– Page 16 – Claire Rousseau

Recycling an old story

Posted on October 11, 2012January 4, 2014 by Claire

This November, I’ll be bending the Nanowrimo rules a teensy bit to recycle an old story.

I wrote the initial draft of Stars Shine Brighter for Nanowrimo in 2008, a mess of rushed ideas, mixed up English and French, entire epic scenes condensed to the words ‘[insert space battle here]‘ and truly horrendous writing.

I can say without false modesty that there isn’t ANY salvageable prose in that draft.

Some of the ideas and characters however, have stayed with me and developed over the past four years. I wrote a few extra scenes in that universe for a piece of Creative Writing coursework, kept about five different story notebooks going, restarted from the beginning several, even discussed some of the concepts and ideas with my Dad (who, it turns out, enjoys hard sci-fi!).

I started dissecting that first draft with Holly Lisle’s excellent and gruelling online editing course, How To Revise Your Novel. But around Lesson Eight, when it was time to decide what to keep and what to cut, to create a solid basis upon which to re-write, I realised that there was nothing in the text I felt like keeping.

So I put Stars Shine Brighter firmly on the back burner and let it stew until I felt ready to have another go at it. For a while, I wasn’t sure I would and I was surprisingly okay with that.

After FTL came out though, I couldn’t get the feel of proper, old time Sci-Fi out of my mind. I also found the game thought-provoking in some ways. Though quite comfortable and traditional is some ways (though not easy!), FTL also has weird stuff going on.

My boyfriend, who loves to immerse himself in a game’s narrative, pointed out that it was a bit weird that your ship, mandated by the Federation, should be so small and crappy and that the enemy fleet, the Rebels, should be so numerous and powerful. Shouldn’t the rebels be a tiny force? And if so many decide to join the Rebellion, is it because the Federation are actually the baddies?

I realised how much more interesting of a story I’d have if my characters, instead of being ragtag space pirates on the run from an army trying to arrest them, were actually part of an army that turned out to be ‘the baddies’. A lot of the themes and ideas I want to play around with fit a lot better with this scenario and I’m incredibly excited to start exploring it.

Onto plotting and outlining then, and bring on November!

NaNoWriMo is nigh!

Posted on October 7, 2012January 4, 2014 by Claire

October to me is the time of wearing several layers of sweaters, celebrating my Dad’s birthday and getting ready for NaNoWriMo.

National Novel Writing Month is a seat-of-the-pants literary challenge taking place every November. Participants aim to write a brand new 50,000 words story in 30 days.

It’s now an international event, with many local chapters, including here in London!

I was introduced to Nano just after I moved to the UK and joined all four of the lovely people I’d met by then were doing it too. As it turned out, peer pressure is a corner stone of Nano (in a good way, I promise). Since then, I’ve been month-noveling furiously every November.

Keeping up the pace all month is difficult (in fact I always fall behind) and can be frustrating, but there are also exhilarating moments when your story behaves itself, everything is coming together nicely and you have enough points on your Costa card to get your sixth coffee of the day for free. Plus they have all the yummy Christmas drinks already in November. And on the less-inspiring days, there’s nothing better to spur you on than the sound of everyone else in the room typing like the wind. Guilt monkeys are also a corner stone of Nanowrimo.

Now of course neither you nor I will produce a masterpiece worth millions this November, but I know that I’ll be writing. I’ll be writing a lot more than I usually do. I’ll be taking risks, exploring silly ideas, taking dares and coming up with the kind of insane things one can only dream up when on a coffee drip. There will be some dreadful crashes, but I can guarantee there will also be some good stuff.

I know this because four years ago the most writing I had ever done were the first pages of one fantasy epic (complete with red-headed elves with apostrophes in every other character’s name) and about three Harry Potter fanfictions. I’ve now written four novels. They’re all very short, mostly unfinished and not that good, but each of them is a bit better than the last and crucially, the writing that I do outside of November is also massively improved.

So whether you’re new to writing or an old hand I think you should give Nanowrimo a shot. The worse thing that can happen is you ending up with a story you won’t reuse, but you’ll still be 50,000 words of practice better off than before.

Boneshaker

Posted on September 27, 2012February 22, 2014 by Claire

Briar Wilkes, daughter of a folk hero and widow of the criminal mastermind responsible for the zombie plague, embarks on a rescue mission when her teenage son Zeke sneaks into the walled city of Seattle.

Briar & Zeke must navigate the underground labyrinth Seattle has become, decide who they can afford to trust, and stay alive long enough to find each other & get back home safely.

Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker came up first when I searched ‘Steampunk’ on Audible. I’ve been trying to read and watch more Steampunk lately, to get a better idea of the genre hopefully some inspiration for The Paradise Swarm.

I remembered hearing very positive feedback about Boneshaker on a couple of podcasts I follow, I really loved the cover, and saw that Wil Wheaton was one of the narrators. That’s pretty much all it takes to make me click ‘Add to basket’, Wil Wheaton is a damn good narrator, and did I mention the cover?

The story is extremely engaging from the beginning, Briar’s very relatable motivation to find her son brings urgency and tension to the narrative, and the cluelessness displayed from Zeke’s point of view only reinforces it. This is the book for you if you want to read dual point of views, deceiving appearances and partly unreliable narrators done right.

There is a great other-wordly dimension to the setting throughout, plus a rich and intriguing lore, supported by airships, gas masks, pirates, mechanical body parts, evil geniuses and zombies galore.

The cast of secondary characters was impressive, and I especially loved the moments when neither the reader nor the character knows who to trust for certain.

I was especially struck by the feeling of imminent danger that was ever present throughout the book from the setting and environment. Most of the action takes place in tunnels underneath the city, as the simple act of going above ground is so dangerous. The idea that walking in the street is such a deadly enterprise particularly inspired me to ramp up the tension and danger in my own writing.

I am now waiting impatiently for my next Audible credit so I can buy the sequel, in which we follow an airship captain.

Faster Than Light

Posted on September 20, 2012November 13, 2015 by Claire

So I meant to do some work this week-end, then this wonderful indie game came out and time kind of disappeared.

FTL: Faster Than Light is a real-time, perma-death spaceship simulation inspired by classic sci-fi TV shows.

It aims to “recreate the atmosphere of running a spaceship exploring the galaxy”.

The idea is that on Star Trek, BSG or Firefly (think Out Of Gas) there’s always something catching on fire, a breach in the hull sucking out the oxygen, a boarding party intent on taking your ship for scrap metal, etc…

The thing about FTL is, it’s actually quite hard. Even pausing the game every time I need to make a decision during battles and playing on easy, I haven’t gotten even close to finishing it yet.

This may be due to the fact that I have a very poor attention span, and not much experience of sticking with games until I got really good at them, or maybe it’s because I take undue risks (by which I mean I go ‘SMASH! PUNY PIRATES!’ before I’m even done reading the explanatory text).

FTL also boasts proper old-time graphics and a lovely score. I’m not usually one to notice music in games but I love what they’ve done here, especially the Rock-people’s theme. The nostalgic aesthetic definitely appealed to this nerd.

The starting ship looks like it was plucked out of Firefly, so I renamed her Serenity and made my starting crew Mal, Wash & Kaylee. It was REALLY cool until I got a hull breach in the O₂ room and Kaylee suffocated trying to fix it. Of course the rebels kept firing at my ship while I was busy staring at the screen in horror and yelling ‘NOOO KAYLEEEEE!’, so the hull breach got worse and the ship blew up.

This game is unpredictable, addictive, very easy to pick up but complex to master and I absolutely love it. You should go and buy it now for only $10. It’s available on Steam, but you can get a DRM-free version on www.ftlgame.com.

Too close to my own work

Posted on September 15, 2012January 4, 2014 by Claire

This week, I was really hesitant about whether or what to read out at Writer’s Group. I felt I should read something because I’d already skipped one week, but since I worked on the plot last week a lot has changed. A large chunk of chapter one and the whole of chapter two will have to be re-written, only NOT right now.

I had already read the prologue and I was still working on chapter three, so I settled on the opening of chapter one, a pretty slow-paced tidbit about our main character’s living arrangements. I almost didn’t write it in the first place because I can’t help but feel I will have to cut it in the future. I’m self-conscious about the writing style, of course, but I also worry that the scene is too quiet for the opening of the book.

I wanted supportive advice about this, so I took the plunge and got better feedback than I’d expected. We got rid of some less-than-Victorian words, swapping ‘cagey’ for ‘disreputable’ – definitely a plus! And someone said my description were atmospheric, which was just really, really nice! I often worry than I come across as a bit flowery and long-winded (because I love making flowery, long-winded English!), so it was great to have my description vindicated.

I guess this proves that I’m really not that good at appraising my own work. I don’t know if it’s because I’m too close to it or because I still put ridiculous expectations on my poor first draft, in any case I thought I would get more criticism regarding where the story is going. Then again, not everyone has been working on this for a whole year.

I’m now working on chapter three, where the gore and creepiness really start. I’m thoroughly enjoying writing it and I think I’m decent at the gore and creepiness, so I can’t wait to finish it up and read some of it in a couple of weeks’ time.