Telemakos figures it out, later. The conclusive part of the sequence will have to depart from the short story at certain points... a bit more time passes in "real life" (?????) than in the story, more things happen that are "left out" of the story, and some of the key elements get changed or applied to different people. The general plotline remains the same. I kind of figure it's a bit like re-writing a ballad or play to highlight some theme or other... the short story has to stand on its own. "No Human Hands to Touch" is the same, in that Lleu and Goewin are never mentioned, but it takes a bit less manipulation to fit it into my own "canon."
if you see what I mean.
I am getting a bit self-conscious about the physical abuse I inflict on all my characters! Telemakos DEFINITELY gets the worst of it. I've tried very hard to give him a bit of a break in The Empty Kingdom.
I dunno... I guess I just like melodrama. The original name for the Mabinogion fanfic that my best friend and I produced in high school was "A Very Melodramatic Story." It's partly why I like Rosemary Sutcliff; you are guaranteed that the main character will get mauled or tortured or kidnapped (if not actually killed) before the end of the book. I guess what I like is the way the characters *deal* with it. (In the original version of The Winter Prince, Medraut kept Lleu awake for three days on purpose.)
But all my heroes are basically disabled. There are themes that turn up again and again in everything I write, even the unpublished stuff. Lleu's asthmatic, medraut's got a crippled hand, Telemakos is missing an arm; in the short stories that I've published, there's a lame pilot, a legally blind boy, and of course, every girl always has a dead brother. Or thinks she does.
I am pretty wimpy about actually killing off main characters. I keep thinking I ought to do more of it, as it seems to be a successful trend (not just in certain obvious camps, either)--not to mention the fact that there has been this massive pandemic plague and yet all the main characters managed to survive it. I have even had to resurrect a few (as many of the Orkneys as possible!). But you know, I really LIKE them all. I like them all to be ALIVE.
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branchandroot
Re: Fire!
Date: 2007-11-03 11:20 pm (UTC)Telemakos figures it out, later. The conclusive part of the sequence will have to depart from the short story at certain points... a bit more time passes in "real life" (?????) than in the story, more things happen that are "left out" of the story, and some of the key elements get changed or applied to different people. The general plotline remains the same. I kind of figure it's a bit like re-writing a ballad or play to highlight some theme or other... the short story has to stand on its own. "No Human Hands to Touch" is the same, in that Lleu and Goewin are never mentioned, but it takes a bit less manipulation to fit it into my own "canon."
if you see what I mean.
I am getting a bit self-conscious about the physical abuse I inflict on all my characters! Telemakos DEFINITELY gets the worst of it. I've tried very hard to give him a bit of a break in The Empty Kingdom.
I dunno... I guess I just like melodrama. The original name for the Mabinogion fanfic that my best friend and I produced in high school was "A Very Melodramatic Story." It's partly why I like Rosemary Sutcliff; you are guaranteed that the main character will get mauled or tortured or kidnapped (if not actually killed) before the end of the book. I guess what I like is the way the characters *deal* with it. (In the original version of The Winter Prince, Medraut kept Lleu awake for three days on purpose.)
But all my heroes are basically disabled. There are themes that turn up again and again in everything I write, even the unpublished stuff. Lleu's asthmatic, medraut's got a crippled hand, Telemakos is missing an arm; in the short stories that I've published, there's a lame pilot, a legally blind boy, and of course, every girl always has a dead brother. Or thinks she does.
I am pretty wimpy about actually killing off main characters. I keep thinking I ought to do more of it, as it seems to be a successful trend (not just in certain obvious camps, either)--not to mention the fact that there has been this massive pandemic plague and yet all the main characters managed to survive it. I have even had to resurrect a few (as many of the Orkneys as possible!). But you know, I really LIKE them all. I like them all to be ALIVE.