Finishing a book is the slow part. I had the first 52,000 words done by day eight of November in the 50K race to finish a novel in the month(remember, we’re talking nanowrimo for the month of November.)
Grandma and the Roller Derby is up to 56,300 words today, November 22, and I’m struggling with the threads of the story. The climax has to catch up every one of them in a natural, or slightly super-natural, way—and make sense by the climax. It is slow work.
I constantly revisit early scenes, making sure they are strong enough to point to some growing storm that must be weathered by Grandma, Ginger and Margo—oh, don’t forget Cat (she’s growing on me!). This is the arch of the story. Grandma and Ginger must grow closer as well as individually, the arch of character, so that by the end of the story there is a significant change in them.
Large casts, there are about a dozen characters in Grandma and the Roller Derby, require some characters to grow more than others, and some are static. Grandma, Ginger, Margo (Ginger’s best friend), and Leonard Wynzic have to be changed characters by the end. Mom, Dad, Larry and Charley—not so much—maybe not at all; Larry hardly knows what has happened; he will need his own book. The roller derby personalities are stayers, too.
Character driven stories, as opposed to plot driven stories, are personable. I want readers to get to know my characters and hope they will expect a series surrounding them. We reread stories like Harry Potter so we can visit Harry, Hermione and Ron one more time. But, every story had better have a strong, worrisome plot, or it’s not a story—great stories come from great conflict. It is a balancing act, and by the end, character and plot had both better be served.
The Latest Opening to Grandma and the Roller Derby—
Grandma Cora chased my brothers from her room a year and a half ago, and they haven’t neared the door since. Charley and Larry said it was a big misunderstanding; but Grandmother never bought it. She’d arrived just the day before, and was not happy to be here in the first place.
“We wanted to watch our old TV, that’s all,” Charley said; he’s fifteen and a half. Before Dad moved it into Grandma’s room, the Motorola was in their back den that is like a wide hallway. My three brothers had stall bedrooms, like horses in a barn, with the foot of their beds ending in that long den—just think of a three-fingered bear claw. We call it the junk room. Californians don’t have attics, really, and we gotta put our old stuff somewhere. It was their TV in that way. But, they always chase me out of their den—like I want to see their naked butts—really?
But fifteen years old, or thirteen, is old enough to know better, I’m thinking. Where are the boundaries in this house? Dad looked confused about what to do about it when Grandma complained, like he wanted to tell Charley and Larry to go to their rooms, but was two or three years too late for that.
“Charles Robert,” Grandma told my dad. “See why I said I want my own place? Dumb Kopf.” I think she called him a name just then. Is doom coff bad? I know I’m not asking my mother about it.
“Mother,” my father said to Grandma—that took some getting used to, Dad calling someone Mother—“In our home, we can take better care of you. It should be nice to have you here.” I really think he felt guilty for not putting us all on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe for a trip back to Minnesota to visit her all the years she stayed back East. Shoot—she’s lived eight miles away in Santa Ana, at Aunt Coralene’s for the past two years, and we never visited her there. Dad and Uncle Ben, Aunt Coralene’s husband, don’t get along.
My mother didn’t say a word . . . that day. She‘s had a little to say, here and there, about once every-other day of the week since then. “That woman,” she’ll mumble, and then say something I don’t want to hear. That’s not the mother I want to hear; and I don’t want to hear things said about my father’s mother—Grandma.
Grandma chased me from her door the next day when I knocked. She didn’t even open it. Sad. I’m her only grand daughter. I think she didn’t get out of bed that whole day. Mother said she was pretending to be sick. Dad got into an argument with Mom over that comment: Grandma, one . . . Mother, nothing. Pretty much, it has gone on like that. Now Mom says they just sort of co-exist. “Co-existence means everyone gives up their ideas about how things should be, and is just a little miserable all the time,” she said, switching on the garbage disposal.
