Digital Magic - Commentary n+1

Jackie rescues herself, in Digital Magic chapter n+1.

Brute force versus artistry is a battle of the ages.  Does brute force win due to its simplicity?  Or does artistry and complexity gain the upper hand in knowing how to redirect brute force away?  Jackie and Donna are coming up to the battle between youth and old age, raw power versus experience, and desperation versus focus.

Jackie is doing what she can to escape.  Natural thing to do, really.  First, try to get through to Steve's better side, something he drowned in a bathtub as a teenager.  Donna traded hers for power.  Jackie is a battery pack to her, something to drain dry and toss away, one of a number of young adults that Donna has destroyed.

The Virgin Ploy goes back to the idea of various cultures' ideas of what is best to sacrifice.  Virginity is seen by some as akin to purity.  Erzsébet Báthory went to extremes, bathing in virgin blood, but it's a theme that repeats in myth and legend.  So why not try to use it?  Jackie has already been established to have had sex before, and there may or may not be a sex scene with Lance and/or Steve in the missing part between Chapter 17 and Chapter n.  Donna doesn't care, though.  She wants power, pure, impure, whatever.

Donna's metaphor is music.  She could be a singer, though she prefers opera and classical over anything popular.  If she realized that, today, money is power, she'd find a way to have multiple singing careers.  Jackie is trying to apply brute force, knowing she can't match Donna for skill.  Music can be disrupted.  A long, loud, low note can be effective, thus the tuba.  If this was written after the FIFA World Cup of 2010, Jackie might have gone with the vuvuzela instead.  Angry bees are always disruptive.

Jackie's metaphor allows her to set off one spell and let it run autonomously.  Donna still has to conduct.  The difference lets Jackie ignore the evil sorceress long enough after hitting her.  With the flow of magic disrupted, it becomes a race between the two women to get their metaphors to come out ahead of the others'.

Tomorrow, summarizing Digital Magic.
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, RWBY, the manga anthology.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, hiatus week to get ahead on potential reviews.

Digital Magic - Commentary n

Jackie in distress, in Digital Magic chapter n.

I discussed the gap before, but I should go deeper into the reasons.  The chapter was written in the final days of NaNo 2007, my second year doing NaNo.  What would now normally be a push to leave myself in a good spot to return to was then a desperate push to reach the 50k word goal.  I didn't know how to get to the ending and wound up getting advice from a fellow NaNo-er to just jump the gap.  So I did.  The change gave me that one last burst to reach goal.

Jackie's been kidnapped by Steve and is in the clutches of Donna.  Donna, despite not having appeared in person at all, though her eyes did show up earlier, had a background with motivation.  It's not a deep background, but it worked for what I needed.  Donna is an evil woman who uses the magical potential of younger women, like Jackie, to stay young and gain power.  She's been doing this for centuries, starting in Italy.  Her real name isn't Donna; she took that from a former title, Donna.  It's one way to hide her history while still feeling superior.  Jackie means nothing to Donna beyond being a battery to drain and toss away.

Keeping with the idea of magic has to be worked through metaphor, Donna's is music.  She must sing her spells.  The more complicated the spell, the more difficult the spell.  However, she's had the time to truly learn to sing.  If she wasn't so far into being an evil person, she could easily make a living in popular music.  She has the range needed to sing opera, which is probably how she learned to cast spells.

Jackie gets the required begging out of the way.  Always happens.  And the villain always denies.  It's a cliché, but that's the level of thought I was capable of at the time.  And Donna was fun to write at the time.  This sets up Jackie's rescue next chapter.  The stakes have been raised.

Tomorrow, Jackie fights back!!
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, The Orville.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, RWBY, the manga anthology.

Digital Magic - Commentary 17

A chat with Lance, in Digital Magic chapter 17.

And the commentary has caught up!  Or the main story has a lag.  Doesn't matter.  The two are synchronized again.  Celebrate!

I needed Jackie and Lance to talk.  I wasn't in the mood by the time I reached this chapter to have a full dialogue with characters moving and doing things so I don't have to keep writing "Jackie said" or "Lance said".  I also established the instant messaging earlier, so an online chat made things easier.  This was written near the end of November 2007, so I was drawing deep from the well.  I couldn't figure things out so I went with the easy option.

