ur-stories

[truepenny]

Because papersky asked.

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Unfortunately, the truest answer to the question is I wish I knew. It isn't something I do consciously. It's something that, sometimes, I notice.

But I can describe what it looks like, and maybe that will help.

So when I was in high school, I wrote a story called "Wolf's Work." It was a cod-medieval werewolf story and it was mostly about the lengths a young woman was willing to go to in order to get out of a marriage that was smothering her. I think (actually rather like you were saying about Thracia, papersky) the story was too old for me; I finished it (and got the world's most hateful rejection letter from Marion Zimmer Bradley, too), and then rewrote it, and then got halfway through another rewrite and realized the damn thing had fallen apart around me. (Which is why I didn't post it for International Embarrass Yourself As An Artist Day: I don't have a complete and coherent version of it.) But there was a werewolf and a dark forest and a sense of how small the poor protagonist's life was.

Fast forward several years and I wrote another story, this one called "The Witch of Arvien." Again with the cod-medieval, again with the dark forest, again with the young woman protagonist trapped in a life that was far too small for her (the story starts with a scene I still rather like, which is her escaping from being drowned as a witch). (And come to think of it, the villainess in that story is quite similar to the protagonist of the original story.) Again with the broken.

Fast forward again to nowish, and I've got a werewolf character in my head. His name is Varya and he lives in an alternate Europe that might best be described as the revenge of Broceliande, Arden, and the other great lost forests. And I know he's the spiritual descendent of Oliver, the werewolf in the original story, just as the forest ruling Europe is the descendent of the Forêt Os. The girl hasn't shown up yet, although I've seen her in other broken stories here and there.

Now, this recycling wasn't conscious--until I looked at Varya and his world and realized I'd borrowed them from myself. And it's not about the story. Varya's story isn't going to be a thing like poor Oliver's story, if I ever get to find out what Varya's story is. (I have setting and character, but as of yet not a glimmer of plot. It's okay; it's not like there aren't several other things ahead of that story in the queue. And not like I'm not going to need to do a metric fuckload of research anyway.)

In the same way, there are versions of Felix in several unfinished stories from high school and college, and as jodi_davis noticed, there are yellow-eyed characters every time you turn around.

Story, for me, seems to be much more mutable than it is for other people. It's not that I don't value it, because I do, but it's rarely the part of a ... oh hell, there's no word for it, the package deal of story and characters and world, and since by story I don't really mean plot (I like E.M. Forster's distinction, but I think he got the words backwards) ... let's try a metaphor. The interior of my mind--at least the storytelling part of it--is like a theater complex with a potentially infinite number of stages, although it's rare that more than four or five of them have the lights hung at any one time. When the doors to a new theater open, I've generally got a character standing on a bare stage. So I go in and poke around and ask the character some questions (metaphorically--I don't talk to my characters and don't imagine them talking to me) and that usually draws some more characters out of the wings and gets the techs started putting up the flats. But it's my job to write the script--the story--and until I do, until I begin to give them events and actions and dialogue, it's just the characters sitting around on a dark stage hoping the scenery doesn't fall over on them.

So I don't think I have ur-stories, really, not in the sense papersky meant. I have characters and situations and emotional ... again with not having the word I need ... emotional resonances or emotional knots or something ... things that want stories, and they seem to come back again and again until I give them the story they need.

papersky, I don't know if that helps with Thracia at all, or if it even makes sense. But it's how things work in my head.

Comments

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I don't have anything to add, but I thought I would mention that I really like seeing the way your brain works.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I have things like that, like the werewolf in the wood, but once I actually write them down they seem to get fixed in form and become really hard to get away from that and change.

I'm also not good at revision.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Whereas sometimes I think I only get a first draft because if I didn't, there'd be nothing to revise.

Green-eyed

[jodi-davis.livejournal.com]

So, I just finished Melusine, kind of still walking around in that strange fugue you get when you've been to a world instead of just read about it. I love you.

I can't decide if I like Felix or Mildmay more - I guess I don't have to like one more. They would both be the kind of inner moral compass characters that always point true to the author. Yeah - bad things ensue - but it's guided, not random.

I tend to keep a theme until I've hashed it out - and a character type till I get it right. Then that character becomes and I can move onto to something else... I mean for instance now that you have Felix - I doubt he would show up again as other than Felix?

JD

Re: Green-eyed

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Once I get the character right, they set.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Very innnnteresting. Your waiting characters remind me of what actors say about themselves--they need somebody else to give them the words, the plot, the actions to take.
(I assume those great at improv have picked up bits of this from elsewhere.)
This is yet another version of that saying (so often applied to other creative types, like dancers, writers and artists): "Hey, if they could talk, they wouldn't be actors..."
ME, on the other hand, I seem to get there late, when they're halfway intot het echnical and Things Are Not Going Well, they're all screaming for the director and the stagehands are threatening to walk and the power has been blipping and the gels are All Wrong, I tell you, Wrong, and the Divas are all in tears (nothing like a king actor blubbering to make you want to hire Don Knotts instead, bless him...)

[caligineux.livejournal.com]

Nice metaphor, and it's given me some ideas of how to approach some characters I was beginning to fear were orphanned for good. Thanks.

And hello—surfed here from scribbling damselfly (http://www.deborahmcdonnell.com/damselfly/)added you to my reading list. My own policy (http://caligineux.livejournal.com/25110.html) towards the friends list is similar to yours; don't feel pressured to reciprocate or respond.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Hello and welcome!

Not quite related but...

[(Anonymous)]

Just wanted to tell you that your novel was delicious. Thanks for the treat ;)