Some Ideas

Just breathe. Let wander your thoughts and lend me your ear for a moment and I will tell you what it is that I know.

This is about as far as I get. Subsequent sentences, forced from my grudging fingertips sound pretentious, each more self-important than the last.

Allow me for a moment, to ramble.

Have you ever been to the fair? Have you ever seen the little game with a ball and three cups? Threes are important. The carnie will place a cup atop a brightly-colored ball and take your money. He will then move the cups about in a complicated dance that seeks to baffle your eyes and confuse your senses. You are then asked to pick which cup it was that had the ball under it. Upon lifting the cup, you are dissapointed to find the sought-after ball missing.

I set out on this journey with one main character, and one villain. Despite my distaste for plot-lines that relied upon absolute good opposing absolute evil, I found myself resting back on the old and familiar with one versus one.

This story has stewed and mellowed and evolved into something much more than I had origonally planned. So too, has my definition of 'main character'. In the beginning, there was Shoda. Alone and fighting she stood above all comers, supreme in her place as my alpha wolf. Then came Walker, who was later renamed Virgil after the angel who guided Dante through hell. He was meant to be a guiding force for Shoda, a tool to aid in getting her from one plot hurdle to another. He has since evolved into much, much more. Whenever I sit to write a scene including both Shoda and Virgil, it is Virgil, invariably, who steps in and takes center stage. I find myself having to make a concerted effort to keep the reader unwaveringly looking out through Shoda's eyes.

Laok has been no less agressive, and quite a bit more. He, however, doesn't take center stage from Shoda quite as much as Virgil. To my mind, it would seem that between Shoda and Laok, Shoda has much more to say about her brother than he does about her, and that Virgil thinks much more about Shoda than he does about her.

While getting ready for my shower this morning I was struck by a thought. Like all revolutionary ideas I have that deal with my baby of a story, the instant it was thought I knew it was nothing short of pure guenius. Like all such ideas, as the thought mellowed in my mind I began to doubt. I oscillated from a moment of clear epiphany to one of shuddering uncertainty. 'How many times has this been done?' I would think. Am I doing something new and fresh, or leading my story down the slippery slope to a land rife with cliches and stereotypes. I don't know.

What I do know, is that Laok has now stepped forward to be basked in 'main character' lights. He's tilting up his strong chin and smiling slowly, enjoying the glow. Virgil's been hogging the stage for a year at least while Shoda sits in the background, content to mumble irritatedly about the workings of all those around her. She reaches for another flask of ale and gets quietly drunk.

I think that's the problem. She doesn't want to be seen. She doesn't want all of her dirty laundry aired to the world, all her shortcomings laid bare. She's not gregarious by nature and this tendency bleeds over to her writing. I coax and tease and shove and jibe to get her to come out and do something, to show us what she's made of. It's a battle every time. I'm still trying to get to know her.

In a feeble attempt to make these random ramblings into something a trifle more coherent I would like to refer you back to an earlier paragraph and the example of the small carnival game. Threes, remember, are important. There are three cups, I've found myself with three main characters. However, whenever I lift one in an attempt to find the ball marked 'main character' it's never there. Perhaps, as I continue to write I'll find that the carnie in my mind has dropped the ball into his lap and I will have to settle for giving all three equal amounts of love and attention. Settle, however, isn't the right word, because such an adventure as this, weaving the strands of three lives deftly between my fingers sounds like a very large amount of fun.