NaNoWriMo is a beast to do, especially when starting out.  Digital Magic was my second NaNo project and in a genre I don't normally read let alone write.  I managed to get to 50 000 words, but I was pushing it in the final days.  I had to stop and figure out where I was going.  I've done that in later projects such as The Devil You Know, where I needed to step back to gain perspective.  Digital Magic, though, wound up having enough problems that there wasn't any way for me to get to where I wanted.

The gap between Chapter 17 and the chapter coming tomorrow is the result of me giving up on a linear plot and having no idea on how to get to the ending I finally had in mind.  I worked out a general idea of what happened, barring the romances that just weren't coming together.  No details, just what I needed to get to where I wanted to be.  Then I jumped to there.

Tomorrow, Jackie in trouble!
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, "Galactic Battles". a fan-made four setting crossover.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, The Orville.

Digital Magic - Commentary 16

Trish knows Jackie too well, in Digital Magic chapter 16.

Just a reminder that the commentary will be a week behind for a few weeks.  Eventually, there will be a catch up, but not right away.

Trish wants Jackie to be happy, like a good friend would.  Trish has also seen Jackie's lack of love life.  Trish has an active dating life and is happy with it.  Naturally, she sees the best way for Jackie to be happy is for her to find someone.  And Jackie is happy after seeing Lance.  Trish makes the obvious conclusion.  I just wish that the story had gone that way.  But Trish is acting as the gauge on who Jackie should end with at the end of the story.

The threat of Trish becoming Columbo is a dire one.  Columbo's method of investigation is to find the key clue, then hound the murderer until they break.  The murderers didn't have Columbo living with them.  Trish is going to find out the truth or break Jackie in the interrogation.  Knowing this, Jackie crumbled.  And Trish gets to smack her with reality.

Strange weather isn't odd for Ottawa.  The city gets weather extremes, often over the course of two or three days.  Imagine a day where the high is -30° Celcius and the low is -40°, then the next day, the temperature goes up 20-30 degrees, stays around or even just above freezing for a day or three, then plunges back down to -30°.  That was Winter 2018-2019.  I have seen rain clouds completely miss parts of the city.  Weather trackers mention the Ottawa "rain shield".  One year, the grass was greener a few days before Christmas than in June.  I have been in a low-hanging cloud bank pretending to be fog on the Queensway that would stay on the highway, even if there were exits to lower roads.  Those lower roads were clear.  Oh, and three tornadoes hitting populated areas that weren't trailer parks last year have to count for something.  So making the weather strange for Ottawa meant trying to work out what would be odd.

It's late fall in Digital Magic, so temperatures jumping around isn't that odd.  A weather system getting stopped at city limits is, especially when city limits follow township lines and not geographic features in the west end.  Weather cares not for man-made limits and should just blow through, barring the above-mentioned rain shield.  Here, though, there's a block.

Lightning during a snowstorm does happen.  Ottawa gets thundersnow during winters, but they're always the actinic blue of regular lightning, not the rainbow of colours Trish and Jackie saw.

The blackout Jackie mentions is the 2003 blackout that saw Ontario and several northeastern states lose power.  Quebec, since it runs on its own power system that needs transformers to interact with the rest of the continent's power grid, wasn't affected.  Prior to that one, there was Ice Storm 1998 that caused blackouts by the sheer mass of ice on power lines.  In 2003, I had just left work to go meet with an investment broker of sorts and was sitting with her at a Tim Horton's when everything went off.  The sun was still out as it was the start of rush hour, so that wasn't a problem.  I saw the crowds building, so decided to wait to let them die down a bit.  I even went to the counter to get another drink and fortunately, I had cash.  Everyone was going home.  When I left, I saw downtown had no power.  I get home, still no power, and I lived on the 20th floor at the time.  That was a hike.  Had to stop twice to catch my breath.  Got home, no power, no water pressure, and once the sun set, not much to do except go to bed in the dark with the cats.  Fun.

Tomorrow, a quick discussion on the story's direction.
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, hiatus week.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, a fan-made four setting crossover.

