xlviii - Day 19 - Favorite minor that decided to shove himself into the spotlight

Ah, an easy one. Though watch as I answer in my typically sideways fashion.

I'd never had this happen until recently. My guess is it's because of the way I fashion stories. Imagine, if you will, a paleontologist uncovering the fossilized remains of a gigantic dinosaur.

First to appear from the earth are the largest bones, which give us the most fundamental details about the creature. What is the overall shape? How did the body support itself? How did it move around?

The protagonist is the head, and as they teach you in martial arts the body always moves with the head. The protagonist's arc - their interaction with the antagonist - is represented by the shape of the dinosaur's backbone. Can this structure support the weight of the other systems necessary to bring the piece to life?

At this stage, I am attempting to answer the most important facets of "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Why?"

Then we get more detailed glimpses as we uncover the smaller and smaller bones. Was it predator or prey? Whether herbivore or carnivore, can we ascertain its favoured diet? How did it protect itself? Here, I situate the protagonist and antagonist in their world. In my analogy the proportions of the bones can hint at lung capacity, mobility, specifics of the diet. In my stories I am now placing the characters in their physical settings, and populating these places with the actors that will come to play a role in the narrative.

I attempt to wrap up the "Who?", and "Why?" at this stage, sketch out the salient points of "When?" and "Where?", and fill out just a bit more of the last two, "What?" and "How?"

Finally, if we're lucky, we get into the smallest details, hopefully ones specific to this very creature we're uncovering. What can we deduce about its life and death?

When I'm writing, the entirety of the first stage and a good chunk of the second take place before I'll even draw up an outline. With the outline done, my first draft occupies half of the second and half of the third stages. Subsequent drafts further refine, adding or adjusting additional layers of detail. Rewrites are by far the most time-intensive work, but by the end of the first draft I've typically got 60%-80% of the story in place.

So, all of that to say that the reason it hasn't happened to me before is that in every story I've written but one, I'd already charted a course for all but the most insignificant/character-as-scenery characters before setting pen to paper.

I've seen the act of writing fiction compared to recollecting past events, and it's an apt description for my process. My characters don't often surprise me because I already know what they've done.

None of this actually answers the question, though, so let me tell you about the time it did happen.

In my second novel there is a character that serves as cannon fodder for the antagonist, and dies by the end of the first chapter. His scenes serve to build tension and showcase what the bad guy can do, but he was just a throwaway. Upon further reflection, I'm starting to think that following his story beyond his unlucky encounter might serve as an interesting counterpoint to some of the other threads I follow through the narrative.

xlvii - Day 18 - Favorite Antagonist

Today I bring you a three part answer because no single one of these characters fulfills the spirit of this week's topic.


My favorite antagonist (that I've written) is Ira Mastema.

I discuss him here(http://thestoriesofix.blogspot.com/2011/07/xl-day-11-who-is-your-favoriteleast.html), so I won't tread that ground again. I don't feel I can offer him as an answer alone because I haven't written enough of him to claim him as a fully-formed character.

My favourite antagonist (from a novel someone else wrote) is Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.

His cunning and ruthlessness are traits I always strive to imbue in my arch-nemeses. In my opinion raw intellect will find a way to win most battles - and what's scarier than a bad guy with an agenda and the means to make it happen. By the midpoint of Dune, Baron Harkonnen had destroyed the main character's house and assassinated his father. There's no doubt he'll get his eventually, but this is clearly not a villain to be taken lightly.

Still, I'm hesitant to hold him up as my sole choice because he's not my character and, perhaps more importantly this time, because I think there are a few elements of his characterization that, and it pains me to write this about the author of my favorite book, strike me as downright lazy. He's a red-headed homosexual pedophile with an eastern european name. It's like Herbert drew up a cliched list of "horrible 1960s character flaws" and built an otherwise well executed character into it.

My favourite antagonist (from any print media) is Magneto, from the X-Men series of comics.

He has a lot of the upside of a Baron Harkonnen without many of the telegraphed characteristics. With fifty-ish years of comic book backstory, things are bound to go off the rails, but at his best, he's been written as an extremely compelling character on an almost-but-not-quite noble crusade. I also hesitate to include him as a single response due to his not being my character, and that he's not written in the traditional sense

xlvi - Day 17 - Favorite Protagonist

Ok, so I did curse myself. It turns out actually having the baby (noting a previous post's caveat about being relegated to spectator status for the genuinely difficult bits, on account of my sex) is a lot more work than I imagined. I've been quite busy.

It's my daughter's two-month birthday today and things are apparently supposed to ease up from now on. There are undoubtedly parts of my life that will never be the same, but I'm holding out hope there are meals and full nights' worth of sleep in my future.

In the meantime I'm rediscovering my ability to string together more than a sentence or two, so it's looking like high time to reassemble the wagon.

Day 17 - Favorite Protagonist

Henry Dorsett Case.

Is that cheating? The "question" isn't specific. I didn't write him. I doubt he'll ever figure in anything I do. Of any character I've read or written, though, he's the one that drew me in the most.

It goes without saying that because I started reading for fun when I was a kid, that I wasn't the most refined reader. So, it didn't hurt that a lot of the stories I read in junior and early high school made liberal use of the "kid of modest origins becomes nigh-invulnerable" trope, but I can't say I identified with the protagonists.

As I made my way through high school that would change. Dune, being another boy-becomes-god story, served as a bridge to science fiction. The first character I developped a rapport with was Paul Atreides, even though the only thing we had in common was our age and general physical appearance.

It wasn't until after my introduction to the depression that would become my lifelong companion that I really clicked with a character. That character, you'd be right to guess, is Case.  The broader strokes of his storyline resonated with me at a time that I felt I'd lost something, and that feeling stuck with me.