J.K. Rowling

Organizing

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I just made a list of the key points I have to wrap up to finish the Capacitance trilogy. There are 14 of them (so far), the last one of which being “The state of the world.” So that’s intimidating; cue me running away from my computer, never to write again. Just kidding–maybe.

The other 13 points are a bit more doable. Most of them are comprised of characters. Obviously I will have to tie up Mara and Runey’s story lines as well as all the secondary characters. I listed some tertiary characters on the list as well. At this time, I am not sure how relevant they will end up being to the endgame of my story, but listing them was more of a device to remind me what tools I have in my toolbox, so to speak.

Time for a little writing secret. I didn’t figure this out until basically just now (embarrassingly enough). Employing characters you’ve already introduced to come into plot play down the road makes you look like a genius-level author. Look at J.K. Rowling–that tiara from the Sorcerer’s Stone comes out of nowhere as a horcrux in the last book. Was she planning this all along or did she come to a point in her story where she needed a horcrux so she plucked one out of the existing scenery she had created? We may never know, but in my case it would have been the latter situation. You should all know by now most of my writing is improvisational, so characters, settings, actions all spew out of their own accord. Now that I’m nearing the end of the trilogy, I have the luxury of flipping back through these characters and scenarios I have created and deciding how best to use them. That obscure character from midway through Capacitance? Maybe she will come back and play an intrinsic part in the resolution of the trilogy, leaving readers to wonder at my strategic placement and planning (ha!).

To summarize, I think using this strategy will help me organize my thoughts, discover new creative ideas and ultimately give a well-rounded feel to the trilogy as a whole. Time to go crank out some exciting installments!

Balancing Act: Writing With Two Main Characters

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I always knew Capacitance would center around two main characters–from the very first image of inspiration, I knew that the story would involve a romance, and I also knew that I wanted to explore both aspects of that love story, namely both the male and female perspective. By default, the more characters introduced into a story, the more complex it gets, especially if point of view jumps between more than one main character. I have spoke of J.K. Rowling’s masterful handling of this multi-main character challenge in The Casual Vacancy. My story is not as challenging as that since it only concerns two main characters, however, the balance is important to keep readers invested in each of the characters in their own right. 

While writing Capacitance, I more or less stuck to a basic formula of alternating chapters; I would have a Mara chapter then a Runey chapter. These chapters would compliment each other because they would build on the action, but not rehash it. If the narrator never follwed Runey’s tale, the reader would be confused as to Runey’s motives for pursuing Mara, and the love story would not be as fleshed out. By allowing readers to see both sides of the story, they are given more insight and validation for what is happening between Mara and Runey. 

The male protagonist is something that is not always commonly seen in novels. By and large, the majority of today’s readers are women, thus selling to that market is most profitable in the way of book sale numbers. Even in many of today’s bestsellers, the male co-leads are somewhat shallow; you know they are the love interest, and the female lead is beyond dedicated to them, but the story doesn’t really flesh out their characteristics or qualities which make them so compelling. I wanted to create a complicated male co-lead for this series; one that the readers would come to know as innately as Mara. Thus the chapters from Runey’s world show insight into his emotions and way of thought. Writing from the male point of view is a challenge, but I really enjoyed writing Runey’s segment of the story. He has flaws and he makes big mistakes, but ultimately, he becomes a better man for it. 

While writing, I sometimes found myself enjoying Runey’s segments even more than I enjoyed writing Mara. In Chapter 4 we see the first really emotional, inward action on a character’s part, and that is Runey laying in bed with the realization of his loss of Juleia trickling back to him. I related to this scene so deeply and with Runey himself that at first he seemed to almost be taking over as the main character. However, as the story progresses, as you will hopefully someday see, the two really come to balance out and the storylines become equally as compelling, even though I stress out a lot over one not being as exciting as the other. As is so often the answer, the characters will work and speak for themselves and make the story flow as it should. 

