The Value of Foil

Here's one for the writers. Now I know what you must be thinking. I'm not talking about aluminum foil. I'm not talking about the old math technique. I'm not even talking about foiling an evil villain's plans. I'm talking about a character.

A foil is someone who's the exact opposite of your main character, personality-wise. It sounds simple enough. But most people roll that in with their antagonist, and it doesn't work that way. The main thing about the foil is that they have no idea that the things they're doing might actually be bothering the main character. The way this person acts just happens to highlight the main character's weaknesses and insecurities (at least within the story--you, the author, should be very intentional about it!)

If you're doing NaNoWriMo, you probably already have a foil in your story and don't even know it. In fact, this is probably one of the biggest things writers tend to do without even thinking about it. And that's great! But if you realize why you have that there, you can make it that much stronger. Not only that, but some people don't have it at all.

My novel didn't have a foil for about 20,000 words.

That's probably why the vast majority of those words were just internal monologue! My character was literally just sitting around, doing nothing except feeling sorry for himself and occasionally talking to a few girls and let them walk all over him. Sure. Great. There's his life. Could happen to anybody. Who wants to read that?

It doesn't become interesting at all until you see Ed Morse, picking up women nonchalantly and practically incapable of frowning. The only thing that he has in common with Aaron is an inner madness that occasionally creeps up in both of them, but it sends them both in very different directions.

I've hardly had time to play with this dynamic here, but it's what put the spark in a dying novel. Think about your novel for a minute. Do you have a foil in place? Please comment--I'd love to see what you have to say.

Complete Direction Change

You know all that stuff about Homestuck and all that I said about what this novel is about, and where it's meant to go?

Well, that's all gone out the window. My original concept is gone. I realized a while ago that the "hilarity ensues" part was not happening, and it just took me until now to see that everything I was talking about actually wasn't going to be a big part of my novel. Sure, I talked about Homestuck at length, but Aaron's obsession with it only led to the way things are right now.

Naturally, once the breakup happened, Aaron was crushed. He took solace in the online adventures, but his desire to find a "moirail" (someone who calms you down when you're doing something crazy) led him to the idea of attempting suicide. Now he's jumped off a building and just about everything in his body is broken. Lovely!

So now he has a therapist, a really kooky guy named Ed Morse who embraces insanity and embodies confidence. (If you get the connection in that character, hats off to you.) This is where he becomes a role model for Aaron, and suddenly the older man is giving him tons of dating advice. Coincidentally, and unbeknownst to Aaron, Anise is also going to Ed for dating coaching!

The result of this, and the way Aaron grows up and becomes someone worth respecting, is the new future of this novel. Almost halfway in and I just now figured that out! He could still do something crazy and self-damaging again, but I doubt it. Looks like after 20,000 words I'm finally making this depressing  book into something positive. And that's just a good thing for everyone, now, isn't it?

Time Shenanigans

I went to another write-in tonight. At first it was quiet, and I typed silently along with everyone else. Then, a couple more people arrived, and suddenly we were all talking. Amazingly, I still got a day's work in, even though I felt like I spent more time there talking to everyone than anything else!

It's even more amazing because, for the first time, I hit a roadblock. Aaron is currently in a coma and neither his dreams nor the actions of anyone else are really that interesting--they're just filler right now. Of course that filler has gotten me up to 20,000 words already, so when I complained about my problems people looked at me funny. Oops! It sounds kind of arrogant that way, doesn't it?

Anyway, I wanted to stay longer, but I didn't have internet, and I really wanted to make sure my word count was updated before midnight. So I left at 11:00... and immediately got lost. Soon I was driving by a school I'd never heard of and through a residential area with no sign of where I was. I thought I'd never get home!

Then I had a sudden epiphany: I had my phone! I parked somewhere for a minute, pulled it out, and found to my relief that I had 3G. Quickly I rushed onto the NaNoWriMo site and updated my word count from there. Success! Oh and then I also looked up directions to get home.

Yup. I clearly have all my priorities straight.

Sudden Fiction

The crazy thing about this November is juggling NaNoWriMo with work, school, and my other responsibilities. For one of my classes, I've been asked to write a short piece of "sudden fiction" based on the prompt: "Your character reveals his or her secret." I then got a second part to that prompt, the secret itself. Hopefully that will come through when you read the story below (which has no title at the moment).

The writing revolves around the concept of body language as a big part of communication. I wanted to see if I was capable of using that effectively. If I was successful, then you should be able to piece together a couple of things that the characters aren't actually saying.

