Day 11. 25,025 words, and oh yeah, week 2 is terrible
I'm halfway there! I'm definitely celebrating that but I'm also still befuddled at my lack of plot. I'm so tired of these stupid characters who never want to do anything. The School for Magic seems boring because who wants to read about school and teachers and homework and stuff? My main character is written to be annoying and she is. My secondary character doesn't care about anyone or anything about her pet pig. In desperation, today I started narrating from Daggy's point of view, but then I had somehow decided that Daggy would be trapped in the stables (i have no idea why) and then he couldn't get out so needless to say, that wasn't a big stockpile of plot ideas.
I think I'm going to have to make something drastic happen. Something irreversible, because I've made big things happen in the last little while but then they just kind of disappeared out of the plot. I can't believe this happens every. single. year.
Anyway, here's an excerpt. I could really use some suggestions about what could happen next!
Since their arrival back at School, Stella had heard nothing from Jackie or the League. What was worse, she didn’t know who to believe anymore. Head Granger had been stern and angry, but understanding of the mistakes of ‘young witches,’ as she said. Stella scoffed. Granger was at least twenty years younger than Stella, who was no ‘young witch.’ Professor Thompson had quietly praised them for succeeding in such advanced magic, and had even taken down the details of their spell so that she could study it.
Stella and Marcy were on a strict schedule of classes and were never left alone. Unfortunately, Gordon was the teacher who had been assigned to babysit them whenever they were not in class. Apparently his classes on Postmodern Magical Theory were not very well attended, leaving him ample time to keep an eye on the Cantors.
Finally, one afternoon when Stella and Marcy were seated in the study area in their dormitory, while Gordon extemporized a lecture on Becoming Animal that no one was listening to, a carrier pigeon arrived through the window and landed on the table beside Thompson’s lute. The pigeon had a small piece of paper fastened securely to one foot, and it took Stella several minutes to figure out how to remove it. Gordon, who had noticed the pigeon right away and launched into a lecture on the Liminality of Phenomenological Flight, was no help whatsoever. He kept giving instructions and pushing Stella’s fingers out of the way, usually when she felt she was just about to unfasten the bindings. Marcy, as usual, looked on in silence. That girl was growing more morose by the day, so much so that Stella had started pushing food and drink at her at every opportunity. What else could one do for someone so obviously depressed?
Finally, Stella had the piece of paper in her hand. The pigeon stared at her through its blank, robotic eyes, and strutted across the table, uncaring that it was causing their sheet music to flutter to the ground.
“Get out before midnight. -JB” was all that the note said. Was this from the League? It was hard to think of anyone else who might want to send a note in such an unorthodox way, or who would even know where they were.
Regardless of who had sent it, the first order of business was to hide the note from Gordon the Vampyre. This proved to be impossible, despite Stella’s efforts to simply stare him down coldly when he demanded to see the note. “I’m a trained paranormal investigator, you know,” he kept saying, although Stella could not see how that fact had any bearing on the matter of the pigeon note.
Gordon simply snatched the paper out of her hand, read it, and stared at the two students with narrowed eyes. He then grasped his cape in one hand, the better to make it flutter out behind him as he turned and fled from the room. It was an effective exit, Stella had to admit.
And now, just because I'm so annoyed with my book, I will end with a few pictures of pigs.
I think I'm going to have to make something drastic happen. Something irreversible, because I've made big things happen in the last little while but then they just kind of disappeared out of the plot. I can't believe this happens every. single. year.
Anyway, here's an excerpt. I could really use some suggestions about what could happen next!
Since their arrival back at School, Stella had heard nothing from Jackie or the League. What was worse, she didn’t know who to believe anymore. Head Granger had been stern and angry, but understanding of the mistakes of ‘young witches,’ as she said. Stella scoffed. Granger was at least twenty years younger than Stella, who was no ‘young witch.’ Professor Thompson had quietly praised them for succeeding in such advanced magic, and had even taken down the details of their spell so that she could study it.
Stella and Marcy were on a strict schedule of classes and were never left alone. Unfortunately, Gordon was the teacher who had been assigned to babysit them whenever they were not in class. Apparently his classes on Postmodern Magical Theory were not very well attended, leaving him ample time to keep an eye on the Cantors.
Finally, one afternoon when Stella and Marcy were seated in the study area in their dormitory, while Gordon extemporized a lecture on Becoming Animal that no one was listening to, a carrier pigeon arrived through the window and landed on the table beside Thompson’s lute. The pigeon had a small piece of paper fastened securely to one foot, and it took Stella several minutes to figure out how to remove it. Gordon, who had noticed the pigeon right away and launched into a lecture on the Liminality of Phenomenological Flight, was no help whatsoever. He kept giving instructions and pushing Stella’s fingers out of the way, usually when she felt she was just about to unfasten the bindings. Marcy, as usual, looked on in silence. That girl was growing more morose by the day, so much so that Stella had started pushing food and drink at her at every opportunity. What else could one do for someone so obviously depressed?
Finally, Stella had the piece of paper in her hand. The pigeon stared at her through its blank, robotic eyes, and strutted across the table, uncaring that it was causing their sheet music to flutter to the ground.
“Get out before midnight. -JB” was all that the note said. Was this from the League? It was hard to think of anyone else who might want to send a note in such an unorthodox way, or who would even know where they were.
Regardless of who had sent it, the first order of business was to hide the note from Gordon the Vampyre. This proved to be impossible, despite Stella’s efforts to simply stare him down coldly when he demanded to see the note. “I’m a trained paranormal investigator, you know,” he kept saying, although Stella could not see how that fact had any bearing on the matter of the pigeon note.
Gordon simply snatched the paper out of her hand, read it, and stared at the two students with narrowed eyes. He then grasped his cape in one hand, the better to make it flutter out behind him as he turned and fled from the room. It was an effective exit, Stella had to admit.
And now, just because I'm so annoyed with my book, I will end with a few pictures of pigs.
That last picture made me so happy. Look at that little snout. Now to your excerpt. I feel like you've been playing this novel a bit close to the vest but I suppose that it could be because you feel like there isn't too much going on. I'm so intrigued by the role of Jackie and this mysterious League.
ReplyDeleteI also laughed out loud at the pigeon fiasco and Gordon declaring that he's a paranormal investigator for no apparent reason. I think your novel is absolutely wonderful so far.
As for suggestions I'm always of the opinion that carefully planned out pacing is meant to be fucked with. If you have a plan- say Stella getting away and uncovering that the school is a fraud- why wait? Just go for it and deal with the fall out later but hey maybe that's why the ends of my novels are always a bit of a mess. Good luck!
I too loved the excerpt... it was so funny and of course the pictures of the pigs are always welcome.
ReplyDeleteOne thought I had for plot (and it might be too late for this), but when I saw there was a note from JB I became really excited, thinking that Justin Bieber might be trying to infiltrate the feminist school. That might not do anything for the plot but would be AWESOME. Plus would provide the opportunity for cutting and pasting everything Katie wrote about Justine Bieber last year.
Congratulations on being half way through your novel! You've got a couple of great ideas for how to blow up your novel in amazing ways. I have a hard time coming up with any suggestions, since as Heather said, you've played it close to your vest. But I found in the past that drawing on real life news stories was very inspirational.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestions, everyone! Once I started thinking about introducing Justin Bieber into the novel a lot of things seemed to fall into place. He really is a godsend to the noveling profession.
ReplyDelete