Breakthrough!
It was a 4 am flash.
Every time I get to the Marq and Tanis backstories, I get a hiccup. I know who they are. I mostly know their motivations and what their karmic lessons are. But when I have to write, nothing works.
The problem is I don't have enough backstory! Everybody is wandering around a bit aimlessly. Greer and Arina are getting their flashbacks and that is mostly going smoothly, but Marq and Tanis only get one.
So, enter the cycle of life. I had to delve in the archives of the novel group to find the original anthology timeline. Crystal's original curse we all know about, and that is the only flashback we have. Marq and Tanis *need* flashbacks of other lives together, to make sense of the soul mate thing.
So what do I have to work with?
Crystal: Druid - 8th/9th Century
Kathie: Medieval - 1066-1067
Laurie: 3rd Crusade in Holy Land - 1190-1192 A.D.
Janine: 1300-1400
Christina: Paris, St. Bart's Massacre - 1572
Gina C: American Colonial - 1650
Gina B: Colonial Australia- 1790-1800
Jill: 1865
Elinor: Nazi Germany/USA 1930-1940
Sue: Contemporary - 2001
Janet: Science Fiction - 2150
Many of these people are no longer in the novel group, so I have no idea what sort of gruesome lives they dreamed up for their Romeo and Juliet couple. I found drafts and basic plot outlines for Kathie and Laurie, who meets who and how they die. Yuck. The first three stories the couple all die. I'm sure Elinor likes happy endings and her couple would have escaped Nazi Germany and built a new life in the USA. 1790 is very early for Colonial Australia, so I'm guessing an escaped convict and an aboriginal girl. Convict of course unfairly there, not the criminal type at all.
The other major insight was the reason for the original arranged marriage. There is no reason for arranged marriages in 9th Century Ireland, but it's crucial to the plot. But the penny dropped!
Mama arranged the marriages to ensure the growing magicality of the line. She matched up the daughters to husbands who would strengthen the powers inherent in the line. She knew all about this stuff long before Mendel did.
So that's easy then. Let me go finish the story.
Every time I get to the Marq and Tanis backstories, I get a hiccup. I know who they are. I mostly know their motivations and what their karmic lessons are. But when I have to write, nothing works.
The problem is I don't have enough backstory! Everybody is wandering around a bit aimlessly. Greer and Arina are getting their flashbacks and that is mostly going smoothly, but Marq and Tanis only get one.
So, enter the cycle of life. I had to delve in the archives of the novel group to find the original anthology timeline. Crystal's original curse we all know about, and that is the only flashback we have. Marq and Tanis *need* flashbacks of other lives together, to make sense of the soul mate thing.
So what do I have to work with?
Crystal: Druid - 8th/9th Century
Kathie: Medieval - 1066-1067
Laurie: 3rd Crusade in Holy Land - 1190-1192 A.D.
Janine: 1300-1400
Christina: Paris, St. Bart's Massacre - 1572
Gina C: American Colonial - 1650
Gina B: Colonial Australia- 1790-1800
Jill: 1865
Elinor: Nazi Germany/USA 1930-1940
Sue: Contemporary - 2001
Janet: Science Fiction - 2150
Many of these people are no longer in the novel group, so I have no idea what sort of gruesome lives they dreamed up for their Romeo and Juliet couple. I found drafts and basic plot outlines for Kathie and Laurie, who meets who and how they die. Yuck. The first three stories the couple all die. I'm sure Elinor likes happy endings and her couple would have escaped Nazi Germany and built a new life in the USA. 1790 is very early for Colonial Australia, so I'm guessing an escaped convict and an aboriginal girl. Convict of course unfairly there, not the criminal type at all.
The other major insight was the reason for the original arranged marriage. There is no reason for arranged marriages in 9th Century Ireland, but it's crucial to the plot. But the penny dropped!
Mama arranged the marriages to ensure the growing magicality of the line. She matched up the daughters to husbands who would strengthen the powers inherent in the line. She knew all about this stuff long before Mendel did.
So that's easy then. Let me go finish the story.
posted by cyberjanet at 12:08 AM
2 Comments:
Novel group? Do you mean you started this story with several different writers???
Oh boy, that will be a big mess with the royalties if it gets published
:-o
Or am I misunderstanding and is the novelgroup just a collection of your multiple personalities?
;-)
No, I belong to a critique group, and we each write our own stories. However, as a critique group we get to pull each other's stories apart.
We had this idea once that we would do an anthology, and each person in the group would contribute a story to it.
Each person picked out an era they would like to write in. Erm, this is a historical romance group, which is a bit awkward for me as I don't read or write historical romance. That's why I picked a time in the future, so I could write science fiction/fantasy.
Mind you, I joined the Holland and Belgium forum in Nano, and I don't speak Dutch. But at least I can read it.
The common thread was this curse of everlasting love cast in 9th Century Ireland. Yeah I know, a weird curse, and I'm the one who has to unravel it. And nobody else has written their stories either.
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