The thing you are reaching for is a gestalt, a sort of feeling. But getting there is usually through accumulation of detail. So by the time you are able to sketch the idea of Oktoberfest in a single sentence, you've also collected oh so many wonderful little details, from opinionated mechanical lions to the exact words of "Ein Prosit" in the proper Bayern dialect. And there is too much temptation to use them. Not all, just one or two of the best. Or three. Or four...
* * *
I'm a pantser by inclination. Or "panzer," if you chose the amusingly appropriate spelling one writer used in a recent thread. Right now I think that it doesn't matter when you are starting out. It doesn't matter whether you try to outline meticulously or pants it all; you don't have the experience to know how to pace and time and control sub-plots and construct arcs and all that. It takes time and writing to develop those instincts. Without them your seat-of-pants text will go into cul-de-sacs, but without them your outline, no matter how meticulous, will fail to account for the actual needs of the text. In short both approaches will fail.
I'm actually at the worst of both worlds on the current one. I went for a slim outline, and it is proving both slim where I needed more information, and also wrong when I had that information in it. The strongest parts of the story (or at least the ones that are exciting me most at the moment) were entirely discovery writing. At least the underlying framework was sound.
But to go back to research. Munich was not on the outline. I found it when I started to detail the Germany chapters. To have it in the outline I would have had to research not just Germany but five or six other nations to that level first before I was able to narrow it down. So...panzer vor?
* * *
The other thing about the panzer approach is after you've driven half-way across Europe you look back and it looks like that was the only logical approach. I have the framework plot for the Munich sequence and it makes so much sense from where I am it is hard to step back and try to consider other options. Plus I kind of want to get text on the page. One good thing about the experience of this particular story is I'm finding it easier and easier to edit. Edit dramatically.
So I tried to pants the Munich sequence and 500 words later I'd just finished describing a dirndl. So I need more outline than that. I'm also still a little on edge about the climax and ending sequence. Thing is, it all unfolds so logically, from the medicinal usage of MAOI to food interactions to resulting symptoms, to the string of events that ends with her singing to the sick in the Red Cross tents. The first part of that, of course, has far too great a chance of going really creepy. And the last is equally um, but in a different direction.
* * *
Because there's a built-in Mary Sue problem. See, this is sort of a Tomb Raider origin story. The larger-than-life hero in question is entirely fictional, but my protagonist is tasked with trying to fill her boots. The fact that she sometimes succeeds requires she has some formidable skills of her own already. The fact that she isn't already this alter-ego means she has to have that oh-so-typical misplaced lack of confidence. Or that the world has already decided she is The Chosen One and is going to let her get away with shit. Neither option is particularly palatable.
I'm unwilling to make this Discworld where "Narrative causality" can overturn physics. The best leverage I have to make the unlikely happen is to populate the narrative with characters who either think or want to believe or for various nefarious reasons are going to pretend that Indiana Jones stunts actually work in the real world. (And I mean both the cliff-diving and the slapdash approach to archaeology.)
Fortunately, the way I'm playing this dance between Penny and the character she portrays, I can have people and physics both jump out at intervals to lecture her on how much she doesn't measure up. But all in all, I still haven't found a way to make the trick really work narratively. Not, at least, in the way I structured this particular book.
I tried creating a divide between the roles, where Penny almost has to henshin to this powered-up form that then solves all her problems for her. But this dangerously detached all the action from the actual protagonist. Which you could have some psychological fun with, but ultimately wasn't satisfying for this story.
And actually I'm not bothered by having her a decent singer. She's had a checkered past, she admits at one point. Somehow more music is showing up in this than I expected but it is a different direction to go. I'm still resisting having her react to everything like a theatre geek, even if she has claimed "acting experience" a couple of times so far in the narrative.
What bugs me is this is the sort of thing too-good heroes do. They rescue cats from trees and comfort orphans because they are just that good. And sure I can lampshade the hell out of it but, still...
* * *
The other thing I've been doing over the past couple days is learning about dialects in German. Okay, make that "being exposed to different dialects in German" because it is horribly complicated and well beyond my experience with the language to make any real sense of. It does tell me that some of the directions I was going with Herr Satz are probably wrong. Amusingly enough, to my ear the dialect spoken in the Berlin area has a bit of Noo Yawkese. The Bayern is a bit country bumpkin. How they actually map to the German ear and German experience, on the other hand...well, it is something I don't think I can navigate on my own.
It works fine for Satz to have a Berliner accent, or even one from further North (I was thinking of him being from Lübeck). But I have no easy words for the arch, aristocratic accent he's putting on. Maybe it doesn't exist in German. Maybe he's doing a British Music Hall impression of a German accent. Penny is going around calling it "Prussian" -- but only in her head.
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