Category: The Blog

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I’ve spent all night flipping through DeviantArt, amazed at all the talented artists. I saved several possibilities, but I think these two are the key inspirations.

Although this one has an anime feel, I love the harshness inherent in this drawing. Look how thin she is, her ribs showing, but there’s nothing fragile or weak about her. I love the wild blowing hair and cape thing. The clothing isn’t right–especially the skimpy top–but at least she’s not totally bodacious.

I also like this one, especially her eyes and the classic lines of her face.

If anyone has other ideas, I’d love to see them, but I think I can move back to plotting.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I’m looking for inspiration for my Given in Fire heroine, Koray. She needs to be extremely tough and strong. She does the saving and the fighting, not the other way around. Keldar is a hard land, a hard life, and she’s used to suffering thirst and brutal heat. Her coloring should be rather dark. I described Chanda’s hair color as the multi-colored scales of the Krait snake blended with threads of fire, and Koray would look somewhat similar. She might fight with scimitar or knives, but she has magic, too. An image strongly associated to her is a white snake, and she can be just as poisonous as a Mamba, as she’ll discover in the story.

The inspiration can be a real actress/model, a role from a movie, a fantasy art rendering, etc. as long as I can see it online and print a copy for the storyboard. I’ve googled and searched to no avail. So many of the fantasy art sites return the damsel in distress with the big beefy barbarian — and that is soooo not Keldar. She’s more Aiel than anything (aka Robert Jordan) but that’s not right either. Any recommendations?

The hero of Given in Fire was easy. I wanted a cultured Prince look, sexy but not with the typical warrior attitude. Yet despite his princely upbringing, there’s a serious darkness in the hero. He’s suffered torture and exposure so great that his mind may be broken. After watching The Dark Knight, how could I not take a look at Christian Bale? The fire in this one is especially inspiring and the wild, crazy look in this one is spot on. However, NOW he’s not real thrilled with “Ranulf” as his name. Not happy at all. He’s adamant that is not his name and I should go back to the drawing board.

Dang characters.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Previous posts: Raw Data, Ask the Questions, The Journey, Getting Stuck, Seek the Tone, Come Full Circle, the DVD Sleeve

A year or two ago, I took a quiz to find out what my “totem” animal is — sorry, I lost the link long ago or I’d share — and it suggested I was a horse at heart. Maybe that’s why each time I try to impose too much rigid structure on my process, I kick my stall to pieces.

At any point in this process so far, I may be writing. I don’t force myself to define all this work first. Each story unfolds differently. Each story needs different gel time in my head or on the page. I can rush the process too much–and have. That’s okay. It just means I have to revise more. No planning you work on before you write the story is wasted, even if you have significant revisions. The most important thing of all is to FINISH THE BOOK. Do whatever you’ve got to do to get to “the end.” If that means ditch the planning stage at some point and write, do it.

For Given in Fire, I decided to continue plotting the story. Some interesting elements have already come out. I have the “Burning in Water; Drowning in Flame” idea going. After getting the DVD Sleeve, I have a new metaphor/theme I want to play with: a candle. Watch for the little flares of magic out of the corner of your eyes. Those are the wonderful little serendipity elements that seem to mean nothing, but if you shelter those fragile little sparks, they could turn into something momentous. I know the idea of a candle is going to play a huge part in each character’s journey. It will be a symbol, in fact, for how they end up feeling about each other. Now that I know that, I can plan to use it from the very beginning. I can drop those little hints of foreshadowing into the story effortlessly before ever writing a word, and that’s what makes a symbol powerful. It’s the little subtle hints from the very beginning that tie the story together.

The next part of the process is to continue refining the DVD Sleeve, or “the Block.” We’ve already broken the story down into ten loose pieces. Now, break them down some more. As I walk each character through the Emotional Toolbox again, I will get more scene ideas. I’ll jot them down. As I look at the key words/themes that spark ideas, I’ll write them down. I’ll keep getting a list of possible scenes, and as I explore each one, I’ll ask a few questions.

What’s the goal of this scene? What’s the conflict? Why? What if Koray did this instead? Will this make her situation worse?

I also love to write a character letter for each core character, or interview them in some way. For the protagonist and love interest, I examine past defining events that lead them to this moment, to this ravine. I want to know their backstory, their core decisions that will make them act uniquely on the page. The most important thing I learn from these letters is WHY. Why does the character feel this way? Act this way?

Once I have backstory, I can lay a few more threads into place. If there’s some darkness in the past that I want to shine light on, I’ll mark that into the block.

