Arctic Light

What with one thing and another, I completely forgot to mention when this came out, but one of my short stories (The Bride in Furs, which you can read online) is reprinted in Heiresses of Russ 2014: The Year's Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction, edited by Melissa Scott and Steve Berman. This is the first time I've had my work solicited for an anthology (as opposed to submitting it myself); I'm pretty jazzed about it! \o/

... I'm done!

At 65,000 words, that's one (1) rough draft of an original YA fantasy novel. *lays down pen*

(Well, okay, I write on the computer mostly, but laying down the keyboard is a much less satisfying metaphor. Besides, I'm still typing on it. *g*)

( Much nattering about the writing process )

In short: *\o/*

Okay, now -- I had set aside the entire month of October (tentatively) for working on this novel, so now I have some free time, so to speak! The rest of October is going to be given over to fanfic (my SpookMe story; probably try to get started on my Sheppard_HC one too) and brainstorming/worldbuilding for my NaNo novel. Yes, Virginia, there is a NaNo this year!

This entry is also posted at http://friendshipper.dreamwidth.org/288223.html with comments.

Man. Plotting is my kryptonite, and for some reason it's far worse with original fic than fanfic. I don't know why, but while I can more or less hold together a plot in fanfic, when I'm confronted with the infinite sea of possibilities that original fiction has to offer, it's incredibly difficult for me to settle on any given option.

Case in point is this sci-fi novel I've been working on. I've even gone so far as to write the first 5-6 chapters twice -- well, a lot more than twice, actually, but there's a major, plot-critical decision that I simply can not make, and I tried writing it both ways and still can't decide.

The decision that's flummoxing me is whether to set the whole story on Planet A (world which has colonies) or Planet B (world which is a colony of Planet A). The plot would still work in either case, and both options have pros and cons. If I set it on Planet A, then the plot is much tighter, and more focused on the main plot thread; setting it on Planet B introduces a whole host of complications and a large subplot that's really hard to eliminate without leaving a hole. Planet A also works much better thematically; it's just a whole lot tighter. However, setting it on Planet B solves a bunch of sticky plot problems as well, including making it easier to get the main characters in one place without relying too heavily on coincidence. Being able to contrast the two planets side-by-side also gives me a graceful way to explain the rather complicated political and physical mechanics of the universe -- if I keep it confined to the more limited canvas of Planet A, there's no opportunity to explain this stuff until pretty late in the novel, and some of it might never become clear without having to infodump.

Aargh!

For the writer types out there, do you run into that sort of thing, in either fanfic or original fic -- where you have two (or more) equally attractive options: you could have the main character be a cop or a hairdresser, for example, or you could go with pairing A/B or B/C, and you just can't decide, with either option seeming equally attractive? How do you handle it? Just say "screw it", pick an option and start writing? Do you outline it to see where each option would take you? Do you throw the story in a drawer and work on one that's less of a problem?

... but is anyone on my f'list from Montana, or has spent enough time there to be kinda familiar with the geography?

There's a story I want to set there (original, not fanfic). I don't plan on nailing down the location in too much detail if I can help it, but I'd like to set it in rural ranch country with a local sheriff's department if possible. It's set in the late 1980s and there's a supernatural creature killing livestock, which is blamed at first on wolves or cougars.

Is there anyone who has some familiarity with rural or semi-rural Montana and doesn't mind answering some questions regarding basic geography and lifestyles? If necessary, I can move it from Montana to someplace similar elsewhere around the Rockies, though for some reason my brain said "Montana!" when I queried it for a location and has become fairly stuck on the idea. The main character - well, one of them - is a person with a supernatural secret who deliberately sought somewhere remote enough, with no close neighbors, that he could feel reasonably safe from discovery, although this was a few decades ago that he moved there and the area may have gotten more populated since.

One of the huge advantages of writing fanfic is that you don't have to explain anything: who these people are, what they're doing here, who they are to each other; this has all been established for us.

Original fiction is a whole different story.

I've really been struggling with this lately. Part of the problem is that I've recently read several fantasy novels that are horribly heavy-handed with their infodumps (including one with a character who was prone to giving page-long history lessons to the other characters at the drop of a hat), which has led me to being extremely gun-shy about explaining anything. But eventually the reader needs some kind of payoff for their detective work.

Personally, I tend to prefer books and movies that lean towards less explanation rather than more; I really love being dropped in the middle of the action and having to figure out what's going on, assuming that it's actually possible to figure out what's going on. On the other hand, it's very easy to go overboard with that sort of thing; I hate the feeling that the writer is being deliberately coy with me, withholding information or obfuscating their created reality with cutesy techniques like using made-up names for ordinary household objects.

I suppose I'm not really going anywhere with this; I've just spent the day slogging through edits on my graphic novel, and I'm coming to the point where I'm tempted to cut out a couple pages of explanation, since the information on those pages is seeded through other parts of the novel. My beta reader suggests that I eliminate the wordy explanations and let the reader figure things out for themselves. However, since some of this is fairly critical plot information, I'm worried that it might force the readers to do a little *too* much work on their own.

It doesn't help that, being a graphic novel, I can't just drop out a paragraph or two; I have to rearrange pages, panels and dialogue balloons in order to seamlessly eliminate some of the explanation.

Do you have any thoughts on this, as a reader or a writer? Are there certain techniques that you find effective for delivering large chunks of information to the reader, or do you think all such things should be avoided and vital information should be parceled out as part of the natural flow of the story?