SUBJEKS blog

Breakthrough.

Tue, 01 May 2012 11:50:51 -0400

One challenge in creating an enjoyable story is making it stand up to basic human realities. As you are writing, it is easy to get wrapped up in the details and forget that your characters (and the readers) are human and act logically according to necessity and free will. Ignoring this leads to forgettable fiction. An easy way to test validity is to ask one question as you are writing: Why?

Why does a character do something? Why does the story move a certain way? Why as the reader should we believe the premise? Why do we care?

Today, I think I finally answered a major why question that has been troubling me on this writing project.

A main character will be shuffled through some pretty amazing experiences because of something he has seen. Some other characters will also experience a similar existence in the story. When we think of evil fictional adversaries, like the villains in James Bond flicks, we usually have to suspend some of our belief. Why do they carry on with their plots to dominate the world? How have they accumulated so much wealth for this evil end? Relying on the genre alone (spy film) to explain some of these big questions hurts credibility and leaves plot holes. Anything that can be questioned requires a real answer for good fiction to stand up.

The world of SUBJEKS is being built around themes of world domination and mind control. Some of the players are familiar foes and adversaries. Some are very much not familiar at all (I hope!). Rather than supply the reader with cliche, I have been planning the story world to be self-reliant on reality. The characters won’t inexplicably have something, like incredible wealth. There will be real reasons where that wealth came from. Subjugated characters may march through the motions but the reasons for this will also be real and understood.

One major question that I have revisited over and over has been the basic question of why not kill my main character? The antagonist(s) have to expend a considerable amount of time and resources moving our hero through the story. At the end of the day, it would be far easier to put a bullet in his head and be done with it. One problem, the story is done too.

So today, I finally figured out a reason based in the fiction of the story itself on why not kill my character and keep the main story action going forward. Excelsior!

More of the same.

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 23:27:04 -0400

Edited the wiki tonight. Still developing plot for what I am planning to be three complete novels. Trying to make this airtight so that I don’t have to come up with weak answers later for things not really planned. Which is both good and bad. Some things are likely better unplanned, but I’m just a tad OCD. So it goes.

Continuation.

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:03:59 -0400

Still cleaning up the wiki this morning. Connected some old fuzzy dots and now the origination of the story is becoming much more clear.

Back on track.

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:44:57 -0400

Editing the SUBJEKS wiki like mad today. Adding links and cleaning up a lot of bookmarked information.

At SXSW

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 11:50:54 -0500

Had the Dublin retreat but ended up getting sick the last week I was there. Have been brainstorming a lot on who the hero of the story is supposed to be. While most of the scenery is in place, and a lot of characters are present, it is still a little unclear who the hero might be. It reminds of something I heard about early iterations of Star Wars, and how Luke was an old general instead of a young novice. That’s the kind of decisions I’m involved with right now. Sitting in my hotel room looking out at Trinity Street pondering these things on the eve of SXSW 2012.

Retreat

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 13:03:00 -0500

Spending a couple of weeks on our Dublin home to research and write more for 1947. Goal is to get a treatment together to have in case of emergency, or opportunity, at SXSW.

Codename.

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:01:35 -0500

Title of first book is not determined yet. The codename for it will be 1947.

Field trip.

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:30:36 -0500

A field trip is in order. Possibly two field trips. With all of the reading work about places, it would be beneficial to reach out and touch some of the locations being written about in SUBJEKS.

One location is relatively close to me, in nearby Montauk, New York. A simple trip by car. And as long as I’m driving by it on my way, I might as well throw in a requisite Hamptons visit. It shouldn’t be all work and no play.

Another location on the research trip roster is Roswell, New Mexico, which surprisingly (to me) is a location that I have not ever visited in my life. Both of these places will figure into the story setting, and while I have done much book research on both places, especially upon the latter, the whole experience would be better served by a couple of field trips. For research.

