A Time and Place

Editing of Kindred is going well, and I'm excited to see the amount of words I can still shave off of the story. Here's a short snippet of the scene I worked on last night and this morning, along with photos taken October of 2006 of the area where Kindred is set, a set of hills and ridges once called the Carraways, near present-day Asheboro, NC. It's the Uwharrie National Forest* now, but way-back-when, before the village that was Asheboro was even named, there were homesteads here, and later gold mines, and always lots and lots of trees and streams and rivers. I chose this area as a setting for a couple of reasons. I didn't want the story set on the frontier, which was deep into the Blue Ridge Mountains by the 1790s, but I do love a steep, hilly, difficult terrain. I needed ridges and draws and waterfalls, and secret places for my characters to stumble upon.



KINDRED
Copyright 2009 Lori Benton
All Rights Reserved

Ian doused himself head to shoulders, letting the creek water trickle beneath his sweaty shirt, open at the neck, then shook his dripping hair and fingered it back from his face. He’d lost another ribbon. The bitty things were as shifty in his keeping as the Reynolds’ shoat.

Squinting through the boughs overhead, Ian judged he had time enough to make himself presentable before he showed his face at table. If he didn’t dawdle. He was a dozen yards along the path when he heard the raven.

It was a raven, he was sure, though its call differed from the usual harsh caws and kruks. He slowed to listen to the gulping, croaking warble. The sequence repeated several times, then a voice spoke.

“Och, will ye hark to her now.”

Ian halted on the path, shock pulsing through him. The raven was quiet now, startled to silence, no doubt. The voice had been a man’s. He scanned the stone-pocked ridge rising on his left, then gazed down-slope through the wood falling to more level land on his right. His hand fell to his knife. No matter that his uncle owned this land, much of it was virgin forest, with cover enough for bear or panther—or man—to pass unseen. Though not necessarily unheard.

“Come here to me, love.”

If the object of the speaker’s affection replied, it fell short of Ian’s hearing, but he was certain the man’s voice had issued from a point upstream, where the creek tumbled from the higher ridge through a slight declivity. He stepped off the trail. The land rose under him, rocky and brush-tangled. Intermittent comments from above drew him on.

“Will ye no’ gang wi’ me, lass?”

“Aye, she’ll gang,” Ian muttered. “The pair of you shall, once I ferret ye out.”

He ascended by handholds the last few yards, sweating again as he grasped a woody laurel shrub and hauled himself over a final rise. Before him the creek cut into the hillside for the distance of a stone’s throw. There the higher slopes of the ridge folded in to form a hollow where river birches clustered, knee-deep in ferns and mossy stones. Sunlight lanced through their mottled trunks. Through them he glimpsed lichen-speckled outcrops mounting the slope beyond, over which the stream spilled in a glassy fall.

It was completely unexpected, and yet he’d the oddest sense of having seen the place before. Then his roving gaze caught what he’d come seeking: a flash of faded blue, deep within the grove. He marked a path through the ferns, plotting his approach.

A harsh kruk rent the stillness.

“Hush, now. Let me finish.”

A woman’s voice this time. He stalked the unsuspecting pair, gaze fixed on the patch of blue. The birches thinned. The patch broadened into the curve of a shoulder, too slight for a man’s. Another step. The shoulder dipped to a slender waist, brushed by tumbled dark ringlets.

She sat on a rock, back turned nearly full to him. At her feet spread a pool that deepened over a stony basin, into which the fall emptied. A basket, nestled in the grass beside her, held a scattering of half-withered blueberries. But berries weren’t on her mind at present. She was hunched over slightly, focused on something in her lap. Grasping the last tree separating them, Ian leaned out for a better look.

Across her lap lay a yellowed scrap of paper, over which her hand moved in short, purposeful strokes. He took a step nearer, disbelieving his eyes.

Beneath his boot, a stick snapped.

[end snip]

Uphill... both ways

Aside from those rare instances like last week, when my characters spilled a flood of dialogue out to me in a single morning (and which I'm still making heads or tails of), first draft writing is excruciatingly slow for me.

I often wonder what it's like for writers who whip through their first drafts in the space of a few months (or those hikers who can hustle up a mountain without the frequent breathers us regular mortals take). The only time I accomplished anything resembling a fast first draft was in writing a piece of fan fiction (for the movie Ever After, with Drew Barrymore and Dougray Scott), which turned out to be about 50,000 words long. I wrote it for a group of friends who were also fans of the movie, from November 1998 through January or February 1999. But I wasn't being too concerned with things like historical accuracy, or research. It was a simple, straightforward story, a classic romance plot: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wises up and gets girl back. I was mostly concerned with echoing as many themes from the movie as I could, to capture that particular flavor. The only research required was repeated viewing of the movie.

