Find out moonshine, find out moonshine
Apr. 18th, 2009 08:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanA few entries back, I asked anyone who felt so inclined to offer me a bit of verse that, in the way things work in the Secret Country books, would serve as a location spell. I was very vague about the circumstances in which the spell would be used, because to be specific would have given away a great many things that I prefer to be revealed in the proper order by actual reading of the book.
My original idea was that either Ruth or Arry would simply think of the verse, and then they would try to use it. This is not what happened.
I'm putting the rest behind a cut for the very extremely spoiler-averse, and for the convenience of people who are not interested in detailed descriptions of other people's writing processes.
So I read through all the suggestions, and with them all flickering around in my head, I went to write my scene.
In the first place, neither Ruth nor Arry could think of a single verse. None of the verses anybody had suggested would come into their heads. I accordingly, since they are in a gigantic magical library for most of the book, and I had already had a beta-reader complain that the library didn't seem to be doing them much good, had them decide to go look up location spells. They spend a fair amount of time looking things up in the library, so this dovetailed nicely with those other scenes.
The chapter is from Ruth's viewpoint. With unerring accuracy, she hit on all the verses best designed to hurt her the most. With half of them, I didn't consciously realize this until I needed to write her reaction. She eventually ended up handing off the book of spells to Arry because she couldn't stand reading any more of them. At this point, I knew which spell I wanted Arry to light on. Arry wasn't having any, and read off a few others. The one I finally used was none of the ones any of you suggested.
Nevertheless, I am going to put everyone's name in the Acknowledgements who suggested anything at all, because what you all did was to create a chapter or two of the book of spells, a background, a hat for the characters to draw verses out of. The entire scene would have gone very differently if I had used only the poetry in my own head or gone looking randomly in Bartlett's or a Shakespeare concordance.
Thank you all again. I would apologize for my characters, but that just means apologizing for myself, and the writing process does what it does; apology seems beside the point.
P.
My original idea was that either Ruth or Arry would simply think of the verse, and then they would try to use it. This is not what happened.
I'm putting the rest behind a cut for the very extremely spoiler-averse, and for the convenience of people who are not interested in detailed descriptions of other people's writing processes.
So I read through all the suggestions, and with them all flickering around in my head, I went to write my scene.
In the first place, neither Ruth nor Arry could think of a single verse. None of the verses anybody had suggested would come into their heads. I accordingly, since they are in a gigantic magical library for most of the book, and I had already had a beta-reader complain that the library didn't seem to be doing them much good, had them decide to go look up location spells. They spend a fair amount of time looking things up in the library, so this dovetailed nicely with those other scenes.
The chapter is from Ruth's viewpoint. With unerring accuracy, she hit on all the verses best designed to hurt her the most. With half of them, I didn't consciously realize this until I needed to write her reaction. She eventually ended up handing off the book of spells to Arry because she couldn't stand reading any more of them. At this point, I knew which spell I wanted Arry to light on. Arry wasn't having any, and read off a few others. The one I finally used was none of the ones any of you suggested.
Nevertheless, I am going to put everyone's name in the Acknowledgements who suggested anything at all, because what you all did was to create a chapter or two of the book of spells, a background, a hat for the characters to draw verses out of. The entire scene would have gone very differently if I had used only the poetry in my own head or gone looking randomly in Bartlett's or a Shakespeare concordance.
Thank you all again. I would apologize for my characters, but that just means apologizing for myself, and the writing process does what it does; apology seems beside the point.
P.
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 02:38 pm (UTC)Yes. True. And yet, well, it feels a little like a spell: if you start pulling apart the elements of the spell to impose an arbitrary result ("Please have one blue eyed person, all your characters have brown eyes. Oh, and in scene two, Gorganzola has to have a crystal, because that's what the cover art shows.") it all falls lifeless, and one cannot stir them back up into that semblance of life.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:34 pm (UTC)That sounds about right.
Also, I want very much to read this context.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-19 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-19 03:24 am (UTC)