New Inspiration for Story and Characters

I have been working on a “final” edit of my book “Ashling” and shared a bit with a friend of mine. I’ve been trying to wrap the book up and get it ready to start soliciting for publishing and representation, but even though I think the story is good, the writing is clear and concise – I’m showing, not telling, I’m not being overly wordy – I still have felt like it’s missing something; some salt – a flavor that’s not quite there yet, but would add a tremendous richness to the final story. After only one chapter, she nailed it on the head. “It’s good, but it’s kinda sterile.” And that was it. It is sterile. With that simple word (and a little bit more conversation between the two of us) I suddenly had a very vivid picture of what was missing. A small subtle set of details that will give the readers a prettier picture than what’s on the page now. Since then, I’ve had a new vigor in revamping this story into something really good.

There are certain details that help fill out the characters in a story, there are some details that pointlessly weigh a story down, and other details that may seem pointless at first glance, but that add a rich nuance to a story. That goldilocks zone is often difficult to see or visualize, but it makes all the difference in the world when done right. What I’ve had so far have been wonderful pictures of the characters, their personalities, their behaviors. They each have their own unique voice, their own motivation and desire lines, all of which make for great characters, but there was still something missing from them in this second version of “Ashling”. Now I know what that is, and how to resolve it.

I originally wrote this as a book way back in 2005 under the title “Failsafe”. I banged it out in a few months. I loved the idea, I loved the characters, but I hated the villains. They were cliche and unoriginal. They were a cheap villain that helped the hero tell his tale but were ultimately such a wash. So, I ended up sitting on the project for years while I tried to come up with something better. During that time, I wrote my “Roswell Paradox” series, “The Temporal Key” and “Iteration”, which was a project that took quite a while to write, but while that was going on I had a fresh new idea for my antagonist in the “Ashling” story. Once I wrapped up the other book series, I started a complete rewrite.

I spent the next year or so (I write on select nights, weekends and lunch breaks, but not all the time) building out this new version of the book. I’ve been really happy with it and was excited to finally finish what I consider to be a much better story. Then the pandemic happened.

My writing routine has its own nuances to it. I often find it difficult to write in my house. The reasons are pure and simple. I’m a prolific, multi-talented guy who has a lot of projects and joys in my life, and my house is too full of other distractions. It’s way too easy for me to stand up when I’m feeling fatigued, pick up an instrument and start recording a new song, or have some curious question that makes me dig into some CG work, or a program I’m trying to debug, or to have the TV on while I’m working – there’s just too many distractions for me to stay focused on writing. For that, I almost always have to leave the house. My general routine is to go to a restaurant or a pub with a deep bar, somewhere I can put my laptop and still have room for food or drink, and then get to work. Strangely, these environments are a bit Zen for me. There are few distractions. It’s not like I can get up and walk away from my computer, which makes me my own captive audience. There is a sense of urgency, I can only stay there as long as I’m consuming something, or the staff starts to feel like you’re loitering. Thus, I easily tune out the din of music, people’s conversations and anything else that’s going on, because I’ve put myself in a situation where the only thing I can really do is focus on my writing. So, when the pandemic put us all in lock down, I suddenly found myself with very few places to go and write. As dumb as it may sound, I needed that routine in order for me to really get to work.

Fortunately, I was nearly done with the first new draft, and was starting the task of going through and doing editing and revisions, so the book was mostly done, but it was nowhere near finished. It also came to pass that I met my current writing partner and she and I started working on a bunch of other projects for animated television series and films. Thus, I didn’t stop writing, but my writing changed directions, and during this time I’ve had lots of time to sit and stew on “Ashling”.

And here I am now. I’ve come back to it with new vigor, but the same overarching problem – something was missing. Since I worked some of that out with my friend Laura, I’ve now got a much clearer picture of how all of this comes together. I’ve spent the last few writing sessions going back into my Mind Map and working out the subtleties that were missing from the original. This epiphany is almost like this:

You’ve got a friend you’ve known for years. You get along together, laugh at the same jokes, enjoy the same movies. You like to go on similar adventures and have the same terrible sense of humor. Then, after many years of being great friends you one day realize that you never really knew anything about who they were and where they came from, and so you start asking those questions. You suddenly learn things about your friend that you never knew before and finding them out now makes so many things you took for granted make perfect sense in context. The richness of their personality sings so much louder than it had before because now you know where they came from, and why they respond to things in the ways they do – why they are who they are. And knowing that makes you love them all the more.

This is the epiphany I’ve come to with my characters. So, in a very real sense, I’m just now sitting down with each of them and getting to know them in a way I just hadn’t before. I think once I get back to the next draft, they’ll be far more willing to tell me (and the future readers) who they really are, and how they got themselves into the story. I’m looking forward to the challenge!