Post 8.2.4.0 Rambling About "Depress Button", a Story

I am writing tonight without being able to see what I've written already. It feels like working without a net. [tonight being last Thursday, or maybe last Tuesday - the second or third meetup for nano]

I was swapping email with Stephen yesterday and he asked a question about a plot point in Depress Button. First, I was pleased that he had read it. The beginning* is on my blog, but I don't expect anyone to be reading that. 

Then I started explaining what else was going to be worked into the story. I couldn't remember what had been in the notes section, and therefor repeated myself.

When he said that he'd read that there would be spiders, and had shivered at the idea, I had to go on and list other things. I was hoping to add things that hadn't been in the notes. I added and added and ended up extending the plot.

This was a wonderful thing, and I'm still feeling a bit lighter for it. The first scene had come easily, after putting two basic ideas together and collecting a few details around it. One of the ideas could work as an ending, if filled out properly. The second scene had taken a little work and had petered out at the end.

Then I let someone read it. She liked it, but in saying why made it clear that she saw the main character differently than I did. 

After that I had a hard time thinking of what should come next. I did research on spiders, which was interesting and which may yet give me a direction. It's already given me facts for purposes of decoration (shades of C. Northcote Parkinson). In fact, I've gone back to the second scene and added a pervasive scent of dog food and bananas.

I also mulled over the three characters in the story and the ways that they might interfere with each other, determined to get some actual conflict into a story for once. I have trouble introducing conflict. Someone once told me that what I wrote weren't stories, they were vignettes. 

But, somehow, showboating for Stephen let things flow again. I was listing teasers and I kept adding one after another, until I had something close to a complete plot. From here, it's dialog and details. I still have to (or want to - it may not be truly necessary to the story) work out how the magic system works. But I teasered my way to a tease about the conclusion.

The conclusion tease is: Two Words. The two words are: spam filter. 

* not that anything besides the beginning exists. Well, there are a few notes and comments, but mostly there is only a beginning. This is not unusual for me. The blog is called A Thousand Beginnings, and I am collecting all of the writings that I never finished in one place. 

Not that I have actually collected and entered every piece of writing that I've ever started. I've made a start, though. Sometimes I feel good to have started and sometimes I feel guilty that I haven't completed it. That's why that blog is listed on my blog called The Guilt List.**

** I may have written about both of the blogs already. As I said, I'm writing tonight with no access to what I've written here before. It feels like working without a net because I have a mind like a steel sieve. There's no way to know if I'm repeating myself. 

Not that repetition is a bad thing

Post 5.1.1.0 "Depress Button" Story Notes

I have no idea why this is here and not on my other blog.

Sums has three sisters and a mother in town. Peripheral aunts and cousins and things live out of comfortable visiting distance.

The other womenfolk in her family are flighty twitterers. They are always losing things and leaving things about and forgetting things. They lose men. They lose jobs. They lose apartments.

Rings are pawned. Cars are repossessed. Magic augmentations are disconnected. There is a constant complaint about being let down, or being treated badly, but they are mostly cheerful about their lives, arguing back and forth about who has cleverly gotten the best latest flashy object, contract, or relationship.

Sums has learned not to enter their contests. They think of her as dull and stodgy. They see dull and stodgy as being the next thing to being mentally retarded. I think Sums has to be the third-born of the flock.

If her mother and sisters knew that Sums had savings, they would be constantly nagging for money, so she allows them to think that "freelance bookkeeping" doesn't pay very well. They still ask for loans, of course, but in a pro forma sort of way, with no real expectation of success. A small trickle of small bills that are never returned keeps them satisfied that she isn't hoarding things away from them.

If the requests come too close together Sums would be happy to lend x a bit as soon as y pays back the z that she borrowed last week.

I think I just thought of a way that this information could be entered into the story in an active way (Muppet flashback: "it's plot exposition, it has to go somewhere!"). The spider Mage, after incapacitating Sums and Chaz, ransacks their pockets and equipment. He plays voice mail left by her sisters and mother, embarrassing Sums. I think I'll call this point b.

