The MC of Omphalos, Ember.

She has a unique historical relationship to the city; it’s truly unlike that of any other citizen. It’s also an immersive novel full of “moss troll” issues, which makes writing from her point of view a challenge. A welcome one. :)

As I mentioned on day eleven, it’s also difficult to balance Ember’s initially unstable emotional state with making her sympathetic to the reader. It’s something I always have in the back of my mind, but again, I enjoy the challenge.

She also has jellyfish-tentacle hair. I mean, is that not cool?

Want to participate in 30 Days of Writing? Click here for the questions!

13. What’s your favorite culture to write, fictional or not?

This is probably fairly obvious, but I focus entirely on fictional locations, and my favorite is Omphalos. I have plans for several novels in the Omphalosverse, not all of them in the city proper.

14. How do you map out locations, if needed? Do you have any to show us?

I do create maps; I have a poor sense of direction, so I need to do this if I don’t want to get tangled up in my own thoughts when blocking movement through a city/world. I have a map of Omphalos, but it’s slightly outdated. I’d want to rework it before sharing it.

As for how, I’m not sure how to answer that question. I just envision it with city planning in mind, and all that entails.

Want to participate in 30 Days of Writing? Click here for the questions!

The answer to the first question is Omphalos, but I’m struggling a bit with my answer to the second. In theory I’d like to share, but I’m loathe to reveal too much about works in progress; a lot can change between now and (hopeful) publication.

I suppose what I can say is the story explores grief and obsession from multiple perspectives, though the novel itself is filtered entirely through Ember’s POV. The single-POV narration was a deliberate decision intended to underscore some of the themes. I bring this up in an answer to a worldbuilding question because grief and obsession were some of the original, central themes that fueled the novel’s outline.

Much of the city’s culture grew up around the very human desire to push our limits and maintain control even when we’ve set ourselves up to lose it. As with everything I write, the novel also revolves around the malleability and (obviously) inherent subjectivity of perception, and the power of story as it relates to the intersection of culture, individuals, and human relationships. There are some other themes laced in there, but I don’t want to talk about them on the blog just yet.

I know this post shows very little about the city, but these are a few of the underlying concepts that nourished the culture as it grew in my mind.

Want to participate in 30 Days of Writing? Click here for the questions!

I’ll stick to character names for this question. I have a name spreadsheet; whenever I come across a noteworthy name, I add it. I do consider names important, but I don’t necessarily ascribe a symbolic meaning to every name for every character in every story. It just depends on the needs and goals of the piece. If I do choose a name for symbolic or allegorical reasons, I try not to be too heavy-handed or on-the-nose about it.

I do know that I need to discover a character’s name before writing for them. Names help shape who we are, so I can’t possibly know the character well enough to write for them if I don’t know their name. Other writers I’ve spoken with don’t experience this, so I’m not sure whether I’m in the minority on that.

In the case of Omphalos, citizens of the city have only one name, i.e. there are no surnames. This is, in part, due to the way lineage is traced, which is entirely different than in our own society or any other I’m aware of. Families aren’t the most significant social units in this city, so an individual’s name isn’t connected to their biological background.

As an aside, this sets Ember (the main character) apart from other citizens; she’s unusually preoccupied with her familial ties.

Want to participate in 30 Days of Writing? Click here for the questions!

I’m not sure who wrote the questions; this has been floating around the blogosphere for awhile now.

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.

I should take the opportunity to say that I’m going to fixate on one project for a majority of these entries, if not all of them. Its working title is Omphalos.

I’ve been told the feel of the story straddles fantasy and science fiction, which isn’t surprising given the perspective of the citizens of Omphalos. To them, the technology isn’t science– it’s divine. Which isn’t to say hard science doesn’t back the depictions of tech in the city. It does, with a significant amount of speculation thrown into the mix. That said, Omphalos isn’t a hard-SF novel. Just because I know the science behind the tech doesn’t mean I need to beat the reader over the head with it. It wouldn’t be appropriate to this story.

I also feel I have more freedom with the novel than its predecessor. The prose style is more natural to me. Lean, spare prose would feel out of place in this setting, where beauty for beauty’s sake is inextricably linked to apotheosis, which is in turn the basis for much of the city’s cultural practices. Which isn’t to say the prose is purple (I do aim for an economy of language), but words always serve the story in my work. In this novel’s case, I’d be doing the story a disservice if I were to pare the language down solely for the sake of simplicity.

