Depression aside, back to work on the Paris book. A thing that is holding me back from putting actual words down is I don't have the feeling for Paris yet. I've forgotten too much.
Well, thank you Google Street View and especially that less-known button that allows you to view in the appropriate season and even year (when pictures are available). I found the breakfast nook I was at, and so far found one plausible cafe that has the things I was hoping for; crowded lane, view of a Metro station with their Art Nouveau ironwork, etc.
And crazy how deep the rabbit holes get. Well, I have decided that Penny is indeed going to be following/creating a Dan Brown sort of mock-history treasure hunt. So...down from Sacre Coeur and once part of the same church, is the much older Saint-Pierre de Montmartre. Which is closely associated with St. Denis, a patron saint of Paris and one of the more famous cephalaphores in Varagine. But anyhow, the crypt that was there in 1534 was the site of a meeting and holy vows by Ignatius and others and was where the Jesuits got their start. And the whole thing was destroyed during the Revolution and rebuilt in current form in the late 19th century.
So...yeah.
My measurable progress on the novel, though, has been to name the parts. These might change, but currently my names are; "An American in Paris," "Mona Lisa," "The Music of the Night," and "Do you Hear the People Sing."
Yeah, I'd keep it all in jazz if I can but Penny was a theatre geek. (And I'm listening to the Gershwin as I type this.)
I have to explain why naming matters, especially this early on. There's a question that comes around on Quora far too frequently (the search function there is pants). "How long should my novel be?" About half the answers are "as long as it needs to be." Well, I am not against pantsing -- I am a discovery writer myself -- but I side with the structuralists here.
No, I take it further. It is one thing to be aware of the genre expectations and publisher requirement and edit and revise until your book is the appropriate length. There's a lot to be said for the philosophy of writing draft, any kind of draft, and then shaping it but that's a discussion for another time. For me, knowing the target word count helps me to shape the outline. It helps me to know where the peaks and valleys of the action need to be, when the important plot points happen -- but more than that, it gives me a sense of how many characters I can support, how many locations I can visit. And when I'm writing, it lets me know if I am on track or if I am spending too long meandering off the through-line of the plot.
Having these names, specifically, tells me where certain break-points happen in the story, and where the focus is going to shift to. "American" is basically tourist stuff (another slow-burn opening. Sigh.) "Mona Lisa" is a lot of art museums and the bulk of the Dan Browning, at least in the sense of "visit famous place, notice significant symbology nobody else ever did." Of course Penny is faking it, but anyhow!
"Music" takes it in a darker direction, ending with the Notre Dame climb and ensuing fire. Um...spoilers? "People sing" is a direct reference not to what you would think, but to the way the people of Paris came together in the darkest hour of the fire (well...as dark as you can be with a Big Fire going on...)
Sigh. The comment I get from family is that I have great descriptions. Does this mean I'm frittering around looking at images and menus and maps to try to get the places I depict right, and my plots and characters totally suck?
Could be. Whatever. I only have a few decades of writing career left so I guess this is the direction it is going to go. I'm sure not getting any smarter. My struggles to make any sense out of the Napoleonic Era are proof of that!
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