From past experience, I know that each “scene” idea I end up with will be approximately 4 pages or 1000 words. Some will be longer; a few may be shorter. If I’m targeting around 20K for this story (but this isn’t written in stone–I can certainly go up to even 30K or possibly larger if I want), then I need roughly 20 or so sections. I’ll target about 2 detailed sections per DVD “block” title.

Again, I’m not going to perfect here. If one block suggests 3 sections, great. If one block only gives up 1 section, okay. I’m not even worrying about POV yet — although once I’ve refined the block to the desired number of sections, I do typically consider POV. Do I have a good balance? Does this story feel like 1st or 3rd? It can still surprise me. With Survive My Fire, I planned to write the whole thing in alternating 3rd, but Chanda came out so loudly, so strongly, I had no choice but to write her in 1st. That’s okay.

Depending on the story, I might create a storyboard for inspiration. I might also create a plotboard (scroll down the previous linked page) so I can visibly track the colored threads through the story and make sure I have a good balance. I might also create a spreadsheet so I can easily track my progress. Whatever feels useful for the story. I will say that the more details I have, the easier it is to write the story. I can put the “block” away and drag it out in a month or two, and very quickly pick up exactly where I left off.

How else do you think I’m tracking my progress through the Letters revision? A spreadsheet of scenes is my guide, even though I targeted the revisions I wanted to complete months ago.

Once you’ve refined the block, you could write a synopsis. This is a habit I’m trying to get into more and more so I can sell on proposal some day. I certainly have the story in my head, and while it will morph beneath the magic of writing, the core themes and arcs likely will not change, at least for me. In fact, once I “see” the story so clearly, I struggle to change it. It’s like a map blazed into the dark corners of my mind. To change it significantly, I have to wad the whole thing up, toss it in the mental garbage bin, and start over again. Even then, I can feel the afterimage lingering. (That’s why I decided to serialize the first draft of Night Sun Rising and start over again.)

What’s the use? Why “waste” this much time on plotting and thinking instead of doing the “fun” part of writing?

I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve started, finished maybe a chapter or three, and then stalled. Dozens. I *can* tell you that my first book — before I ever knew a thing about the craft of writing — took three full rewrites from scratch to get right. That doesn’t mean plotting can save any book. I’ve got two finished drafts of unrelated stories still on my harddrive that are in desperate need of work, and I did just as much plotting and thinking for them. But the key, here, is they’re FINISHED. First draft, the end.

After not finishing a single novel in 2005 because of doubt and fears, my number one goal is to finish. Plotting helps me get there.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Previous posts: Raw Data, Ask the Questions, The Journey, Getting Stuck, Seek the Tone, Come Full Circle

This is something a mentor taught me a few years ago that helps set the foundation of structure into place. After stepping through the Emotional Toolbox once — recognizing the fact that I need to do it again for both characters — and brainstorming, I’m to the point, now, where I have a general feel for the story arc. I can see the hint of hills and valleys in my mind. They’re very foggy yet and undefined, but if I close my eyes and listen very hard, I can sense them there.

Think of the Scene Index of a DVD sleeve. Usually a movie is broken down into segments describing each scene, and a few scenes (4 or so) are grouped together on a single “page” of the index that you can flip through to start a movie anywhere you wish. I do the same thing when plotting a story.

Now it’s important (for me, at least) to not consider these written in stone. These *will* change, so the pressure is off. This is just the beginning. It’s a chance to think about your key words and themes, and use those words in a meaningful way to help break the timeline of Story down into measurable pieces. These are not scenes, but rather “groups” of scenes that sort of go together. I always do ten because that’s what I was taught. Either they happen at the same setting, or you can feel the beginning of a new “act” or the rise/fall of conflict. The important thing is to have fun with it. If it’s not fun, if it doesn’t feel good or comfortable, then don’t do it!

Personally, I find a very odd pleasure in coming up with scene/block names that mean something very significant to me, that I can publish here or talk about, and know exactly what I mean…but that *you* don’t know what I mean until you read the story. Wicked, I know. I think with all the talking I’ve done about Given in Fire that you’ll probably be able to tell in general what’s happening, but this “sleeve” is missing the nuances that will come later. Again, this is just the shell. A beginning.

The Cleft of the Rock
The World Must Burn
White Scales
Love Burns
Munakuri Lands
The Prodigal Prince
Thickening Shadows
My Lone Candle
The Well of Tears
Drown in Fire, Burn in Water

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Previous posts: Raw Data, Ask the Questions, The Journey, Getting Stuck, Seek the Tone

If you’ve read Beautiful Death, I hope you picked up on how the ending mirrors the beginning, reflecting in a matter of a few lines exactly how far Isabella has come through her character arc. For instance, in the first scene between her and Hades, he says “Come to me. I’m the only one who can help you.” Her response is:

Come to me.