Also, Omphalos is an immersive* story, a writing challenge I enjoy.

Truthfully, the characters are my favorite aspect of Omphalos, but I’ll save discussion of them for upcoming entries.

* Reference to Farah Mendlesohn’s Rhetorics of Fantasy. Although Omphalos isn’t a fantasy novel, the term is relevant, as is often the case in science fiction: “The immersive fantasy invites us to share not merely a world, but a set of assumptions. At its best, it presents the fantastic without comment as the norm both for the protagonists and for the reader: we sit on the protagonist’s shoulder and while we have access to their eyes and ears, we are not provided with an explanatory narrative.”

Anyone else want to participate in 30 Days of Writing with me? If so, the questions are after the jump.

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.
2. How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?
3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you’re writing about fictional places)?
4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!
5. By age, who is your youngest character? Oldest? How about “youngest” and “oldest” in terms of when you created them?
6. Where are you most comfortable writing? At what time of day? Computer or good ol’ pen and paper?
7. Do you listen to music while you write? What kind? Are there any songs you like to relate/apply to your characters?
8. What’s your favorite genre to write? To read?
9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.
10. What are some really weird situations your characters have been in? Everything from serious canon scenes to meme questions counts!
11. Who is your favorite character to write? Least favorite?
12. In what story did you feel you did the best job of worldbuilding? Any side-notes on it you’d like to share?
13. What’s your favorite culture to write, fictional or not?
14. How do you map out locations, if needed? Do you have any to show us?
15. Midway question! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether professional or not!
16. Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing? ;)
17. Favorite protagonist and why!
18. Favorite antagonist and why!
19. Favorite minor that decided to shove himself into the spotlight and why!
20. What are your favorite character interactions to write?
21. Do any of your characters have children? How well do you write them?
22. Tell us about one scene between your characters that you’ve never written or told anyone about before! Serious or not.
23. How long does it usually take you to complete an entire story—from planning to writing to posting (if you post your work)?
24. How willing are you to kill your characters if the plot so demands it? What’s the most interesting way you’ve killed someone?
25. Do any of your characters have pets? Tell us about them.
26. Let’s talk art! Do you draw your characters? Do others draw them? Pick one of your OCs and post your favorite picture of him!
27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.
28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there’s nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
29. How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?
30. Final question! Tag someone! And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!

I’m hoping I’ll be ready to send Omphalos to beta readers by early August, or mid-August at the very latest. That’s later than I had originally intended, but I’d rather send off a piece worth reading than a half-polished mess.

In the spirit of expanding this blog post into something more than “hey, I’m still working on my novel,” I thought I’d talk a little bit about what my revision process entails. In broad strokes, anyway.

I’ve lost count of how many books and blog posts have championed the “just write!” philosophy of drafting a novel, but to be honest, that doesn’t work for me. Not only do I outline the first draft, but I take time between drafts to peel back the layers of story.

Once the first draft of a manuscript is complete but before I actually revise the text, I spend a long time– several weeks, usually– fleshing out each character arc, dissecting the plot, prospecting for plot holes and errors, pulling and pushing the setting into shape, creating scene cards, re-reading writing craft books, creating revision checklists, and so on. The work is both intensive and intuitive, as this is the stage at which sudden creative insights and revelations catapult the story forward.

I get to know my story and characters; I examine them as their therapist, family, and friend. I can’t adequately write scenes if I’m not intimately and acutely aware of each character’s motivation, their pathologies, the oblique details they notice, the cultural and technological subtleties of the world in which they live, the broader mechanics of the plot, allegory, etc. This is where I distill every scene down to its core elements to understand what I’m trying to achieve, what the inner and outer turning points are, and so forth. Most important is how it all ties together, how each story element influences every other.

Then I finally steep myself in the prose. I re-write each scene as needed, injecting the new elements, refining the old, and discarding stale artifacts from the first draft. Many scenes in the second draft are fresh; the story often changes dramatically at this stage. As I write, I print out each scene so I can edit and ask myself questions before I sculpt the prose.