Point a is the initial meeting with spider Mage and his surprising but inevitable betrayal (Firefly flashback). Point c is the argument with SM and his decision to experiment on Chaz while leaving Sums free in the warehouse to do the audit of magickal energies that she was hired to do. I think the tipping point is that she's only contracted to work for the city, she's not an actual government worker.

Chaz is much younger than he looks and much better looking. Sums knew that he was using sartorial magic to make himself look more middle aged, and that he felt that gave him a look of authority. Actually, he comes from a family of well known politicians (I think, maybe) and he's working as a mid level municipal bureaucrat because that's the only way to use his training without entering the fray that he can think of. 

Spider mage's family has actually used him up, drawing magic through him from the time that he was a child. This is where I need to know more about how magic and this society works. There's something brewing in the back of my brain. I think it includes the type of magic you can do being influenced by your outlook or worldview from childhood through puberty. I think this must mean that children's books are heavily regulated.

I keep trying to consider how a society with no public education would work. I think this is a good excuse to read Dodger, which Pratchett just released. The Victorian way was with nannies, governesses, tutors, and boarding schools. And apprenticeships. I suppose indentured servitude would fit in there, too. 

I think for my reader's sake (Asimov flashback: Gentle Readers) spider needs to be actually dying at the beginning of the story and have the chance of being healed at the end. (The recurring flashbacks are giving me a Vonnegut flashback: So it goes.) 

I think that the stated tipping point for spider deciding to let them go is that Sums has determined that some effect from the spam filter is slowing his decline. The unstated, and possibly unconscious, tipping point is the realization that all three of them are estranged from their families. Sums has pulled back from hers while allowing them to continue in her proximity in complete ignorance of every important thing about her.

Chaz has a less successful estrangement, in that if his family learned of his location and position, they would lean on him. He is successfully free of them only because he realizes that he would not be able to withstand their manipulations and therefor does not risk any contact at all.

Spider also has completely cut himself off from his family. They do not realize this. They are expecting him to be dying and are willing to allow him to take himself off to indulge in his hobbies as his power wanes. They still know his location, however, and still consider him to be a family resource. If they knew that he wasn't yet as sick as they thought, they'd collect him. 

Because they are magic users, staying off their radar is much more difficult and more fraught than Chaz's escape is. Chaz is going to babble when the spiders wrap his head (their webs interfere with information transfer). I think one of the things he's going to babble about is kidnapping and ransom. Possibly he arranged his own.

Post 5.1.0.0 Email re: "Depress Button"

 I have no idea why this is here and not in my other blog

email to S -

There is also a reclusive spider mage. He is ill and distrustful. And taciturn. He is performing experiments and breeding his lovely spiders. He wants nothing to do with government snooping.

Was the cheerful, pseudo-portly civil servant named Charles? Let's pretend it was. Charles is about to be immobilized and brought into the experiment. He'll be wrapped in spider webbing.

The spiders spin webs that interfere with the transmission of magic/information. Charles won't be thinking too well when the webs wrap around his head. The webbing also prevents information entering or leaving the warehouse, so no way to call for help.

Sums will be more useful taking readings and auditing the flow of the various magics in the experiments. So she is unwrapped and nominally at large. Since there is no known exit, though, she's not going anywhere.

Oh, and the smell of dog food and fruit? Apparently you can't support a breeding colony of spiders unless you have a breeding colony of flies.

Oh, and the way that Sums convinces Mr. Spiderdaddy (I think his name is Kjeldahl. possibly Lars Kjeldahl. Or Sven. It's in my notes.) to let them go? . . . I do actually have a way, I'm just not sure how to get there. All three of the characters are hiding things, personal things, family related things. They actually do have one or two things in common, but they don't trust each other at all. It's going to be hard to get the dance between them right.

And Sums has an idea, but they'd all have to work together and it would require a lot of balancing and coordination. Can she convince the dour Mr. K that it would work, that it would be in his best interest? And can she convince Charles? Can she convince K that she can convince Charles? And with Charles babbling, will he say the wrong thing at the wrong time?

The idea, by the way is . . . two words.