Like hell she would, unless she carried enough firepower to blow him back to his planet for good.

Where at the end of the story, the scene plays out completely differently:

“Do what needs done, my lovely sarissa, and then come to me. I’ll be waiting for you beneath our tree.”

He glided away, his aura spinning moonlit rainbows on the marble tiles. Pausing, he looked back over his shoulder, his eyes glittering black ice, and then he tossed his head, shaking silver hair about his shoulders.

Come to me.

She’d better make this last stop a quick visit.

I *adore* coming full circle. I adore playing on key words and twisting the meaning to something else entirely. It’s one of those things that makes me smile with a very pleased spark of joy in my writerly heart.

It also helps me plot. If I know the beginning, and I want the end to come full circle, then I know roughly how I need to end up. It’s not as easy as that, though, not entirely, although it does help.

So I was sitting this morning with my first cup of coffee amidst the mad dash to get everyone ready for church, with my handy dandy notebook (I’ve been watching too much Blue’s Clues–I was even in my Thinking Chair) and I suddenly knew exactly what I needed to do. The pieces just fell into place so loudly, so perfectly, it gave me chills. I’m coming full circle…to Survive My Fire.

A new tribe called Tellan, the neverending hope for forgiveness, was formed at the end of SMF. It was hinted at in The Fire Within that the new azi expected trouble with them. Returning to Tellan also allows me to explore the original devalki, as requested by Jayne at Dear Author when she reviewed both novellas, tying all three novellas up with a lovely tidy bow. It’s only fitting that I explain how that split has fared over the years. How tal’Tellan might decide to work out a bargain with the current azi that’s not exactly according to Agni’s will. Remembering above all, that Shadow wants to ruin and corrupt everything, but especially, love and hope.

Of course, Tellan has been compromised. This plays into Koray’s backstory perfectly, as well as allowing me to show her admired traits and the lure of the Dark Side.

The only piece I still need to work out is when the trip to Shanhasson takes place. I believe it’s her rebellion. She doesn’t want to do what Agni is Calling her for — or she’s tempted to destroy them all in vengeance, which she rightly fears would take her toward Shadow — so she leaves with Ranulf. But they must come back. Back to the desert, back to the Well of Tears.

Why would Ranulf leave his High Throne to a tainted son of Murdering King Darius? Well, sometimes the world has to burn. And sometimes, it must be swallowed in Shadow before we can see the Light.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

While working to get unstuck, I’m also still brainstorming. I need a theme song to help me set the tone, and inevitably, the theme song nearly always touches my key story theme in some way. I may not know why or how, exactly, but when I find the song, I know it, and it always proves crucial to the story arc.

Previous posts: Raw Data, Ask the Questions, The Journey, Getting Stuck

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I remembered some key lyrics from an H.I.M. song (Under the Rose, although at the time, I couldn’t remember the title):

I’ve been burning in water and drowing in flames

I love the mixed metaphors here. Water and Fire are opposites. How do you drown (water) in flame (fire)? How do you burn (fire) in water? I don’t know, exactly, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be finding out in Given in Fire.

I’m still asking the question: What’s the WORST thing I could do? To a people burning in fire day by day, literally carrying fire in their blood, in a land without a single drop of fresh water, the worst thing I could do to them would be…

Give them exactly what they want, sort of. They want water. Water = forgiveness. They lost water because of their devalki (sin). In other words, I need to find a way to drown them in flames and burn them in water.

I’m also making lists of key words and their opposites. Then going back and circling the words that really speak to me. Like:

Keldar	Munakuri
fire	water
burn	drown
honor	shame
devalki	tellan
fight	surrender

I took a fresh page in my composition book and wrote devalki (sin) in one corner and tellan (neverending hope for forgiveness) in the other, then below to form a triangle, my personal key theme word: sacrifice.

Now I’m writing the key song lyrics beneath, starting with burning in water, drowning in flames.

I’ve got a massive playlist looped on Napster right now while I fill in the blanks. Some other potential theme song candidates are:

Faraway by Apocalyptica

S.O.S. (Anything but Love) by Apocalyptica

Hope Vol. 2 by Apocalyptica

something by Whitesnake, because the symbol “white snake” is really speaking to me.

Now here’s the scary/wonderful thing. It seems like I always stumble across the perfect song unexpectedly, by an artist I’ve never before heard before. For Beautiful Death, it was Wings of a Butterfly by H.I.M. Until I saw it listed on someone else’s blog, I’d never even heard of H.I.M. before. Jessica blogged about going to an Apocalyptica concert, and that’s how I found Bittersweet, which I *love*.