Today was a slow writing day on WILLA, as I picked my way through a conversation in the wake of a violent action and some bad news delivered to my main characters. Someone has lots of 'splaining to do, but how much 'splaining at one go is too much? How much does the reader really need, this early on? How can I be sure I explain enough, so that the reader isn't left in confusion? Too, I need to make sure my characters aren't simply sitting around, stunned at what took place, and talking on and on (and on) about What It All Means. It's a slow process, feeling my way step by step, line by line, putting in words, taking them out, putting them back, trimming, cutting, pasting them away for safekeeping.

It'll get done. Just wish my pace didn't always put me at the back of the pack. A bit dusty back here!

To offset this tedious first draft work, and for some much needed brain rest, I've begun another edit on KINDRED, which feels a lot more to me like coming down a mountain than laboring up. It's surprising what a little objectivity and a lot of ruthlessness will still accomplish at this point. Based on my progress with the first 8-9 chapters, my goal is to see another 10-20K disappear, before I reach The End, again. I'm keeping track over in the side bar.

Wish me luck! Especially, pray for me.

Friday Round-Up

Whoop-ee-ti-yi-o, get along little bloggies! Here's a round-up of the best writing craft blog posts I hunted up, tripped over or got directed to this week:

Tips for First Drafting from author Natalie Whipple at Between Fact & Fiction blog.

All About Backstory from agent Rachelle Gardner's Rants & Rambles blog

Also from Rachell's blog, guest blogger Matilda McCloud (love that name!) blogged Thursday about Avoiding On-The-Nose Writing, a concept of which I was aware, but never saw addressed this directly.

Themes seem to be a theme in blogging this week. Here's two takes: Themes Schmemes, from agent Nathan Bransford, and a roundtable discussion from the writers at Novel Matters, Starting with the Basement. And then there's Nathan's follow up post to his Themes Schmemes post: The Reverse Snobbery of Low Literary Aspirations. All vewy innewesting stuff!

And last but not least, Behind The Stacks, a peek into the world of an acquisitions librarian, by guest blogger at Novel Matters, Judy Gann. Lots of good tips for getting books into public libraries, and why that is important.

When Characters Clamor

Take five days off from writing to tend to a surgery-recovering spouse, ignore the cast of characters who had just been let loose on the page for the first time when I stopped last Wednesday, and boy do they have a lot to say. I had to run around the house this morning clutching a notepad and pen, stopping in the middle of making breakfast, riding the bike, feeding the dog, making the bed, cleaning up last night's detritus from my MIL's 83rd birthday party, to scribble story notes--snatches of dialogue and character struggles, a bit of violent stage business, Willa's unexpected ferocity and Neil's humiliation and Anni's blind spot, and the bit out of Job that I think will end the current chapter--fast, fast, fast before I lost it all.

So nice. My characters wouldn't shut up this morning, starting at 5am. It was a blessing, for which I promptly thanked the Lord (I was in the middle of praying when it started; my characters are no respecters of my privacy).

As disjointed as it made my morning from devotions onward, it is SO much better than coming to the computer as a blank slate and having to fight my way back into the writing, which is often the case for me after taking so many days off in a row.

Happy writer today!

Distractions Be Gone!

Since Monday, I made a commitment to turn off my email accounts, Facebook, and anything else that gives me visible or audio update alerts during my main work hours. In three days' time I accomplished more than I have in any one week since I started writing WILLA.

It was hard not to open my browser (can't turn that off) and I admit I did it once or twice when I came up for air and needed a mini-break, but the results have been so significant and the amount of work I managed so satisfying that I'm going to continue this rigorous trial of self-denial.

I hadn't realized just how fractured by distraction my writing time had become, with all these networking sites available (something I didn't have when I was writing the first draft of KINDRED), until I cut a few of them out.

Managing distraction. Just a fact of life these days I guess. So happy I found something that works, because I was getting quite discouraged about my lack of discipline. Out of sight out of mind seems to work for me.

Beloved Secondary Characters

My main writing time each day is 9am to noon, though I often write longer, or come back for another session after lunch and a bit of exercise. I just finished up for today, and am planning to edit through what I wrote this morning after the aforementioned repast, but wanted to make note of a particularly satisfying chunk of writing.

When I was working on KINDRED I had a very full cast, so many secondary characters to like, love, hate. My favorite out of that large group was the Camerons' neighbor, John Reynold, one of the most gracious and well-adjusted characters in the story. A man I would want my husband to be friends with, because he's good in a crisis, knows how to encourage in the Lord, gives wise counsel, and hosts a great corn husking. 

Today I introduced his counterpart in WILLA, a secondary character I've been eager to let loose on the page. And boy, she didn't disappoint me. Annaliese (Anni) Waring Keppler had me laughing and crying in the space of 500 words. I love her already. What a breath of fresh air. Not that Willa and Neil were stale, by any means. But Willa... she's been a bit dodgy up until now, and Neil hasn't been feeling his best, and so hasn't pressed her. But Anni is a force of nature, and there's no keeping secrets from her. At least not for long.

Next up: introducing Richard, my antagonist. He's also Anni's brother. This will get awkward, even dismaying, but very interesting....