Rainbow is Wide, Rainbow is Long

The plot rainbow is constructed from rows and columns. Which is which largely depends on whether we’ve laid it out on the floor or on our snazzy new whiteboard. But either way, a stripe of any given color represents an entity’s timeline, and a stripe that cuts across all the colors perpendicularly is a story beat.

The colors are out of order? You’re out of order!

Generally, we build up the rainbow by beats. “What’s everybody up to at this point in the story?” This approach feels natural for us during the early to middle phases, while the structure is incomplete. But once we have most of it set up, we find it very useful to run through each color the whole way from start to finish. Often cards will get added this way that had been missed during the beat-by-beat phases.

It’s important not to start thinking you have to fill in every space in the grid. Only create cards for the information that matters. It needn’t be anything that will become an actual scene, though. And by following each character’s journey all the way through the overall tale we make sure that their story arcs all make sense. In effect, we’re going through the whole cast in turn and asking what the novel would look like if they were the main character. Coming at it from these different angles really helps find the places where things might not join up smoothly, and it’s super easy to make adjustments to the rainbow. Much more so than in rewrites!

A writing partner is someone to criss-cross the rainbow with you.

If Hildegard’s Father Hoped

  • by Kenttook off his cravat
  • weird art projects that are mostly about pornography
  • my father also enjoys circus peanuts
  • keys to open the padlocks
  • because of the required coordination

Tune in next time part 642      Click Here for Earlier Installments

If Hildegard’s father hoped to get me in trouble with John, his plan was probably going to backfire. Being the only other person skilled in the limbo code, I was the only person John could be trying to communicate with. Unless this was all a trap.

The old man took off his cravat and used it to mop his forehead. He reached for the photo and the note, but I didn’t give them up. He intended, no doubt, to incorporate them into weird art projects that are mostly about pornography. For once he was quiet, standing there hoping I’d hand over the nude picture of my mother. He took a bag of circus peanuts out of his pocket and munched with a contented sigh.

This brought to mind the fact that my father also enjoys circus peanuts, a taste he acquired during his days as an escapist on the sawdust circuit. He also found it useful to embed within the doughy candies the keys to open the padlocks that were part of his act. He needed keys, since he couldn’t pick the locks because of the required coordination. He did, however, teach himself to bite into circus peanuts without chipping a tooth on the keys.

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Read This Way, the Message Still Said Nothing

  • by jenshorts held up by suspenders
  • while we limber up
  • experimented with it at parties
  • his revenge should be protracted and terrible
  • the precision and cold-blooded nature

Tune in next time part 641      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Read this way, the message still said nothing about the accompanying photo of my mother dressed only in shorts held up by suspenders. Perhaps I needed to rotate it 90 degrees and try it that way? I turned the page sideways, which made my brain cells scream, “Slow down while we limber up!”

Aha! The limbo code! Of course!

It had been outlawed at the Academy, but I and some of my fellow students learned about it and experimented with it at parties. I was one of the two who mastered it. John was the other. I recognized his handwriting now, and knew that if he learned Hildegard and her father had showed this letter to me, his revenge should be protracted and terrible with the precision and cold-blooded nature of a shark.

Was my new father-in-law trying to get me killed?

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It Tastes Like Victory

The plot rainbow for Ghost Book 4 is complete. And freakin’ massive. Our whiteboard is 4′ x 8′, and the rainbow covers the entire front and more than half the back. It’s really something.

So — the entire Ghost Series is plotted. It feels great! It’s also intimidating because these novels are what we’re going to work on for the next few years. No pressure.

Amazingly, we’re still really psyched by the story we’ve specced out, even after spending 3/4 of a year immersed in it. Before we can actually start the prose composition there are still a few steps we need to complete:

  • photograph, number, document, and file the Book 4 rainbow
  • watch a couple of movies for research
  • review the Book 1 rainbow, and expand as necessary
  • turn the rainbow into an outline
  • finalize character and setting sketches
  • write the first batch of stubs

Then we’ll be ready to really start. With all our pre-work, the writing itself should go pretty smoothly. It’s a good thing we didn’t just jinx ourselves!