So here’s a question for the blogosphere. Do you have a really powerful song you’ve been listening to lately that I should try out? (Lyrics are as important as tone and melody for me.) Who knows, you might have exactly the song I need!

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I haven’t posted again on plotting because I’ve sort of been stuck. But then I realized I should still write up an entry for this, because it’s a necessary part of the process. It’s important not to rush or toss a project out just because you’re stuck. You’re just waiting for the right inspiration.

Previous posts: Raw Data, Ask the Questions, The Journey

It’s inevitable. Sometimes, no matter how much you love a story, you’re going to get stuck. It’s like trying to put a 5000-piece puzzle together only to realize half the pieces are missing, or worse, two puzzles have been tossed accidentally into the same box. Don’t despair; instead, try to use the “down” time to your advantage. Keep brainstorming. Make lists of words that inspire you. They may or may not have anything to do with the story, but something may shake loose.

Two nights ago, I was walking Ranulf through the Emotional Toolbox, and…It wasn’t working. I’m missing something. Specifically, I’m missing an antagonist. I really don’t know who or what the opposition is.

Oh, well, in the Blood and Shadows world, I know the Shadow is always there, always plotting to corrupt and ruin. But for this story in particular, I couldn’t figure out what the direct and visible opposition in the story was. There are so many goals and motivations overlapping, not just this story, not even just the Keldari Fire stories… Really, not even the Shanhasson trilogy. This world is big and complex, the character cast massive, and the timeline is…infinite. I mean, the battle between good and evil never ends.

Needless to say, trying to hold all of these story threads in my head was getting a little muddled. What did Agni want–and how does that affect all the story coming after, while still staying true to everything that has come before? What, specifically, does Shadow want? I don’t want this to dissolve into the same-old “shadow” story. Good defeats evil, the end. *yawn*

So I put the toolbox questions aside and pulled out a new composition book I bought for 50 cents when I bought the kids’ school supplies. (Hint: change up your routine; try writing by hand or typing instead of how you normally write) I started asking questions on paper, writing those questions down even if I didn’t have the answers.

And honestly, I still didn’t have anything. I knew I was pinpointing the hole better, but I still didn’t have a clue.

Today the monsters went back to school (****YAY***) and both That Man and I took the day off. We drove down to Branson and went to the Imax for the first time (aside: I was actually disappointed with the Imax theater–it was basically like any other theatre. I was expecting more. But no other theatre would have shown the movie early enough in the day for us to see it and get back to pick up the monsters early–they get out an hour early on Fridays). What movie did we see?

The Dark Knight.

And I ask you, how could that movie fail to inspire?

I came out of the theatre wishing I could sit down and watch it again, right now, with a notebook in hand.

One line in particular is still blazing in the corner of my mind. I don’t know exactly what the quote was, but something like “He does it just to watch the world burn.”

Burn the world. Agni, the God of Fire, not a fatherly, kindly god but a blood-thirsty vengeful dragon bent on destroying His own people in purifying fire until their terrible sin has been repaid. While He’s not malevolent, exactly, he’s also not a “good” god either, and the Keldari are cut from the same cloth. They’re not all villains — in their world — but they’re not heroes either. They do bad things, hard things, that most (Shannari more than understands that lines are often crossed in the battle against Shadow) munakuri in their fine houses and fertile Green lands will not understand. Things that must be done, no matter how dark.

Sometimes, the world has to burn.

I discarded “Quench My Fire” as too cheesy and having nothing to do with the story theme. Instead, I’m thinking “Given in Fire.” Keldari fans will know what Given means and why that might be important.

Tonight, more notes in the composition book. Maybe I’ll have more answers than questions this time.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Once again, May is discussing plotting, the journey, etc. on her blog, and it’s perfect timing for my next stage of plotting.

A Story is all about the Journey, the hero’s journey. As a reader, I want to take that journey with the character, climb that peak, wallow in the Inner Cave, and return triumphant with the Elixer. Any hero’s journey involves death of some sort–whether physical, death of a dream, loss of innocence…and then the resurrection. Always, the resurrection, hope springs eternal, and the final victory is won. That doesn’t mean I want a “happy ending” — far from it. I love endings that haunt me. I simply want a satisfying ending. I want all the suffering and tribulations on that journey to mean something.