When I’ve done this for the entire novel, I’ll go back through and fix anything that occurred to me as I was working. Little notes here and there– for example, if I’m working on Chapter 12, but an unforeseen change affects everything that happened prior, I’ll make a note to go back and fix these issues on the next pass.

Once major revisions and prose-polishing are finished, I do one final pass of the draft before handing it off to betas. At that point, I try not to look at it so I can attack the manuscript with fresh eyes when the comments start rolling in. I might write a short story or develop an idea for another novel in the meantime.

When I’ve received all the beta feedback, I print out the entire manuscript so I can analyze it and edit by hand as I read their comments. Then I work on subsequent drafts until it’s polished and ready to query.

What about you? How do you approach revisions and edits?

The purpose of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) personality inventory is to make the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung understandable and useful in people’s lives. The essence of the theory is that much seemingly random variation in the behavior is actually quite orderly and consistent, being due to basic differences in the ways individuals prefer to use their perception and judgment.

“Perception involves all the ways of becoming aware of things, people, happenings, or ideas. Judgment involves all the ways of coming to conclusions about what has been perceived. If people differ systematically in what they perceive and in how they reach conclusions, then it is only reasonable for them to differ correspondingly in their interests, reactions, values, motivations, and skills.”

Pinning down the MBTI personality type for each of my characters helps me maintain consistency while writing for them, even as they grow over the course of the story. Just for fun, I thought I’d share the personality types of the main character of Omphalos and her three main allies. When I use this information in my work, I think about how the personality types might manifest in the city of Omphalos, where the culture is, in many ways, quite unlike our own.

Personality type information is quoted from The Personality Page. Of course, the bullet points below are just small snapshots of these personality types.

MBTI Types of Four Omphalos Characters:

Ember: INTJ (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging). People with this personality type…

• live in the world of ideas and strategic planning. They value intelligence, knowledge, and competence, and typically have high standards in these regards.
• are tremendously insightful and usually are very quick to understand new ideas.
• spend a lot of time inside their own minds, and may have little interest in the other people’s thoughts or feelings.
• may have problems giving other people the level of intimacy that is needed.
• are quick to express judgments. Often they have very evolved intuitions, and are convinced that they are right about things.
• live much of their lives inside their own heads. They constantly scan their environment for new ideas and theories which they can turn into plans and structures.

Bishop: ISFP (Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving). People with this personality type…

• live in the world of sensation possibilities. They are keenly in tune with the way things look, taste, sound, feel and smell.
• have a strong set of values, which they strive to consistently meet in their lives.
• tend to be quiet and reserved, and difficult to get to know well.
• are interested in contributing to people’s sense of well-being and happiness, and will put a great deal of effort and energy into tasks which they believe in.
• take life very seriously, constantly gathering specific information and shifting it through their value systems, in search for clarification and underlying meaning.
• are warm and sympathetic. They genuinely care about people, and are strongly service-oriented in their desire to please.

Moth: ESFP (Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving). People with this personality type…

• love people and new experiences. They are lively and fun, and enjoy being the center of attention.
• are constantly putting on a show for others to entertain them and make them happy.
• are upbeat and enthusiastic, and genuinely like almost everybody.
• like to “go with the flow”, trusting in their ability to improvise in any situation presented to them. They learn best with “hands-on” experience, rather than by studying a book.
• have a very well-developed appreciation for aesthetic beauty, and an excellent sense of space and function.
• take things on a day-by-day basis, and are uncomfortable thinking too much about the future, or making plans far in advance.

Tower: ENFJ (Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging). People with this personality type…

• understand and care about people, and have a special talent for bringing out the best in others. ENFJ’s main interest in life is giving love, support, and a good time to other people.
• tend to define their life’s direction and priorities according to other people’s needs, and may not be aware of their own needs.
• have definite values and opinions which they’re able to express clearly and succinctly. These beliefs will be expressed as long as they’re not too personal.
• like for things to be well-organized, and will work hard at maintaining structure and resolving ambiguity.
• do not like dealing with impersonal reasoning.
• have a strong need for close, intimate relationships, and will put forth a lot of effort in creating and maintaining these relationships.

For the curious, I’m an INTP. Have you used the MBTI assessment as a character development tool? Have you used it for yourself?