Digital Magic - Commentary 15

More lessons with Lance, in Digital Magic chapter 15.

Just a reminder that the commentary will be a week behind for a few weeks.  Eventually, there will be a catch up, but not right away.

Another session with Jackie and Lance.  There's no chemistry here.  Jackie is more about learning magic than learning about Lance.  Lance is almost in the role of expendable mentor, which would really cut a romance short.  But as a couple?  They're not quite at that point, and after fifteen chapters in a story that's trying to be a romance, there should be strong hints, like Public Displays of Affection,.or at least pet names.  But they're not there.  Jackie's more interested in figuring out magic and Lance is working on recruiting new wizards.

I was starting to figure out that maybe romance is not something I was comfortable writing, at least as the A-plot.  Later works introduce a romantic subplot, which I found easier.  The characters had other reasons to be in the story and things bloomed naturally.  Here, I'm trying to force a romance and I'm rebelling against myself.  The original lessons from Digital Magic was "don't even try a romance," which then becamse, "introduce potentials, but don't force anything."  I let my characters make the decisions.

Billiard balls are used in physics classes to teach momentum and angular direction.  Being as close to perfectly spherical as possible and meant to maximize energy transfer in a game of billiards, the balls have a uniform mass.  For teaching magic, using billiard balls removes the same variables as their use in physics classes does.  The game is also familiar to Jackie, so she can figure things out on her own if needed.  Visually, flinging billiard balls around is an amusing sight,

Discussing the weird weather, in Digital Magic Chapter 17.
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, RWBY, the manga.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, hiatus week.

Digital Magic - Commentary 14

Family and fallout, in Digital Magic chapter 14.

Just a reminder that the commentary will be a week behind for a few weeks.  Eventually, there will be a catch up, but not right away.

What's this?  Jackie can catch the train in Ottawa?  What gives?  Well, at the time of writing, the O-Train, now Line 2, was a massive improvement in public transit to Carleton University.  The fact it was an improvement says it all.  Carleton tended to get service cut over and over until it was impossible to get on campus.  The O-Train provided reliable access.  Line 2 is not the trouble-plagued Line 1.  Line 2 runs.  Line 1 is in its fourth week not running with a "full" complement of trains.  "Full" meaning 13 double-trains, not the 15 that's needed but still not available.  Right now, it's easier to get to Carleton by light rail than to the University of Ottawa.

The question of what to do with a renegade wizard has come up.  It's not an easy answer.  If it was, Lance wouldn't be as interesting to me writing him.  What can be done with a renegade who is capable of making making physics sit up, roll over, and play dead?  Locking the wizard away just delays the problem for as long as the renegade decides to stay in jail.  Termination is excessive, but Lance's Circle keeps it on hand for the more extreme problems.

Lance confirms that the time hiccup was the fallout from a massive spell.  When one manipulates energy beyond the ken of humanity, something will break.  At least Jackie didn't have a full Groundhog Day event.  But there is something bigger happening and it is connected to the eyes watching Jackie.

The rules of magic needed to be set down, as much for me as for potential readers.  Ley lines are useful; they allow for the flow of magical energy.  Where ley lines cross, magical energy pools, perfect for someone to use as a source.  If a pool is in an area that gets negative emotions over, such as a jail, the magical energy gets tainted.  It works the other way, too; positive emotions clease the magic.  The Nicholas Street Gaol was not a pleasant place.  On the flip side, a holy site known for miracles that has a magical pool is going to be pure, and unable to be used to harm someone.  Magic has a flavour.

Jackie's approach to spellcasting is similar to her approach to computer programming.  There are good ways to program and bad ways.  Spaghetti code is to be avoided.  Memory should be released.  Jackie is trying to set up everything the spell needs before she casts it.  She's actually compiling the spell so she doesn't have to watch over the spell as it runs.  She could go with an interpreted approach, but she'd have to direct the magic while the spell runs.  The advantage of the latter, though, is that she can adjust the spell on the fly.  There's advantages and drawbacks of both in spellcasting in the setting.

Objects having their own magical resonance was an idea I had while writing the chapter.  Oranges having a natural sine wave was spur of the moment.  I had no plans involving this factoid yet.  I just thought it'd be neat.

