Brick By Brick

I found my villain, today. My antagonist, that is. I’m not sure how much mustache twirling he’s going to wind up doing, or how many little old ladies he’ll tie to the railroad track. Safe bet? Well, there just aren’t that many trains on spaceships, so… Any ideas on how to get a train on a spaceship?

He was sitting on a good chunk of my plot, as well. Most of it, in fact. I’m a little relieved, because the first chunk of plot I came up with was just a wild and weird love triangle. Well… uhm… sort of a non-euclidean, love polygon with at least two non-fixed coordinates. Because I’m not really a romance writer.

(Pay no attention to that manuscript in my trunk.)

I’m still putting things together, of course. I’m still working toward something coherent.

And I’m still hoping–as always–for a cleaner draft. (I have index cards! And math. And… how can I only have 45 index cards?!!! How will I survive?!!! People have died in possession of more index cards than that.)

Right now, the plan is to come in at 90,000 words-ish.

4 Comments

  1. Reply

    I would love to only have 45 index cards! But how in earth do you fit a plot on those? Last time I checked (before my Roomba vacuumed them up) I had 104 index cards. As expected, the draft is way too long.

    • Reply

      There are a lot of different methods for plotting with index cards, but I’m using Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways version. Her revision class worked really well for me, but I still have absolutely no space to talk about novel length. I’m cutting about half from my current revision. This time, it’s going to be an as I go along type thing.

  2. Reply

    (I think you were being rhetorical, but) instead of a train, spaceships might have all sorts of conveyor belts, air and water recyclers, trash vaporizors, etc. I am reminded of the scene in Star Trek (the reboot with Pine) when Pegg gets trapped in the water system.
    P.S. Love triangles are out and Love trapezoids are in.

    • Reply

      Now I’m thinking of an old lady bound and gagged and shoved in a space toilet as the robotic maid’s mechanical hand inches closer and closer to the flipper for that fatal mercy flush!

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