Day 38

Spoiler Alert! May contain planning-stage plot/character details or other spoilers!

08 Nov 2015

After sketching out the next few chapters, I’ve distributed the plot outlines across chapter stubs - I feel more drawn to following through Cole’s story - partly because I find it easiest to slip into her perspective.

Realizing I need more dynamic characterization, more strong women, more interest…

Been flipping through mental lists of great stories and comparing this work unfavourably. For instance, a big cast isn’t fatal - Harry Potter has tons of characters, many of which are beloved and who start out as background but grow… but they’re all interesting.

How do you expose the underlying humanity, uniqueness, fascination of someone? It’s not enough to just tell a story… or it is, it’s just a different approach?

I get caught up in all the different ways to do this. Adventure? Exotic setting? Twisty plot revelations and suspense? Fascinating, quirky or lovable characters? Focused? Broad? Angsty teen navel gazing (I think I’ve got that one sewn up!)? Introspection and self-obsession? Single perspective? Whiplash storytelling where person and place shift constantly?

Getting too focused on the mechanics and not moving forward again, ugh!

So, I’ll step back into Cole’s head and watch her world for a bit, see where that goes. The rest can happen in rewrites (? maybe//?)

Part 2

Yikes! Just shifted from a cyberpunk dystopian YA fantasy to a full-blown teen supernatural horror!

The dream death has ties to ghosts - human spirit (any spirits?) trapped by the fog/gold and drawn to human life - dreams, ambitions, hopes, feeling of any type. The hungry dead invading first your mind, and eventually your world as the balance shifts to more spirits per city than living souls!!!

Or something.

Been reading too much Collectors Weekly and Atlas Obscura on Victorian ghosts and spiritualism… also a little loopy from fighting off a cold, or allergies, running, ice cream, gin and Scotch… lol.

But it just felt like suddenly another piece(s) snapped into place. Yes! Ghosts! Not just vague danger, but a clear (??) cause with meaningful ramifications for plot!

Of course, I get way more excited about ideas, concepts, clever angles and struggle with the step-by-step of getting there in Cole’s world… gah!

So wait, hang on… if the true danger is ‘ghosts’, then it’s ok to attribute the danger and deaths to ‘dreams’ through the main player’s perspectives, and save the reveal for later…

Cole/Cadence don’t know. Does the Lady? Ravel? Certainly not the Inspector… how much does he know? What’s the accepted narrative for a regular Tower citizen? Administrator? What do the Streets believe? The Deviants? What about the dream walkers?

The references are definitely nonstandard. Gold = evil, Silver = good/holy?? Which side are the ghosts on? Gold doesn’t explicitly work in their favour; it functionally maintains a victim pool (food source…???) but also is a trap, so do the ghosts have individual agency? Are there good and bad individual spirits? Or just an amalgamated, amoral mass?

Is Silver linked to spirits, like the ghost walkers are connected somehow, inhabited, more open to the spiritual plane of existence? Living on both sides of the divide? Stillborn? Possessed? Ugh, please no. Just… sensitive? Is this turning into a gothgirl fantasy romance??? ugh…

Thought: I’ve been accused in the past of writing myself as the protagonists. In this case, I think I want to be Itri, not Cole. Strong, solid, unflaggingly focused and otherworldly Itri, not cold, empty, cast-adrift Cole. Itri.

Itri.

Sunday

Start time: 11:45 am & 4:00 pm

Location: couch/living room

drinking: Laphroaig 10 yr

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