Overstand

Tis the season. For falling into funks. The writing has been proceeding, albeit at a slow pace. I've been hamstrung by the start and stop pace created by the research required to keep this off the ground. Normally, my chapters hover around 2,500 words. That's been strangely consistent across series, across genres, across years. I theorized early on that a specific amount of detail is required, like the rubber casing surrounding copper wires, to transmit understanding and create immersion for the reader. And it depends a lot on where the author is starting, what needs to be explained for the story elements to make sense, so the narrative can proceed. In more modern settings, I found the chapter word count dropping, because everything was so very similar to our modern world. In fantasy settings, not medieval but different worlds entirely, certain things had to be clarified, but where I didn't explain, the trappings created a safety netting in the medieval understanding. Somewhere, someone was churning butter. There were cows. Sky was still blue on good days and the grass was still green. In science fiction, sometimes the water is red and the leaves are purple, the ground is poisonous green sand and clouds are alive. For the current project, which is set in modernity, I'm up to 4,000 words. I wouldn't call it a slog, but it's as if the opposite has become true. The world is the world we all remember, but the changes are important, and there is a non-trivial amount of them.

On that note, story detail, a writer friend asked me for my opinion on a she's been working on, and how it looks in today's political climate. She made specific decisions with skin tone and melanin content in her fantasy story and worried that it would be misinterpreted in certain, damaging ways. I told her that so long as the decisions were deliberate, and not chosen in spite or anger, then it should be fine. Just be ready for questions. We have different backgrounds, so I was able to provide some alternative perspective on how I saw things, and why. I told her that stories are blank canvasses, for me, and every single dab of paint is a choice the author makes. Lots of decisions get made arbitrarily in lots of stories, and even though I do that myself, I still think it is a weaker move. Because every decision made is an opportunity for distinction. I told her I was curious how she even came up with the idea to use darker peoples in certain ways, and she explained that, for her, it was a point of representation. I respected that, even agreed with it, but there were some other concerns I vocalized. All in all, it was an interesting discussion, and made me reflect on my own choices, past and present, and why I made them, and what I would do differently if I had them to do all over again. This writing process for the current project has been even more introspect than others, which, if you know me, is saying a lot. I have had to confront my own ignorance of certain topics directly, and accept the fact that I was a bit lost, in trying to find my way. I never did go camping, yet I find myself in even deeper woods.

And almost as if I needed an example, I happened upon a video of the creator of a show I watch, talking about how he came to create one of the characters. The character in question is very distinctive, with several traits that connected in such a way that the origin seemed assured. The video even went on to explain why it was perfectly reasonable to assume the character came from that certain place, was built on top of specific stereotypes. The video went on to explain how all of that was false, with testimony from the author, who walked through who the character was, and where the idea had come from. I never could have imagined. It transported me back to my reaction to my writer friend's question, about being ready for questions. Without that explanation, I, and apparently many others, would've made some wholly incorrect assumptions (and this is important because the character, at times, borders on being generalizing, if not racist). It taught me that there are so many different computations of understanding. It was amazing, but also terrifying, and I wondered about what things I had created that were innocently, and dangerously, misunderstood. And again, I turned to my current project, where I am not shying away from certain things, but rather addressing them very directly.

Today, I am not especially sure where I'm going, but I think I know where I am.

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