“Why are you telling me this?” he said.
She stared at his eyes, which were fixed on the window. His mouth was covered by his clasped hands, muffling his words.
“Because I thought…” She choked on her words.
She looked down and drew back, hugging herself. She let out a breath, and brought one back in. One more time she looked up at him. Eye contact.
“I thought you would give me a chance,” she said. Her tight fists trembled.
He held her gaze for a long time. “Why would I?”
“Maybe I could be better for you. I know she’s making you happy, but maybe I could...”
When she said she’s making you happy, he finally looked away, down to the side.
There was a long silence, and her gaze fell too.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Huh?” She leaned close towards him.
He didn’t respond for a minute, lost in thought, it seemed. Then he stood up, looking down at her, frowning. “Don’t throw the word love around. It’s a mistake.”
With that, he turned away and walked out the door.
Once he had left, she let go and cried.

First Milestone

In my last full-length post, I talked about how my experience and techniques helped me to increase my word count dramatically. In fact, I've consistently gone into half-hour chunks of time and come out with close to 1000 words--and now, on Day 3, I've already hit the 10,000 mark.

This is where I have to start to think about something. You see, according to the structure workshop I mentioned in an earlier post, my "first plot point" should be somewhere around the 20%-25% mark of the novel. Assuming I finish the novel in 50,000 words, that means it's roughly somewhere between now and about 12,500 words.

The "first plot point" is where you transition from illustrating the character's normal life to getting into the actual conflict and subject matter of the book. In fact, I spent this entire 10,000 words illustrating just how bad Aaron's life is, and why he's so depressed. Actually, I have to wrap that up pretty soon, because I want it to culminate in a low point. That's when he'll discover Homestuck, as I mentioned in my summary.

So what's the situation so far? Starting from a massive breakup (which draws heavily on my own experience), Aaron already feels pretty worthless. Worse, another girl that he thinks is interested in him turns out to already have a boyfriend, and when he asks her on a date they go as "just friends." This is awkward and reinforces the idea that nobody likes him that way.

That's when things get complicated. Aaron finds himself with Anise Black, a girl that's much too young for him, to the tune of 13 years old to his 17. Ouch. She's about as depressed as he is, and the two of them become close by reassuring each other and helping build one another's self esteem. This may seem like a good thing, but Anise is very interested in getting sexual, and Aaron is not.

Meanwhile, because of their age difference, their relationship is secret. In order to help cover it up, Aaron starts a "fake" relationship with Shelly, an old friend of his, who's in a similar situation. As you might suspect, he becomes closer to her than he planned, and Anise is extremely jealous. She gets angry, and in turn Aaron shares that problem with Shelly, since she's the only one who knows about Anise. Things are spiraling out of control, and in my next scene it's all going to come crashing down.

Quick Announcement

Just wanted to note--my word count, as updated on the NaNoWriMo site, is now featured on the right side here. There are a couple of other minor changes I made to make the blog more accessible to people who want to keep up with it, too.

Since I'm here--things haven't slowed down. It's going great!

Expertise

The kickoff party last night was amazing! There was a lot of talking and sorting things out as midnight crept up, and we exchanged a lot of advice. The energy was high, probably due to the presence of LOTS of Halloween candy.

There was one thing that happened that felt strange to me, though. A new novelist came in and asked how many people were doing NaNoWriMo for the very first time. Of course, a couple of hands went up. Then people started sharing how many years they'd done it, and how many wins they had accumulated.

Confidently, I said that this year would be my fifth. Everyone stared. I might have been the youngest person there, but suddenly I commanded a strange respect, the quiet guy that hardly anyone had noticed before. People started asking me questions, like whether it got easier the more times you did it. I said no, it's always difficult. Which, in my experience, has always been true. You can't get through this without a fight. It was the most honest answer I could give. Or so I thought.

One other thing I did, which I feel is relevant: I confessed that this year would probably produce my worst novel yet. And I was okay with that.

As midnight approached, someone began to count the minutes. With thirty to go, I had my first sentence in my head and my fingers above the keyboard. I channeled my inner insanity: tilted my head, widened my eyes, and made a giant grin. My brain got the message.

 The instant I heard zero I was on the rampage that I had anticipated, my keyboard the machine gun, with no worries of running out of ammunition. Oh, and there's no doubt that I did indeed massacre that kickoff: after half an hour we stopped and compared word counts. I heard 250, 300, 500, 800. I didn't want to tell them mine, but I did. It was something like 1100 words.

I had spent that entire time recounting events from my own life, skimming them and deliberately leaving out the happy parts to leave a picture of a very depressed young man to begin with. I was sure it was the wild anticipation that had done it, but once again I channeled my crazy, and by 1AM my total word count was 2276. I managed yet another half hour just this evening, with similar results.

Who knows? Maybe I am really good at this now after all. Obviously part of it was my statement, my worst novel ever, which killed all quality control outright--something we're told to do time and time again. But I think just as important were the madness that drove me, and the method of listing things very specific and personal to me. I think everyone can do those things, at least. We're all a little crazy. Otherwise we wouldn't be doing this. And putting in a bit of yourself comes with the trade--it might be tough if your novel is really "out there," but you can always find a way.

Whew! Too bad this blog post isn't part of my novel--I spent another half-hour working on it. Ah, well, I'm off to do more of my absolutely insane writing--and you should, too!

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