One final thing worth mentioning about maintaining this balancing act between two main characters is the use of third person point of view. Since the reader is not being forced to bounce back between two narrative voices, the book has more flow and continuity. The third person narrator bridges the gap between Mara’s chapters and Runey’s chapters creating a cohesion which guides the readers along in a much less disjointed manner. This also makes things less confusing in segments where the two are physically together when a first person voice narrator could get a little tricky. 

Today may be the day I start the final book of the trilogy, so hopefully I can keep my character balance going strong through the final act! I will be posting more on my current writing progress and the in-between books process tomorrow, so stay tuned! 🙂

Inspiration from the Master: How J.K. Rowling Has Influenced Me as an Author

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I always joke about “my unpopular opinions,” but today I am going to talk about one of my very popular opinions. It is virtually a universal fact that those of my generation love Harry Potter and admire the woman behind the series, J.K. Rowling. I nearly titled this blog post how Rowling AND the Harry Potter series have influenced me as a writer, but, wanting to keep this blog post to a readable length for those of you perusing over your lunch break, I decided to stick with Rowling herself as there are several admirable traits of her talent that I admire and have taken inspiration from.

First and foremost–accessibility. Rowling’s HP series starts off with Harry as a young boy; I was the same age as Harry when I first read The Sorcerer’s Stone, and as such I could relate to him innately. However, my Mom read the books after I finished them, and she felt drawn into the story just as strongly as I did. This kind of broad readership was achieved through a masterful use of characterization and a wonderful assortment of word choice. It was the outstanding craft of the writing, I believe, which allowed these books to be enjoyed by grade school children and their parents alike. The word choice challenged children and allowed adults to appreciate the elevated nature of the works themselves. I remember reading The Order of the Phoenix and seeing the word “detritus” for the first time–context clues made it obvious that the word referred to the garbage littering Harry’s room, but Rowling’s choice to incorporate such a high level word speaks to her skill to create a breadth of audience.

Versatility is also a very important quality Rowling’s work possessed. As I read the books, I literally grew up with Harry, Ron and Hermione through Rowling’s masterful development of these characters from children into young adults–almost verging new adult territory by The Deathly Hallows. To this day, I am still impressed with how she carried this out. A subtle change, book-by-book, a darkening of tone, a deepening of connections. Order of the Phoenix was where this really stood out to me; the world around Harry and his friends had changed so much, but so  had Harry himself–he was starting to grow up. To me, opening up a Harry Potter book was somewhat like coming back to the first day of school after summer break and seeing the subtle changes and maturation in your fellow classmates. Her versatility as an author is not only displayed in HP; I read The Casual Vacancy earlier this year and my awe of Rowling as an author was sealed in its veracity for good. The book was incredible–totally adult, full of engrossing characters, and completely different from HP. This, for me, was what made me love The Casual Vacancy for what it was; Rowling had proved herself capable of going beyond HP as an author, and creating a work with just as much merit. No one else but a true master of words could construct a story surrounding so many main characters and have the reader be deeply invested in them all. The themes of The Casual Vacancy are dark, they are modern, and they are real, thus proving Rowling can pull her own in the realm of contemporary adult fiction as well as YA fantasy.

Finally, one of my favorite ways that J.K. Rowling inspires me–her humor. Throughout the Harry Potter series, I adored Rowling’s interspersion of humorous elements to the text. Particularly her tendency to insert a particular adjective to a sentence to make it hilarious. One of my favorite lines is “Harry then did something that was both very brave and very stupid…” from the scene in the bathroom with Hermione and the troll. The insertion of the word stupid injects the text with dry humor, which is incredible. This adds to the lighthearted tone the HP series can take on at times; it’s an element that makes the books enjoyable and lovable, and adding touches of humor (especially, dry ironic little adjectives) is something I incorporate into my writing style.

I could keep writing for quite sometime about Rowling as an inspirational author, but I need to get back to the query gauntlet. I will continue to post about authors/books that inspire me on Wednesday as I saw such a great reaction last week. I hope everyone enjoyed this week’s post!