Trish tries to get through to Jackie, in Digital Magic Chapter 16.
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, The Simpsons Movie.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, RWBY, the manga.

Digital Magic - Commentary 12

Recovery day, in Digital Magic chapter 12.

The commentary will lag a week for the next little bit.  Eventually, there will be a catch up, but not right away.

Digital Magic is still in a raw first draft version.  I have marks I use for later passes to fix later.  In NaNo. the idea is to get the words written, not agonized over.  If I don't like a word but can't think of the one I want, I'll leave a special character that wouldn't normally appear, like $, or block out the word or phase with {} or [].  On an edit pass, these stand out.

I didn't want to write out the party and all the events happening during it.  Not even as a montage.  It wasn't plot or characterization critical, even with me trying to get Jackie and Steve together.  The aftermath is more interesting and lets readers fill in their own details.  Everyone has a different definition of a wild party.

Speaking on chemistry, Jackie and Trish's nameless classmate might have more chemistry than the intended potential pairings, Steve and Lance.  Again, romance be hard, yo.  I try to challenge myself, but this went beyond my skill level.  Some planning might have helped, but even when I do some primitive outlines, things change as the story decides to go elsewhere.  It's something that came up with other stories I've posted that had large gaps before the last few chapters were done.  But I thought I had the characters thought out for Digital Magic.  Just not thought out enough.

The hookups mentioned were mainly for the fun of wrapping up the party.  They also emphasize that Jackie hasn't paired up yet.  Adding in Gary and Liam was an early attempt by me to show some diversity.  At the time, it was something I just tossed in.  Why not?  Chances are good that at least one of Trish's classmates is gay.  No use in denying or whitewashing it.  Someone else can write their story, though.  I'm having enough problems with a heterosexual romance.

Jackie's training session with Lance covers three elements.  One, that he is in the running with Steve for Jackie's affection.  Two, that Jackie is developing her own approach.  Magic, at least in this setting, changes from caster to caster.  Three, Lance is part of a larger group of people.  One-person operations don't really need a warehouse.  And the B-plot comes out, finally.  I think, on retrospect, I would've been better off getting the B-plot out sooner and making it the A-plot.  Hindsight is, much like this year, 2020.  The B-plot gave me a structure to work in, one that I can build out from.  The Soul Blade went this route.  The romance in that story came organically.  That, ultimately, is the problem with Digital Magic.  The romantic elements aren't organic and Jackie is resisting being paired off as a result.

The nature of ley lines, in Digital Magic Chapter 14.
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, History of Adaptations, 2010-2019..
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, Archie Meets Batman '66.

Digital Magic - Commentary Hiatus

No commentary this week,  It will return next week.  Have a kitty pic instead,

Just lounging before bed.  (Model: Jewel.  Photo by author)

Family matters, in Digital Magic Chapter 13.
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, Good Omens.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, History of Adaptations, 2010-2019.

Digital Magic - Commentary 11

Magical mishap, in Digital Magic chapter 11.

Several things come up here on re-reading the chapter.  The first is that, for all Jackie thinks Trish is her bff, there's some resentment that has shown up from time to time, a hint of jealousy.  Trish, at least from Jackie's point of view, has her life together.  Of course, since the story is written from Jackie's view, we don't get Trish's side of the story, where she is worried about her friend who spends so much of her time working on assignments and needs to be pushed at times.  The scene of Jackie and Trish in the car where Trish gets to unburden herself of what's stressing her.  Trish isn't as perfect as Jackie thinks.

I'm thinking that the video game should've been the focus of the story.  I do have an idea for the characters where Jacinda appears in the real world, one without the romantic leanings.  It's being kept on the back burner for now.  I like the idea of Jacinda rebelling against her creator, so it's something I'll play with for a bit.

Jackie is referencing "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" when she considers cleaning the apartment magically.  She's well aware that uncontrolled magic can cause problems, especially for rookies.  Naturally, when she's trying to rush, she completely forgets the lessons from TV and film.  The Honda doesn't react well to magic.  I didn't want to have technology to have an inherent resistance to magic, especially since Jackie is learning through a computer game.

