I spent about four hours writing in my novel today, and as I was writing, something completely unplanned and unexpected happened, and at the end of it these two characters were kissing, and it just felt…really good. It really touched me and made them feel like real characters. I sound kind of sappy blogging about this here (and really, the writing itself is probably pretty sappy as well–it’s a rough draft, after all), but it just felt so right…
The funny thing was that it was completely unplanned. In fact, I had something completely different planned out, and knew just what I was going to do in the next few scenes afterwards as well. And then my characters started surprising me…and it actually worked.
I was trying to put in some romantic tension and other stuff in the scenes leading up to this one, but it didn’t seem to work very well. I had to go back and remove some of it, just because I didn’t think it was working at all. But when they started acting for themselves, and I just let it happen, man! It just felt so good!
That was how I spent my Sunday. It was a lot of fun, to be honest, even though the writing was more difficult than in other scenes I’ve written. And the romance isn’t all that deep, either–it’s connected to a lot of other things that are much more sci fi oriented, and the tension rises and breaks really suddenly, but I think I have something that I can clean up in the rewrite and really make it work.
My characters are really starting to feel like real people now. And they’re doing things that surprise me. I can feel that I’m getting closer to the end, and the stuff that they’re doing now as they get there is really exciting and interesting. This book and all of the things in it has become its own creation and it’s really working together in ways that I couldn’t have planned for. It’s really satisfying!
And I’ve started to compare myself to these characters as well. I can see different parts of them in me. The main character, for example, is completely oblivious that the female character is in love with him, and doesn’t notice things until they’re right in front of him! That is completely like me–totally unaware of the romantic goings on around himself. I have a story, but I’m going to wait a couple of days because it involves some really, really, REALLY big news, and I’ve agreed not to share it yet.
But yeah, this book is becoming funner and funner to write. I think I’m going to miss these characters by the time this story is over.
I really don’t know how romance works, though, and I think that I need to figure it out. Er, I mean, romance in fiction (though I’m pretty clueless in real life as well). I just picked up Twilight from the Provo library, and started reading it yesterday. It is completely unlike anything I’ve ever read before, and I think that’s because it’s written from a decidedly female perspective. The things the main character notices, and the ways she acts are just completely foreign to me. She notices what people are wearing, how their faces are shaped, who they talk (and don’t talk) with, etc etc. And then she goes off in the night to have a good cry, and I’m thinking “what the heck? girls do this?” to myself. But really, it is very believable, even to someone of a different species such as myself. And it’s very interesting.
One last thing before I go to bed. A quick story, that’s actually kind of cool. I was hanging out in the Capitol house today, with my old roommates (the Capitol house is this really old run down house south of campus where I always hang out–it’s next to the Hollywood house), and Brett, this crazy guy who crashes there but everyone tolerates because he’s kind of cool and has an xbox 360, started randomly trying to throw this chapstick up on top of this speaker that was attached to the wall. He said “I wonder if I can put this chapstick on top of this speaker standing over here.” Pretty soon, everyone in the house was trying to do it. There was a line and everything! It was pretty hilarious and random. I mean, we call ourselves an intelligent species? Then, right before midnight, this really cool guy named Mike went up to throw it on top, and I said “you can’t do it–it’s physically impossible. You’ll have too much forward velocity trying to arc it up from back here,” and just as I said that, it turned midnight and he put it in! Everyone was going crazy! It was awesome! But then, Ben comes out with a candle on top of a scoop of ice cream, and everyone starts singing happy birthday to Mike. At the exact moment when he turned 27, he got lucky and did something impossible! That means that he’s going to have an awesome year!
I hope that when my b-day comes around, something crazy like this happens. Who knows–maybe I’ll get published! 😉
