(no subject)

Today's dreams involved Owen Harper and some really nice architectural detailing.
Owen smelled of car exhaust. Until he took his jacket off. Then he smelled of Owen, which was of the good. Edible. Also there was a whole werewolf theme with the sniffing.
Then there was this grassy embankment or one of them things with water behind it or something, and it had a boring looking concrete bit sticking out. Only if you walked through the overgrown wasteland into the little square of grass nobody could have any particular reason to go to then you could see down the concrete thing. And there was a door. Not just a boring blank people sized door. A door of such embellishment it put some stained glass windows in the shade. It was huge, cathedral sized easily, and carved like gothic tracery, which of course gave it the appearance of entangled thorns only more geometric. It was overgrown around the edges with ivy. And then down at people scale, more or less, there's this one... the dream said rococo, but I'd have to look that up. Big swirly leaves, peeling back to leave one door shape... with a carved mask of a face just exactly at face height. That part of the door was almost white, like natural pine, then golden, looking more varnished, and then outside the big curled leaves effect it went dark, almost like bark. It was absolutely gorgeous and I wish I was any good at art to show it to people. And it was sitting there in this concrete culvert in a bank that didn't look thick enough for that door to open into, let alone contain anything worth a door like that.
A door like that could have anything beyond it.

That, I think, is a good beginning.

(no subject)

So I spent most of the time since my last post looking up gothic architecture for pictures.
I should have started with the stuff I'm most likely to have seen. Norwich Cathedral is gorgeous, and has a great carved gothic wooden door. The dream was more in a curvilinear style, a bit skewed and more organic, but there's a bit of many things on that cathedral.
I could go and look at it. With my eyes. In person.
Weird.


I still don't have a plot. The trouble with a door that could lead anywhere is it has to lead somewhere. And there's nothing to narrow it down.

So far my characters are pretty much just shagging in the doorway rather than actually going anywhere. It is ex sex, and they broke up for reasons involving family and possibly hitmen. Which is interesting, but not door related, much.

Poll: What to write

So, summer is here, all my classes done, only one email to send before I pass.
... And the fact it got to 10pm without me sending that email does mildly worry me, yes.
Still, after that, I have interesting and varied possibilities.

[Poll #1211620]

Things it will include: Fantasy & SF elements, some kind of setup where there's more than one world coexisting, secrets being read differently by different people, clashing ideologies, more than one side that could be considered right, some kind of disability theme or metaphor. Because I couldn't keep any of that out if I tried.
( Read more... )

Not knowing where to begin: Always the big problem.

See for assignments you get Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria. You don't actually start from a blank page. You can make a bubble diagram with every outcome and all the criteria and then tag ideas to specific points. You can do the same for fanfic, where you're starting with particular characters, so you've got 'do something for each character' as one criteria for a script shaped story. Also there's locations, themes, relationships. And a page limit.

Writing something original... what are my criteria? What am I trying to do? And how does each character, setting, plot point contribute to the overall message?

That's not how the writing books start things. Well, not exactly. But there's a lot of writing books and the only actual rule is do what works.

Maybe I could take my Close Reading bubble diagram and work it backwards. You know, take the bubbles about gender/ethnicity/class/sexuality/generation/disability and figure out what I want each one to say and then take those as my criteria.

*ponders*

Polyphonic. Democratic. Equality... in a systemically unequal world?
Something where 'pawns team up and fight the big bads' is the logical and necessary outcome.
So that's multi character, varying abilities, varying specialities, and a big bad that's really unequally big in power and resources, be that because it's one superpowered individual or an institution of many annoying people or some combination of both.

Hmm, and I did that chart about how to write Torchwood and buried it somewhere in an I Can Has Teamwork post... *digs* *finds!*

(no subject)

While hunting plot bunnies I just found a plot where I apparently dreamed one of the key things in the Buffy season 8 comics.
beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/547962.html
https://beccaelizabeth.dreamwidth.org/544983.html
I can logically extrapolate in a similar direction to Joss Whedon in my sleep.
Sweet.
;-)

(no subject)

Have been reviewing my LJ.
Want to apologise for persistent lack of cut tags.
I post huge long thing without tags, y'all have permission to point this out, kay?