A writing partner is someone who knows the proper counter-jinx techniques and rituals, and will perform them with you.

Once It Began, There Was No Stopping It

  • by Kentsweating steadily for a week
  • he used the words “primal urges.”
  • “I am a wild beast.”
  • covering up their naughty bits with flora
  • challenged to a dance battle

Tune in next time part 640      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Once it began, there was no stopping it. It no longer mattered that these two were staring at me. Relief flooded my soul as my urine flooded the toilet bowl.

“You can accomplish the same thing by sweating steadily for a week,” the old man advised me. “Course, your way is faster.” He paused for a bit, while I continued to urinate. “Least I assume it is.” He launched into another disorderly tirade, in which, over and over, he used the words “primal urges.” By the time he finished talking, I was done as well. The sound of the toilet flushing seemed apt commentary on what he’d just said.

Before he thought of anything else to rant about, I snatched the note out of his hand.

“Ruffian!” he shouted.

I nodded, and smirked. “I am a wild beast.” I walked out of the bathroom, smoothing the rumpled paper and trying to identify the handwriting. It had many expansive, looping flourishes, and the actual words were in an obscure pidgin that I didn’t think anyone still used.

The message did not relate directly to the photo, at least not in any way I could understand, and it didn’t mention anyone I knew. It described a camping trip that had to be cut short when a bear stole their clothes, leaving them hitchhiking in the nude while covering up their naughty bits with flora (and sometimes fauna) until finally someone stopped. They expected to be offered a lift but instead were challenged to a dance battle.

Nothing I saw in the text would have inspired two Contrarians to share a chuckle about “parrot fever,” until I turned the page 180 degrees. Which raised the question, which one of us was reading it upside-down?

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Parrot Meat is Often Used as an Aphrodisiac

  • by jenthe right taste and texture
  • even a fairly sexually liberated person
  • head-to-toe velvet
  • sex after a big sloppy meatball sub
  • rub it all over your palms

Tune in next time part 639      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Parrot meat is often used as an aphrodisiac in Contrarian culture because the locals think it has the right taste and texture to stimulate the imagination in ways even a fairly sexually liberated person might find startling. “Parrot fever” was Contrarian slang for “horny,” and just remembering that was more than I wanted to do in front of an old man dressed in head-to-toe velvet. Unbidden, my thoughts turned to depraved acts like having sex after a big sloppy meatball sub, or what it would feel like to take that sub and rub it all over your palms before jumping into bed.

At least it distracted me long enough for my bladder to let go.

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We Can Almost Taste It

We’ve been plotting the Ghost Series for some time now — much longer than we realized, as it turns out. A quick tour through our Friday posts shows that we first mentioned the plot rainbow in mid-February (!). That’s a full 8 months ago, and we’d already been hammering away at it before we told you about it.

Today we’re pleased to say we’re allllmost done. A few weeks ago we targeted November 1 for packing up Book 4’s rainbow and moving on to the next stage in the process. We’re pretty confident we could have reached that deadline with ease if family trips and Primus concerts and family trips to Primus concerts hadn’t intruded. So we’ll just blame our children (and Les Claypool) and wrap it up as soon as we can. You can’t rush these things. Like a pregnancy, it takes as long as it takes, and — also like a pregnancy — that seems to be about 9 months. We’ll have the Writing Cave to ourselves again this weekend. With a roaring fire and enough Halloween chocolate we might actually reach our goal.

A writing partner is someone who helps the time fly by.

It Would Have Been A Mercy

  • by Kentcollapse like one of those fainting goats
  • owned a car with a cassette player
  • It would be easy, then, to label Hungary a unicorn
  • doesn’t have any shame
  • parrot fever

Tune in next time part 638      Click Here for Earlier Installments

It would have been a mercy to be able to collapse like one of those fainting goats, just slump off the toilet seat, and maybe with unconsciousness would come sufficient lassitude to void my bladder. The thought of lying in a puddle of my own filth was welcome next to the reality confronting me from this photo. But even seeing Mother like that didn’t shock me quite enough to grant my wish.

