there and setting up for the coming flood.  [To soothe my feelings, I call this adding "texture".]  The great scene with the La Llorona-take-off ghost will be truncated from what I first imagined it.  No great explanations of why she's still hanging around the mortal plane.  She'll just scare the ***** out of Kaffy Anne, who'll run away and wish she never sees a ghost again.  

Then, there's the added scene of KA being seen with a classmate coming up from the creek together by the busybody who's trying to get social services to take the kids.  --  All in one chapter, the part that hasn't been written yet.  Just notes sitting there festering.

Trivia ...

Did the Friday run-around, and took the time to look at the book racks since the to-read pile is getting a little short.  I took the time to see what type of books were popular.  My quick guesstimate says "Vampires rule the racks."

And, Skin Trade, the newest (?) Anita Blake, is out in paperback and in my hot little hands.  It's not the newest/last in the series.  There are two more in the "cheapskates pipeline."  Which comments makes me wonder:  Do you dream of your novels coming out in hardcover first?

Finding Story Ideas

Where do you get your story ideas?  The lack of new story ideas in my files -- until yesterday, the New York Times (8 June 2010) delayed my morning routine -- had been bothering me.  Suddenly all sorts of ideas bounced against each other in my head -- all inappropriate for "fantasy writer".  After all, I write the serious make-believe stuff.

On the front page, a headline gives the bare bones of a great novel pitch:  "Army Leak Suspect Is Turned In, by Ex-Hacker".  Add a few names, motivations (anti & pro), a setting, and reduce it to "A wants x more than anything in the world, but D stands in the way because ..."   Need a situation to surround these combatants?  How about the implications of Estonian language police patrolling classrooms for signs of Russian being spoken?  --- Change the cause and you could have a dozen novels.

If you need more ideas to flesh out your idea, the Business Section has an article about how the US Air Force is using savvy social networkers in the war efforts.

The first story structure that grabbed me:

This story idea leapt at me as soon as I picked up the Science Times.  An entrepreneur, named Robert T Bigelow, may be providing the world with a viable, moduale space station -- that would work in space, on the moon ... and, hopefully, on Mars.  Bigelow bought the exclusive rights to unused NASA patents for inflatable spacecraft and ran with them to create what might become a commercial space enterprise.  The biggest hole in his plans at this point seems to reliable transportation.

Besides transportation, other possible glitches exist -- like supplying food, water, air, sanitation, etc.  Think of all the things that could go wrong from bureaucrats to asteroids, and you have a hundred stories or more, once you got your world set.  Still, this is the first time I've been hopeful about the space program since Nixon castrated it.

Then, for those who are wondering 

why they are

in debt for a humanities degree,

I offer David Brooks, New York Time columnist and PBS News Hour commentator.

"Over the past century or so, people have built various systems to help them understand human behavior:  economics, political science, game theory, and evolutionary psychology.  These systems are useful in many  circumstances.  But none completely explain behavior because deep down people have passions and drives that don't lend themselves to systemic modelings.  They have yearnings and fears that reside in an inner beast you could call The Big Shaggy."

Isn't that a nice, polite way of saying people are messy?  And, we writers get to slog through all that mess.

The Read ...

Am thoroughly immersed in Tamora Pierce's Beka Cooper, Bloodhound and wish for the days when I could just sit down for a couple hours and a stretch and read.  I guess if you nit-pick publishing categories, you might say Beka is a fantasy police procedural.  To me, it's a fantasy and a darn good read.

Half-way through the book and enjoying how she develops her cast of primary and secondary characters.  Has two real good villains, old standbys from the first book, and a cast of new allies.  Keeping a series fresh tip:  Pierces locates the book in a new city where Beka and her partner are at a disadvantage. 

Progress ...

I put another Half-Elven story on the desktop to work -- a sword and sorcery romance which answered Linden's question about what the blazes his Defender of the West saw in her ring-mate.  I'm sending it to WolfSinger Publications -- even though it might be a mistake -- because I have some ideas on marketing I want to try on something small.   If they reject it, I get to start water-skiing at 60 miles per hour.

Voices ...  Am finally getting words down on the computer screen ... and not revising (very much). 

Trivia ...

Wiggles got totally disgusted with me yesterday.  While I sipped coffee and read the paper, he waited on the kitchen table stool.  Glared at me as if to say, "Why isn't your butt in the chair?"  By the time, I wandered into the living room, he was no where to be seen.  Though his brother hopped on my lap for a quick pet.