Looking at my posting schedule, I should have posted these using the date/time of when they were written. So, something for the 14th in the morning would have been posted with a URL for the 14th, and a timestamp for the morning, rather than–for example–being listed as posted on the 18th when I finally got around to posting. Oh well!
I accidentally has the day 25 commentary mixed in with the novel files, putting a little more than 600 words into my total. Oops! Still, 55,291 is a lot for me to have written during November, and it exceeds the NaNoWriMo goal.
chris@MercuriusJr:~/Writing/Dream Clover/Days$ wc -w *.txt
3006 01.txt
1902 03am.txt
2576 03pm.txt
1619 04am.txt
1321 05am.txt
2404 05pm.txt
2336 06.txt
1123 07am.txt
1228 07pm.txt
1602 09am.txt
2109 09pm.txt
1505 10am.txt
1307 10pm.txt
1033 11am.txt
1331 11pm.txt
1985 12.txt
1216 13am.txt
2515 13pm.txt
3088 14.txt
3113 17.txt
1031 18am.txt
931 18pm.txt
1026 19am.txt
1748 19pm.txt
1242 20am.txt
1727 20pm.txt
779 21am.txt
2262 21pm.txt
1401 25am.txt
1446 25pm.txt
755 26am.txt
2624 28.txt
55291 total
Where to from here? I have some ideas for the final arc of the story, but first I should look back on what I’ve learned during November.
Starting in October, I came up with the basic idea for characters and story in about two hours. I’m certain I had all seven main characters defined at least a little by this point. The basic plot had been developed, although it would rapidly transform, staying true to its roots, but growing off of that, and reshaping itself into something stronger.
The plot really solidified during the snowflaking stage, and I also came to learn more about the characters at this time. Originally, Pinole was going to be strongly portrayed as the story’s villain, up until it’s revealed that Bernard was responsible for the poisoning of the yellow jewel, not Clover and Shamrock. This ended up played down in the written story, though. I also wanted more screen time for Alfalfa and how he viewed changes Bernard went through, from a snarky attendant to someone who would take revenge on the Alsike family for using the Medic family.
I didn’t finish the snowflaking, but I figured I was ready when November came around. I had three arcs planned out. Arc one would be based on dreams and the introduction and learning of magic with Clover and Shamrock. This didn’t work out as planned, however, as the dreams focused on dreams rather than learning magic. The second arc is what I’d really snowflaked, and I was able to get about a good two weeks of writing out of it. However, the use of magic all but went away. A later draft of the story would best address this by having magic learned in arc one dreams and used in arc two events. Finally, the third arc was a one-sentence concept, really. Something along the lines of, “Arle spends time on Earth.”
With a general idea as to what to do, arc one was written with nothing to hold it together. With a fairly thorough snowflaking, arc two was nicely filled out. With no idea what to do, arc three is ambiguous. I’m working together possible ideas, but there’s really no direction, no ending. It’s coming out as an “after-story”, and I do want to explore a bit with Bernard and Alfalfa, but because I put so little focus on the two in the story, it anything Alfalfa goes through will feel exaggerated. Of course, there’s always the second draft to increase Alfalfa’s role within the second arc.
Another thing which helped was the writing I did in October. Not a part of the NaNoWriMo writing, I worked out the history to “Dream Clover” in that month. What happened to the ruling family before the Alsike family took place in the palace? How did the jewels end up spread out across the different planets? Why were two jewels placed on Earth, and how did they come to be in Samuel’s possession? When there’s talk of Alfalfa’s great-great-great grandfather, I’ve traced Alfalfa’s family tree all the way back to the man.
The man’s name was Arvense, by the way. Arvense Lucerne. He was slave to one Hayden, and Hayden attendant to Willden Seamróg. Arvense and Hayden held a relationship much like that of Alfalfa and Bernard, but Hayden and Willden also held a relationship unlike any seen between the Medics and the Alsikes.
As for how Bernard treats Alfalfa, this is not a typical relationship between an attendant and his slave, nor was that of Hayden and Arvense. The friendship Bernard and Alfalfa share shows Bernard’s good side, no matter his attitude, and the way he tries to get the Alsike family to admit all their wrongs makes Bernard the hero of the story in his own right. At least, this is what I’ve aimed for with this character. I do feel this should be expanded upon in a later draft, and I could probably include more indication that the relationship between Bernard and Alfalfa is a forbidden one, where the attendant treats the slave as being on an equal level to himself.
What have I learned? Having the story planned out, plot, events, scenes, makes it crazy easy to write. Writer’s block is not being able to write the next words, sentences, paragraphs. Essentially, not knowing where the scene will go, or not knowing which scene should be next, and not being able to put it in any directiontion to move the story along. If the whole story is plotted out, there probably isn’t much room for writer’s block. Sure, there might be difficulty in getting a character from point A to point C when you realize there’s no way for point B to be plausible, but write it down as best you can. Later drafts can refine this.
Next for “Dream Clover” is to finish the final arc. I’m going to just go with the flow and see where it gets me. A second drafts for me would probably be to clean up little bits and pieces here, and make sure everything is readable. With a cleaned-up second draft, the next step would be to pull the story together. Link arc one and arc two together by magic learned in arc one and used in arc two. This could add whole new scenes and chapters which would need to go through the “second draft cleaning”, but I’d still put the initial clean-up before this. The reason for this is to take a little break from writing to see how clean-up goes.
Once the links between arcs one and two are in place, I think linking arc two and arc three will be a matter of linking charcters and history. While arc one focuses on two characters, arc two introduces more characters, and arc three does something with those characters now that their main story is over. It’ll be revealed that after Bernard’s event with the rainbow jewels, that his mind isn’t all together (already mentioned) and that Alfalfa’s been caring for him. Even though Bernard’s family–including Ceciliate–has been demoted to slave class, and Alfalfa’s family has been promoted to attendant class, Alfalfa continues to watch over and care for Bernard, his one and only master. It’s expected for Alfalfa and Ceciliate to spend a lot of time together during the time between the two arcs, as he cares so dilligently for her younger brother. Get the two to spend time on Earth together at some point (the planned idea is for Bernard to end up on Earth, with Alfalfa having to find him; he can ask Ceciliate to come along as his slave, using that as an excuse to the royal family to allow her to travel with him to Earth, when really he knows she’ll want to find her brother as well) would allow Alfalfa and Ceciliate to be equals to one another during their search. There’s a lot of relationship potential for other characters as well.
That’s the character part. The history portion would come in the form of questions asked in arc two and answers for them in arc three. They needn’t even be introduced as questions in the second arc. An example is the blue jewel on Earth. If each jewel was hidden on a respective planet, then why is the blue jewel on the green planet? And who hid the jewels? What happened to the exiled family? It should be similar to finding the giant mirror in the green room with a cut out piece the same size as Shamrock’s mirror. (And just where did Samuel get that mirror from in the first place?)
Over 1,250 words written. I’ve gone over my morning goal! Wait, there are no more goals, are there? Perhaps there should be, although word counts for commentaries are meaningless.
I’m going to break from this writing for a while, though, as I’m way behind on so many things after a month of writing, and the time spent snowflaking the month before that.
