Rattling around

[jhetley]

Distinct lack of ambition in the household this morning. Wife has a migraine but went off to the nature center anyway -- one of the joys of her peculiar work situation, she has the place to herself on weekends. That makes sick days and vacations a moot question without considerable advance planning.

PENDRAGON AUTUMN has not yet started to warm up in my head. The story line involves some things that I had originally stuffed into the hurry-up proposal for WINTER OAK, back when I did proposals. As that turned out, I ended up with a book's worth of story before I reached those particular conflicts. Maybe they seem stale now, after sitting on the shelf for two years or so? Probably I just need to come up with a replacement Ming the Merciless to torment my characters. Good villains are hard to find. Granted, I've kept Fiona on ice, with a plan of how to bust her out of jail, but Maureen has beaten the dark witch twice now....

That becomes a meta-question on character-building in fiction -- if you allow characters to grow in the course of a novel, so that they can solve their problems and save the universe, then you have to invent bigger problems and more deadly threats to the universe when you write the sequel. On the other hand, some characters don't seem to change much through a long and distinguished career. Nero Wolfe seems about the same at the end of Rex Stout's series as the fat man did in the beginning.

Warm enough this morning that my simple walk to get the newspaper raised a sweat -- at 6:30 AM. Bodes ill for any of the aforementioned ambition. Sounds like the afternoon will involve reading a book in front of the air conditioner.

Comments

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I think there's a difference between a series and a tri/quado/quintology. Series characters tend to be more static, with each adventure being contained in itself so you can read them out of order. If a serial character develops too much, it is a hindrance. (Don't know if you know the Falco detective stories - they're historicals, and all the charm of the original books goes out of the window as he gathers fame and fortune.

For an -ology I *expect* that development. Threats don't always have to be external, though - some characters need to overcome themselves, or particular character traits, or come to terms with defeat, and those can be valid challenges, too. Making superheroes even superer and villains even badder works only so long before both become caricatures.

I would have thought, from the setup, that you are heading for an ending somewhere. Sure, there's a novel or two or three worth of plot in the story yet, but somewhere you need to find an ending and write something else rather than coming back to the same story and telling it over and over again.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

The "Enchanted Forest" books _will_ have an ending -- I never intended more than one, in the first place. Four seasons, four books, I guess. The "Stonefort" books, DRAGON'S EYE and so forth, will probably end up as a series. If people buy enough of them for a continuation....

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, could Fiona perhaps have grown in the meantime, too? Through the experience of being beaten twice and then put on ice?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Actually, Fiona has diminished, as you may recall. I'm ending up with an unholy Trinity of Fiona, Dierdre, and the upper levels of the Pendragons to fill in for Ming the Merciless, who has other engagements that prevent a guest appearance.

(I wonder how many of my audience even get that reference? The internet seems to be a youth culture...)

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

Trinities are good -- look where they got Leon Uris...

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

Well, but Ming the Merciless has been revived from time to time... And then there is always Flesh Gordon -- which I believe has -er- spawned a sequel or two, too...