Weekend Writing Warriors: Full Metal Librarian (The Lawyer)

Have a WIP, an EIP, an MS, or a published work you want to share on your blog, eight sentences at a time?

Want to sample other people’s WIPs, EIPs, MSs, or published works, eight sentences at a time?

Be a Weekend Writing Warrior!

Rules are here!

List of participants is here!

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Happy Father’s Day to everyone who fills that role for someone!

My gift to my husband is a day of baseball without the kids.

Because I rock at gift-giving like that.

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The receptionist from last week might be distracted by our boys, but she does eventually find the right office . . .

The receptionist paused at a room, knocked softly, and opened the door.  “Your two o’clock is here,” she said.

“Thank you, Sheila,” said a voice from the other side of the massive mahogany desk filling one end of the well-appointed office.

A woman stood and flowed around the enormous piece of furniture, which was spread with documents and scattered over with data crystals.  Her terminal screen sprouted old-fashioned sticky notes like a bright yellow mutant flower.

She held out her hand.  “Citizen Mykota-Regold, how nice to meet you at last.  I’m Samantha Rhys-Hargaty, but please call me Samantha.”

Writing on a biblical scale?

This weekend, I finished the basic outline for a new writing project* and am now poking at it and spackling over the holes and adding details where I can.  I’ve also scribbled a list of questions I need to ask someone who knows more about the Matlock area of Derbyshire, England, than I do—which up until three weeks ago was probably anyone who reads this—as I’ve decided to set it over 900 miles and an ocean away from where I’m physically located.

I’ve never once made things easy for myself when it comes to writing.  It’s a gift, like sky-diving lessons where you have to pack your own ‘chute.

And fly the plane.

But because I occasionally dream of exchanging my gift for a little sanity, this time I’m not only outlining, but have decided to  compile a  bible for it as I go, which is as new a concept for me as starting with a full outline.

A writing (or series) bible, for those of you who aren’t as obsessed with every aspect of this writing gig as some of us are ( cough),** is a document that  keeps track of the pertinent details of all the characters (names, physical descriptions, relationships, hobbies, police records, etc.) the settings (maps, distances, geography, etc.), the laws or rules governing the place,*** any Off-Page stuff that happens, backstory (whether or not you use it), future story (if you’re working on a series and want to lay foundations) and whatever else you think is important to keep in mind as the story unfolds.

According to Nathan Bransford, the stuff you put in your bible depends on the project and your own memory:

If my stories are set on earth in the present day, I don’t need to add a page about gravitational law—though depending on the story, I might want to add a URL or a medical reference that gives information on what damages the human body can suffer if it submits to those laws after someone shoves it off a cliff.  And maybe a Googlemap showing the shortest route from Matlock, Derbyshire, to the nearest cliff off which a human body might be shoved.  And a note about that body’s eye color, pre-shove, because according to one of the medical references, it might be difficult to tell,  afterwards . . .  And since the character pages will tell me that the PCSO^ faints at the sight of blood, I know how the s/he is likely to react when my MC calls for help.^^

And so on.  It’s your own personal bookwiki that keeps you from searching your whole manuscript—or worse, previous books in a series—for the single sentence in which you think you may have described the nose of the MC’s first cousin, so you know whether it’s likely that s/he won the spoon-hanging contest at the village fete, because you think it was hooked, but maybe it was snub instead, which means she couldn’t be the one who shoved the abovementioned human body off the cliff because of the spoon clutched in the victim’s hand, so you have to start over.  Or change her nose. ^^^

Since I have trouble remembering names at the best of times (right, Steve Mike?), I’ve made Excel lists of characters before, but not in great detail—and nothing like this.

It also seems like a good place to keep research facts once they become pertinent to the plot, lest they bury themselves in the reams of research materials I’ll be generating for this one . . .

Memory aid and filing system—who can beat that?

Do you outline?  Do you make writing bibles?  How was your weekend?

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*Not the anti-cupid project—that outline was done last week, but I’m still wrangling the POV and figuring out how much of a ditz the bride should be and if it’s inherent or for reasons.  But I do have two songs on the playlist—“King of Anything” and “My Life,” which remains one of the coolest theme songs for one of the oddest successful TV sitcoms ever.  A brownie point to the first person who can tell me what it was.

**Or missed that bit in Stephen King’s Misery (the book, not the movie/miniseries) where the MC  wishes he had his, because it would make writing for his Number One Fan slightly easier—though for him that’s probably like wishing the metaphorical sharks surrounding his leaking boat had two fewer teeth each.

