I Gave Myself Over

  • by Kentwithin the limits of safety and sanity, obviously
  • teach a monkey to change another monkey’s diapers
  • “here’s my cod”
  • official Duchess-wear
  • wouldn’t have thought a row of buttons in that spot would cause problems

Tune in next time part 710      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I gave myself over to the Dew-fugue. This song did not lie within the limits of safety and sanity, obviously, but it was my duty to perform it. When facing such challenges, I cast my mind back to my sophomore project, when I had to teach a monkey to change another monkey’s diapers. Nothing seems impossible anymore.

The rendition of my career told in the song was surprisingly accurate, although it portrayed me as something of a punster. If I hadn’t been under the influence of that glowing green beverage, I might have balked at the line where I supposedly told someone “here’s my cod” and handed over a fish as identification. Other details I couldn’t be sure weren’t true. Perhaps that disguise I once donned really was official Duchess-wear.

At last I swung into the climactic verse.

“My rank is elevated to the apex of the echelon
Luck or nepotism or find something else to blame it on
Among the snowy mountaintops my fortress was indomitable
The caves below it teemed with hordes of snowmen most abominable
It’s now my job to be in charge of comedy battalions
I take my soup with pepper and my omelets with scallions
Although I’m brave this number has me shaking in my epaulets
I never in my life before have seen so many wedding guests”

The crowd took over for the next line.
(he never in his life before has seen so many wedding guests, he never in his life before has seen so many wedding guests, he never in his life before has seen so many wedding wedding guests!)

And the big finale:
“In short in matters tactical or cryptozoological,
I am the very model of a Contrarian General!”

While I was still taking my bows, Fleur hauled me offstage. “There’s a situation,” she hissed. “We have to keep people from panicking, but it seems the engines lost power during your song. Somebody seems to have entered a special sequence that shut them down.” She pointed to a line of blinking red lights embedded in a tile on the dance floor, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t have thought a row of buttons in that spot would cause problems.”

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I Asked the Offensive Waiter

  • by jencutting off the wrong guy’s head
  • a monkey chaser
  • flowers in their hands
  • in which a mustachioed man holds two tomcats
  • I hope they jammed their fingers into him

Tune in next time part 709      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I asked the offensive waiter, “What’s your name?” I needed to know so that later when I complained to the Royal Contrarian Event Planner about his lack of respect, I wouldn’t be cutting off the wrong guy’s head-waiter promotion chances.

“Percival,” he improbably replied.

I twisted the cap off the soda bottle as I committed the name to memory, then I tipped my head back and chugged the whole thing. In my experience, Mountain Dew is always accompanied by a monkey chaser, but Percival hadn’t brought one. As I swallowed and swallowed, my eyes darted around the room in search of something, anything, to counteract the sugary burn. I saw women with flowers in their hands, which were of no use to me. The beverage hit my system hard and I experienced that classic Dew-induced hallucination in which a mustachioed man holds two tomcats above his head. Without a monkey chaser to dull the effects, I was in for a hell of a ride. I cursed Percival’s negligence. With the time-warping powers of the Dew I vowed to make his whole life until this moment a misery. I hope his schoolmates teased him. I hope they jammed their fingers into him and tickled him mercilessly.

The bottle was drained. I tossed it aside and perused the lyrics once again, and it was only as I opened my mouth to sing that I realized this was not Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Major-General’s Song.” It shared the same tune, but the lyrics were all specific to me and my life in the Contrarian military. The words tumbled out.

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Privileged Info

Some people like having an outline, and some people don’t. That’s fine. We’ve already shown our hand a million times here on this blog: we like outlines. We like having them, and stranger still we apparently enjoy making them. Doesn’t mean everybody has to.

Although working from a solid plan offers many advantages, there can be some hazards as well. Many writers who eschew outlining say it takes away the feeling of discovery. They’re usually talking about their own motivation and productivity, but there’s another potential pitfall. Sometimes the author’s foreknowledge of events leaks into the characters.

That can cause a doomed character to come across as fatalistic, or make the whole cast seem skittish around the one who will eventually betray them. The outcome becomes predictable because the characters are collectively telegraphing upcoming events. And if the people in the story just seem to be reciting their lines, it’s hard for readers to feel invested.

The key is to have a clear image of what the world is like for each character. To take on their attitude. Here in the Writing Cave we talk about it as “wearing the right head.” This might mean reviewing your notes about someone’s backstory, or it might mean physically acting out mannerisms. Focus on inhabiting the present, as informed by this person’s past. Sure, the outline prescribes a certain future, but don’t fixate on that. In fact, let yourself forget about it; it’s safely written down. What you want is characters who don’t know that they’re in a novel. The guy who bites the dust in the second act? He’s got plans. He bought tickets to a concert, plus he’ll be giving a big presentation at work. You know those things won’t happen until act three, which means they’ll never happen at all, but he makes his choices with those goals in mind. He’s not trying to fall off a roof.

