Why I love my WIP
This was not the post I was looking for:
http://betweenfactandfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/happy-writers-society-love-lists-by.html
The one I remember reading, which made me think “I must do that for my WIP!” was a different post which I can’t seem to find any more. And I clearly remember the title wrong, because when I googled it, this was the one I came up with.
But no matter! This one has much the same gist to it. That being that it is both fun and motivational to make a list of the things that you love about your current WIP.
My current WIP has just reached the end of the final climax whereby the heroes all got to save each other from certain death by their martial prowess, magical badassery, ability to look like an elderly Islamic saint and sure hand with a bottle of perfume, respectively. So there’s only the winding down to go now – arranged marriages to be solemnized, fathers to be reconciled with, tortoises to be illumined etc.
So I’m at the stage where I’m pretty damn motivated anyway. Another week or two should see the first draft finished.
But then there’s editing, so I may need the extra push for that. Here’s my list then, of things that I love about The Glass Floor
Radu: He looks like this http://pinterest.com/pin/44402746297416457/ and he’s everything I love in a character – rude, arrogant, isolated, violent, raised by monsters. But then I found out that he’s also a closet extrovert, poor man. He really likes people, he just hasn’t the faintest idea how they work.
Ecaterina: I do like the bolshy ones! When I started off, I thought Catia was going to be a bit of a wimp. Her magical talent is to be supernaturally likeable. I thought she was going to be all floaty and nice & I’d struggle to think of things to do with her. Instead she told me that since she was likeable by magic she didn’t have to waste her time trying to do it the old fashioned way. So I should skip that nonsense and get out of her way while she founded Romania’s first university of magic.
Romania: Here’s a country I knew nothing about before I started. I had impressions from Dracula, and far from being disappointed, I’m very glad to say that it seems to me that Bram Stoker got it all wrong. The place is much more interesting than he made it out to be. Did you know that the name Wallachia is related to our Wales? Both coming from Wealh, the Saxon for “foreigner.” Well, OK, that makes me geek out, but is possibly not so interesting to everyone else.
Istanbul: Why are you so complicated yet so terribly romantic?
Zayd and his bucket of jellyfish. Zayd and his awesome mum and auntie.
Nabih, who started off as a walk-on-character entirely there for plot reasons, and ended up as the guy who’s so holy nobody is surprised when he becomes a saint.
Cezar – noooo, don’t say I’m going to have to kill him. Except that I am. I want to hug him and possibly ship him with Radu, but important plot reasons suggest he ought to die instead.
Mirela: Sort of the opposite of Ecaterina. I was sure, going in, that she was going to be so cool, but then all the scenes where she was supposed to do stuff didn’t actually happen. I wondered for a while if I should cut her out. But then she came good in the end. Huzzah!
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Oh, Frank. Why are you not on this list? Step 1 in the editing, I think – Figure out a way to make Frank more loveable without getting rid of his essential characteristics of being ornamental and insecure.