***This could include anything from Pennsylvania state laws about seat belts or the rules about magic in your created world or the physical ways lasers act in space.  Whatever you need to know or remember about whatever needs to stay consistent.

^The websites of the various UK police forces and auxiliary support services are exceptionally user-friendly, by the way.

^^This whole thing is just for example; I’m not planning any murders via impact in this one—though I do have two pages on poisonous shrubbery.

^^^Again, example—and a disturbingly detailed one at that.

Weekend Writing Warriors: Full Metal Librarian (Undulations)

Have a WIP, an EIP, an MS, or a published work you want to share on your blog, eight sentences at a time?

Want to sample other people’s WIPs, EIPs, MSs, or published works, eight sentences at a time?

Be a Weekend Writing Warrior!

Rules are here!

List of participants is here!

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I’m hopping back a bit from last week to just before Clyota meets the lawyer who will defend her in her murder trial, but right after she and Charlie trick the Pressman into eating vegetables by hiding them in chocolate cake, which in retrospect was a potentially dangerous idea—for the Pressman, not in general—and I’m ashamed of myself for exploiting the Pressman’s dietary quirks for a slapstick moment that doesn’t even belong where I put it.

I’m less ashamed of exploiting the receptionist, but she’s making a play for Charlie and clearly deserves what she gets:

“Oh, Citizen Mykota-Regold!”  the receptionist said, standing up and smoothing her baby-blue sweater dress. “Counselor Rhys-Hargaty is expecting you.”  Her eyes strayed to Charlie.  “Please follow me.”  She undulated away, and I and my entourage followed. 

I snuck a look at Charlie, who appeared to be more interested in the paintings on the walls than in cashmere-upholstered hipwork.  Reynard’s lens, though, seemed to be trained at an odd angle.

I snorted, and covered it with a cough as both men looked at me.

Weekend Writing Warriors: Full Metal Librarian (Intentions)

Have a WIP, an EIP, an MS, or a published work you want to share on your blog, eight sentences at a time?

Want to sample other people’s WIPs, EIPs, MSs, or published works, eight sentences at a time?

Be a Weekend Writing Warrior!

Rules are here!

List of participants is here!

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But first:

Happy 50th Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Thank you for showing the rest of us how it’s done.

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There’s only one or two mentions of marriage in FML and I’ve only shared one or two snippets that include Clyota’s best friend Christina.  This bit is a mix of the two:

Library Boy here I haven’t met,” she said, pointing her chin at Charlie.  “Your full name, marital status, and intentions toward my former best friend, please.”

“Christina, we don’t have time for—”

But Charlie had risen and snapped to attention, clicking his heels as if she was the Commander of the ALA. “Ma’am, Charles Robert Boyer-Ray, Ma’am.  I am not contracted for partnership, Ma’am, but if the trial goes well, I intend to marry your former best friend this Saturday.  Ma’am.”  He picked up Christina’s shock-limp hand, shook it gently, and sat back down.

I probabaly don’t have to mention that this was news to Clyota as well?

Weekend Writing Warriors: Full Metal Librarian (Eye for Lunch)

Have a WIP, an EIP, an MS, or a published work you want to share on your blog, eight sentences at a time?

Want to sample other people’s WIPs, EIPs, MSs, or published works, eight sentences at a time?

Be a Weekend Writing Warrior!

Rules are here!

List of participants is here!

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We Interrupt this Scheduled WeWriWas Post to wish you all a 

Very Happy Sleep in Until Seven Because Your 10-Year Old is Staying With a Friend
And Your 6-Year Old Isn’t a Morning Person Day!!

Best.  Holiday. Ever.

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About twelve hours in Book Time™ have passed since the last snippet, including a  plot point that just tried to stab Clyota in the heart again.  After her reaction the last time this happened, her apparently air of calm—is confusing Charlie.

He doesn’t get that there’s only so much sturm und drang one person can take before it cancels itself out . . . at least temporarily.

You’re hungry?”  For the first time since I’d met him, he sounded confused.  “Why—I mean—”

“Why aren’t I diving head first into your toilet right now?”  I shook my head.  “I don’t know.  Maybe I’m too goddamned angry, maybe it’s been too long since breakfast, or maybe I’m in emotional overload—I’ll check with my shrink later.  But right now, while I’m sitting here in the eye of insanity, I’d just like to think about lunch.”