Hildegard’s father snatched the picture and the note back from me. “Why are you reading my mail?” he demanded shrilly. “I’m so old, I once owned a car with a cassette player. So don’t think I don’t know how things work. The only thing I was never very good at is geography, and I’ve got a system for that now too.” He babbled about his tricks for remembering maps, his gesticulating hands crinkling the note, but, I noticed, not causing even one crease in the photograph. After five minutes of nonsense about the shapes of countries in eastern Europe, he seemed ready to toddle away. But Hildegard filled the brief pause, saying airily, “It would be easy, then, to label Hungary a unicorn, provided one’s map reflects the Treaty of Ampersands. Otherwise the outline is all wrong.” This renewed the elderly man’s enthusiasm for the topic, and he droned for another ten minutes. I tried to tune him out, let his incessant voice become like a babbling brook to ease my task.

He snapped his fingers at me, breaking the spell. “Nothing worse than a newlywed groom who doesn’t have any shame. What’re you sitting there for? Get outta the way, I need to pee!”

“So do I!” I bellowed.

He laughed, trading sly glances with this daughter as he pointed out something in the note I hadn’t yet read. She tittered and said, “I suppose that would explain why they call it parrot fever!”

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Contrary to What Alfred Hitchcock Would Have You Believe

  • by jenextremely unlikely to do at a hotel
  • decorated with stuffed birds
  • staring at their tight asses and glistening abs
  • “I was very much surprised.”
  • imagine my surprise to receive this photograph of my mother

Tune in next time part 637      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Contrary to what Alfred Hitchcock would have you believe, murder is something most people are extremely unlikely to do at a hotel decorated with stuffed birds, which is why so many in the hospitality industry choose that design motif for their guest rooms. The discomfort in my bladder, though, was so great that I was considering bucking the trend and killing both Hildegard and her father so that I would be able to pee in peace, despite the frozen aviary surrounding me. In a bizarre Bumpengryndian touch, there were as many marble nudes as taxidermy fowl in the honeymoon suite. It was strange to imagine how many couples had spent their first night as a married couple amid these stone Adonises, staring at their tight asses and glistening abs, feeling (probably) inadequate by comparison.

These thoughts distracted me, and I relaxed almost enough to begin urinating. Then Hildegard’s father waved his silk handkerchief in my face, saying, “I was very much surprised.”

I swore under my breath as my bladder slammed shut and my kidneys groaned.

“Did you hear me?” my new father-in-law demanded. “I said I was very much surprised.”

“By what?” I said peevishly. “By the intrusion of virtual strangers into your bathroom?”

“There are no strangers in Bumpengrynd, my boy! No, I was surprised to find this in my mailbox today.” He thrust a large envelope at me. Inside was a salacious snapshot and a folded piece of paper.

He thought he was surprised? Well, imagine my surprise to receive this photograph of my mother dressed in only the bottom half of a Contrarian warlord’s dress uniform. While I sat on the toilet.

I hardly dared read the accompanying note.

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Like It’s Been There All Along

Things are getting down to the very end in our plotting and scheming sessions for the Ghost Series. Only the climax of the final book really remains up in the air, but there are still surprises waiting for us as we see where our characters go. For instance, during a recent dog-walking-and-novel-plotting excursion, two of our characters decided to wouldn’t you like to know right in the middle of the finale.

By the end of the walk, it felt like that was the way we’d always intended it.

That’s a strong indication that what you’re onto is good, when it immediately acquires a sense of familiarity, when it retcons itself into your whole conception of the narrative. That feeling means that this new idea fills gaps without pushing all your other pieces out of place. You might not have even recognized consciously that the gaps existed, but the structure suddenly holds its shape better.

There’s still a long way to go before we get around to actually writing these scenes. We need to do our outlines, and create stubs, not to mention that what we’re talking about is the very end of Book 4 of a tetralogy. A lot could change by then, even with a process as methodical as ours.

A writing partner is someone to share the discovery of what’s been there the whole time.