The single-most useful tool I’ve found for plotting/character development intertwined with the hero’s journey is: The Emotional Toolbox. I *always* come to this site and walk through the six questions, usually several times for both the hero and the heroine. Once I’ve got a clear character map for both the hero and heroine, I can usually plot out the rest of the story fairly easily.

Don’t be afraid to answer the questions, change your mind, and start again. Sometimes I think I’m doing fine, I get to Question Six, and realize I’ve missed the whole point. Or I map the hero, and then move to the heroine, and realize I need to do him all over again. *that sounds dirty but you know what I mean* This phase is highly iterative too. I just keep answering the questions, thinking about the fear, the mask, the fear…The Dark Side…until it all sings.

Previous posts: Raw Data, Ask the Questions

~ * ~

I decided that Koray, the heroine of the new novella, is suffering a crisis of faith. She’s a member of a very secret, holy sect dedicated to Agni, He Who Burns. He chose her instead of killing her. She must have some great purpose then, right? But she sees the violence and killing happening all through the desert and she’s…weary. Keldar is a hard land, a hard life, and only a remnant will be saved after Agni’s retribution. She’s weary of the killing, the suffering, the endless thirst, the eternal punishment for their devalki. Is there no forgiveness? Is there no Water? If they’re all going to die in flames anyway…why even bother?

The worst thing I could do to her is make her choose, then. Does she believe in Agni or not? Does she believe she’s qara (Daughter of the Rock) or not? What if it all means nothing? What if her sacrifice means nothing?

So I begin the character map outlined on The Emotional Toolbox.

1. Koray’s Mask is pride in her blood. She’s a White, prized across Keldar for their holy blood. In this question, I ended up changing her backstory to reflect this pride better. (I’m sure that will all come out in her character letter, which I’ll be doing later in this process.) She was sacrificed to He Who Burns and was found so worthy that He spared her. That’s her pride she wears at Sakhr, the Rock of Agni. There’s just one little problem she doesn’t want you to know about…
2. Koray’s Fear is that without her White blood, she’s nothing. Her sacrifice means nothing. Nothing she can do will make a difference in the fate of her people. They’re all doomed anyway.
3. Koray’s Strongest Trait is her pride. She’s White by blood, holy and prized across the desert. She’s qara by her sacrifice, chosen Daughter of Agni, who is a fierce and vengeful God. He has no mercy, no forgiveness, so why should she? I like how her pride and her fear are tied together. It’s both a strength–and a weakness. She’s proud of her blood–she fears she’s nothing without it.
4. Koray’s Admired Trait is ferocity for love. Now this sort of came out of left field, but I think it ties the novellas together very nicely. As qara, sacrificed to Agni, she would hold up Chanda from Survive My Fire, as the ultimate example of what qara means and what she can accomplish with her sacrifice. Chanda loved so ferociously that she cursed herself. She declared her heart Riven, torn assunder, and cursed the Gods. When They transformed her into a dragon, she slaughtered the man she loved, his tribe, and her own tribe. In the end, the only thing that broke her curse and saved her, again, was the ferocity of her love. Naturally, Koray wants to love so fiercely. A love to burn…or save…the world.
5. Koray’s Trouble Traits, her inner demon, is doubt. Deep down, she believes she’s nothing without her White blood. Nothing has changed. Death and suffering still abound, Agni still punishes their people, and He’s going to use her in some way to increase that suffering and death. Maybe He will destroy them all. Maybe no one will be saved.
6. Koray’s Dark Side goes back to Chanda, who was Riven for her pride. Blind, hateful Chanda cursed the Gods and slaughtered two tribes, all for love of a man who didn’t love her. Will Koray follow in Chanda’s footsteps? Would she ever curse the Gods and declare herself Riven? If she did…how could she ever be saved from the Dark Side? And here’s where the little secret came up that Koray doesn’t really want you to know. The opposite of Riven is Given, and that plays a very important role at Sakhr.

Aha. So I’m getting all sorts of ideas for plot points now. I will jot some of them down, but I’m not going to set anything in concrete yet. I still need to do the character map for Ranulf, and then examine the two maps together. Always asking the question:

How can I make this WORSE?

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

From Beautiful Death:

“I guess I

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I am LOVING the USA mens gymnastics team! Oh oh oh! Did you see Justin Spring and Jonathan Horton NAIL those high bar routines? Stunning.

ETA: Ack! The dastardly pommel horse killed us! The last guy (Sasha Artemev) did great; the rest… Not a good sign when the commentators say, “Gee, have we ever seen such a low score at this level before?” *sads*

ETA: Whoa, we took the bronze! I’m happy for them–after losing the Hamm brothers, I really didn’t think the team would place at all. Way to go, guys!