Currently also working on coming up with a title or meaningful/descriptive code-name as a placeholder for the the first novel. In my head, and on paper, the whole SUBJEKS project is beginning to take shape as a trilogy. A title can always changes, no doubt, and I don’t mean to worry about what to call my first book at this point. This intent is more one of encapsulating the project with a stamp of professionalism. so that I may cease calling it the very uninformative “My writing project”, or the familiar “You know, the story I’m working on”. Even the apt title of “SUBJEKS” doesn’t work, since right now no one even knows what that means but me.

Tweak.

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:44:56 -0500

Will be doing a bit of design changes to this theme. Haven’t played with CSS/XMTHL is some time. Trying to also figure out the Tumblr stuff so if things seems chaotic please pardon the dust my legions of loyal followers.

"Consider the peoples in your world who have lost their freedom because they lived in a place..."

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:51:00 -0500

“Consider the peoples in your world who have lost their freedom because they lived in a place considered valuable by others. It is now the whole human family that is so imperiled.”

- The Allies of Humanity, Book One.

Research on the brain.

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:47:00 -0500

The New Year is here and I plan to get a first draft of SUBJEKS completed this year. I have as of late been relegated to a world of what I would like to think could be regarded as “high research”. But then, that sounds way too sexy for what it really is.

In any event, it has been an enjoyable learning process to cover things not learned before like alchemy, foreign mythology, and apocryphal texts not to be included in many modern bibles. These mystical subjects are finding a very interested researcher, quietly living some boyhood adventure that wouldn’t have been appreciated had I had to have read this material at that age.

Character development has been changing, namely in some chief players who I originally had staked on the side of “good” if it can really be called that. If we were running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, I have not changed my mage character to a fighter. Instead, I have merely changed his alignment. In this case, from lawful to chaotic. This polarizing shift in intent has me reshuffling some of the general layout but if anything, I believe that some greater depth in the story will rinse out in the telling because of it. I hope…

NaNoWriMo, here we go!

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:06:26 -0400

I have been contemplating the format of SUBJEKS for a while now. Should it be a comic book, should it be a graphic novel, should it be a novel… Perhaps it is a nudge from the gods, but coincidentally today begins NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. The whole goal: write a novel in the month of November.

And so begins my quest in completing SUBJEKS as a written novel…

although I’m replacing it with a lightning fast Macbook Air, I’m a little sad to say...

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:36:15 -0400

although I’m replacing it with a lightning fast Macbook Air, I’m a little sad to say goodbye to the trusty old netbook hackintosh I built.

Alright Tuesday, let’s do this!

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 20:58:32 -0400

Alright Tuesday, let’s do this!

Eating cheese, chocolate, crackers, and meat while drinking a bottle of Caymus and reading books...

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 10:56:25 -0400

Eating cheese, chocolate, crackers, and meat while drinking a bottle of Caymus and reading books about alchemy is what is really going on.

Kicking this holiday weekend off with a Louis season 1 marathon, streaming on @netflix.

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 10:28:46 -0400

Kicking this holiday weekend off with a Louis season 1 marathon, streaming on @netflix.

Fight on NYC subway. First I’ve ever seen or filmed. http://t.co/yClstGu

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 09:00:34 -0400

Fight on NYC subway. First I’ve ever seen or filmed. http://t.co/yClstGu

RT @DamonLindelof: I wonder if the finale will be better appreciated if we have Vincent shout...

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 04:38:51 -0400

RT @DamonLindelof: I wonder if the finale will be better appreciated if we have Vincent shout “NOOOOOOOOO!” over the final shot.

RT @fearingamerican: Your site is still totally dependent on Flash? Really? #fail

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:17:42 -0400

RT @fearingamerican: Your site is still totally dependent on Flash? Really? #fail

RT @davidjklass: NYC-Irene- Never forget!! http://t.co/Ehf9OAy

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 09:53:25 -0400

RT @davidjklass: NYC-Irene- Never forget!! http://t.co/Ehf9OAy