And the outline needs to be flexible, so your cast can have a bit of autonomy. See where they go. It might be really interesting.

A writing partner is someone who shares in your joy at building characters up so they can fall that much farther.

By the Fiftieth Time Through

  • by Kentpontoon bridge over a hidden
  • sculpted entirely out of butter
  • stuck their noses in each other’s
  • narcotic-fueled bacchanals
  • I really don’t need to know about your weird sex life

Tune in next time part 708      Click Here for Earlier Installments

By the fiftieth time through that intro, I was becoming actively terrified of this pianist as her savage facial expression became ever harder to decipher. The delay in delivering my beverage hinted that the waiter had to cross a pontoon bridge over a hidden chasm somewhere deep in the bowels of the airship. Singing without it was unthinkable, so all I could do was wait.

Wait, and endure the pianist’s glare. I felt like a rabbit in front of a she-wolf, if the rabbit were sculpted entirely out of butter and the she-wolf’s eyes were heat lamps. Those opening bars of the Major-General’s Song, repeating again and again, made me dizzy. I tried to focus on memorizing the lyrics, but my thoughts were like dogs that stuck their noses in each other’s butts and went around and around in circles. My accompanist seethed at me, striking the keys ferociously, but all I could envision was accompanying her to narcotic-fueled bacchanals.

At last the waiter returned with the Mountain Dew. “Thanks,” I said. “Right now this is what I need more than anything else in the world.”

“I really don’t need to know about your weird sex life,” he replied.

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To My Dismay, the Lyrics

  • by jenleaping for this dazzling incomparable adventure
  • bright green carbonated beverage
  • If I could promise you just one thing
  • spearheaded by a magician
  • only I can see her

Tune in next time part 707      Click Here for Earlier Installments

To my dismay, the lyrics taped to the stage were those of the “Major-General’s Song” from the Pirates of Penzance. A younger version of me, the me from drama club, would be leaping for this dazzling incomparable adventure, the singing of such a challenging tune in front of a rapt audience. That starry-eyed thespian was long gone, though, and the only way for me to tap into his enthusiasm, and power through this ordeal was to drink a large quantity of every teen’s favorite bright green carbonated beverage. A pianist ran through the intro several times while I flagged down a passing cater-waiter and ordered him to bring me a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew. I may not actually be a Major-General, but I am a general General. He took one look at the medals on my sash and darted off to the kitchen. The pianist was quite irked by the delay. Her playing became brisker and pointier and she threw me looks that said, “If I could promise you just one thing, it’s that if you don’t start singing soon I will murder you in your sleep with a stick spearheaded by a magician‘s magic dagger.” Such an outlandish threat! And yet, I thought, underneath the hostility she behaves so wantonly I can see her complete lack of undergarments, even when she’s seated behind the piano.

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A Tale of Two Roadtrips

Back in April we took a little roadtrip. And as we usually do, we spent the time on the road brainstorming. We came up with a doozy of a character moment for someone’s backstory. It’s really quite a shocking thing. So shocking that at first we weren’t sure we wanted to commit to it. Once it was shakily noted down, we set it aside. (The writing was shaky because we were in a moving car, not because the idea itself was that outré.) We walked around the city a bit, attended a phenomenal concert, and the next morning we found a place with fantastic crepes. In short, we pretended we weren’t writers.

We picked the idea up again on the drive home and found that, yep, that terrible thing is indeed what happened in this person’s past. By not talking about it for a while we were each able to get used to it on our own, and all on its own it became the obvious answer.

More recently we took a day trip, and we barely talked about our work at all. Part of that was because the weather was wretched and Kent needed to really concentrate on not driving us into a ditch. But mostly it was just time for us to have some adventures unrelated to the current project. Sometimes a writer needs to soak up new experiences to give the ol’ creativity engine something to work with. (And maybe there was a touch of still being a bit stunned from the last big idea.)

A good writing partner is someone who is ready for novel adventures when you are. And also someone who shares a taste in funky lamps for the auxiliary writing cave.

Fleur’s Celebratory PJs

  • by Kentappear naked, while not actually *being* naked
  • to mock a killingbird
  • more of a psychotic gangster than a
  • wearing an orange hunting vest
  • “It’s… well, it’s a show tune.”

Tune in next time part 706      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Fleur’s celebratory PJs were a pink flannel catsuit adorned with cartoony fruits. There were exactly three fruits — two strawberries and a nectarine — deployed strategically so as to let the wearer appear naked, while not actually being naked. She licked the cake frosting off her lips, then stuffed more cake into her mouth so she could lick her lips at me some more.

“You seem to be enjoying my mother’s wedding more than you enjoyed our own,” I quipped.

“It’s bad luck to mock a killingbird at a Contrarian wedding,” she purred.

“I think in that getup you’re more of a sphynx cat than a bird.” I should have chosen my words more carefully, because she was a warlord’s daughter and really more of a psychotic gangster than a wife. I assumed she would spin around to reveal wings and give me a lengthy explanation of the symbolism.

She did spin around, but there were no wings on her pajamas and she just walked away. I knew from the swinging of her hips that I was meant to follow, and it was a rather pleasant invitation. I wondered if she would lead me all the way to her quarters, or if there was some closer spot she had in mind. I followed her through a maze of corridors until suddenly I found myself speared by a spotlight on the stage. The band had just completed their set. Fleur had disappeared, and a man wearing an orange hunting vest was handing me a microphone.

“It’s customary for the bride’s son to sing a song,” he said. “A specific song. The lyrics are taped to the stage.” He sounded apologetic. “It’s… well, it’s a show tune.”

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The Animal Noises Continued Unabated

  • by jen“There are balloons.”
  • thanks for starting me on my career path
  • I’m in love. And speechless.
  • sufficiently versed in the stranger’s system of stenography
  • “Wash your face before you hug your mother,”

Tune in next time part 705      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The animal noises continued unabated until the band reached the chorus, which contained the song’s only lyrics, “There are balloons.” They repeated it a dozen or more times, and got the whole crowd to sing along. The song finally ended with a jubilant cry of “There! Are! Balloons!” as hundreds of golden balloons dropped from the ceiling.

John took up the microphone and gazed at my mother. “It’s my turn to give a toast. I’d like to say thanks for starting me on my career path. If you hadn’t paid my tuition at the Academy, my life would be so different.” He sounded choked up, and had trouble saying the next part. “I’m in love. And speechless.”

“Can you repeat that?” called a woman in the corner. I somehow hadn’t noticed her before. She was dressed like a prim secretary from the 1950s, and sat behind a small typewriter like a court reporter. I didn’t remember stenographers being a part of any Contrarian wedding ceremonies. Honeymoons, sure, but not the ceremony or the reception.

John cleared his throat and repeated his toast as I made my way to the corner. I wanted to see who she was and what she was up to, but I was insufficiently versed in the stranger’s system of stenography to read her notes immediately.

As I tried to puzzle it out, Fleur darted up and smashed a piece of wedding cake into my mouth. She kissed me with frosting-covered lips, then laughed. “Wash your face before you hug your mother,” she said, smearing icing around my mouth like clown makeup.

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Search, Then Search Again

A novel set in the vague “present” allows the author to, for the most part, write what they know. You might need to dig into the details of a profession your character has, or a location they’re going to live in or visit, but you don’t need to research everyday life. Pretty much everyone knows what modern cars and airplanes are like. You can drop in a reference to Netflix or Uber or Joe Biden without needing to explain streaming entertainment, ride sharing, or the state of politics.

Still Untitled Ghost Novel #1 is set in the past, which has required us to do more research than usual. We want to be as accurate as possible, but we’re trying not to get too hung up on minutiae. No one wants to read a book that sounds like it was written by the most anal people on IMDB who take it personally when the train seats in a movie are the wrong shade of brown. Plus, it’s a ghost story. We’re allowed to take liberties.

Some of the research we’ve done for the Ghost Series will come as no surprise: mausoleums, funerary flowers, tarot. Some of it will give you a hint to the time period we’re working in for the first book: telegrams, livery stables, the British Raj. And some of it will hopefully have you scratching your head: world record for underwater breath holding, the history of welding masks, Gloria Vanderbilt.

Put all of that in a pot and stir. Sprinkle in some teen heartthrob magazines, circuit breakers, and the tunnel through the redwood tree, and voila! You’ve got yourself one heck of an untitled ghost novel!

A writing partner is someone who doesn’t let you fall too far down the research rabbit hole.

In That Moment

  • by Kentmy one single concern
  • doesn’t even know who her brother is
  • sound like someone slapping an elephant in the ribs with a slightly smaller elephant
  • in tall green letters
  • making animal sounds

Tune in next time part 704      Click Here for Earlier Installments

In that moment of altruism, my one single concern truly was for the emotional well-being of the children. But I quickly realized that nothing in Mother’s salacious little speech would make any sense to people so young. She’d done them no harm, so far. But I knew from personal experience that being a child around her was not the safest situation.

I also knew that she wasn’t going to listen to me. So I decided to appeal to John instead. After all, it had been a long time since that harpoon incident. “That woman will be the death of you,” I called out, my medals clinking. “She acts like she’s got it all under control, but she doesn’t even know who her brother is selling secrets to.”

“I don’t have a brother,” Mother told him flatly. “And it’s time for the first dance.”

The band had been setting up this whole time. But, evidently, not tuning up. They all slammed into action at once, producing a sound like someone slapping an elephant in the ribs with a slightly smaller elephant that was connected to numerous amplifiers. On the bass drum I saw their name in tall green letters, but it was a shade of green that I had never learned to read. One of them grabbed a microphone and started making animal sounds. I scanned the faces around me, trying to determine if this was real or if I had been drugged again.

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