The Honda is based on a car a friend in university had, a Honda Civic hatchback.  He pushed that car to the limits.  Ultimately, he slightly melted the engine.  Jackie isn't going that far with the car, magical mishap notwithstanding, but it's a car that a university student can afford.  It's not going to be in the best shape, especially under benign neglect..

What's the worst thing to do when naming characters takes an effort?  Introduce a bunch of them at once.  I use a few locations in trying to figure out names.  For minor characters, first place is the lists of popular names by year, including official sources.  I'll also hit up the Seventh Sanctum's quick character name generator and mix and match results.  When I'm aiming for a specific culture, I'll just make a quick Google search on culture and gender and grab what looks good.  Some cultures, though, have an easier approach; Slavic names are easier to find checking hockey team line ups, for example.

I tried to create chemistry between Jackie and Steve.  They even danced again.  I wasn't up to the romance aspects of the romance when I wrote Digital Magic.  I tried, but the magic element was more interesting.  I can work romance in as a subplot, but I'll let romance writers write romance.

The afternoon after the night before, in Digital Magic Chapter 12.
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, CHiPs.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, Good Omens.

Digital Magic - Commentary 10

Jackie and Steve try to have chemistry, in Digital Magic chapter 10.

Sign that Digital Magic is written by a man - Jackie's skirt has pockets.  It wasn't something that occurred to me when I wrote the story, but women's clothing isn't designed for pockets.  It's the little details that make or break a story.

Steve returns.  Jackie's call was a bait-and-switch.  She calls, gets voice mail, stammers something, done.  Trish can then chide her on her lack of romantic skill.  I slipped in details of the night Jackie danced away with Steve, more than Jackie remembers.  Trish remembers more of the night than Jackie.  Yet, Jackie didn't overindulge.  Again, I may be getting too subtle with what's happening.  Explanation will happen, eventually.

Other details are key during the phone call, like the other telephone ringing.  Sure, it's possible that Steve has a personal cell and a work landline, and that was possible in 2007.  Today, he might not have a landline.  Cut the cable initiatives mean that landlines are becoming an endangered species.  Someone in a high position may not want to be tied to a landline when expecting an important call.  At the time, I expected Steve to be slightly ahead of business norms.  Today, he's lagging a bit.

The mouse returns.  Jackie much preferred the original colour of her mouse.  It's a way to show that Jackie is starting to understand her magical metaphor.  She's majoring in Computer Science, so she uses programming and user interfaces as her metaphor.  Undo is a critical element in most programs, so Jackie working it out is a key step.  Of course, if Jackie can move from computer interface to computer programming with her metaphor, she may become one of the more powerful magicians in the setting.

Magic doesn't always simplify life, in Digital Magic Chapter 11.
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, The Mandalorian.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, CHiPs.

Digital Magic - Commentary 9

Trish completely misses the point, in Digital Magic chapter 9.

Jackie is in trouble.  Trish is going to milk the situation for all she can.  Of course, Jackie can't just say, "Hi, Trish, apparently I'm a magical girl."  Well, she could, but Trish would then call Jackie's parents to have them take her to see a doctor and watch over her a few days.  Jackie's other alternative is to admit to Lance's existence.

Trish, being Jackie's BFF, latches on to that news.  I set up Jackie's lack of love life back in the second chapter, a two week affair with someone who turned out to be engaged.  Jackie having a new beau is a good thing in Trish's eyes.  She wants her BFF to be happy, though Trish's version of happy doesn't necessarily line up with Jackie's.

Trish also provides a grounding for Jackie.  Weirdness is happening around, but Trish has homework still, and is trying to herd cats when it comes to her project team.  Getting concessions from Jackie should help her and give her team a warm place to work.

I think I was being a bit too subtle with the heat outage at Carleton.  It's not a natural mechanical or electrical failure, but there's not much I'm providing to say otherwise.  I probably needed someone to say something about it, but I didn't want a neon sign pointing at it, either.  It's a balancing act.  I'm not fond of Chekhov's guns.  When I read, I want the setting to be real, not a literary device.  Sure, I have used it, including in Lethal Ladies and The Soul Blade, but in both cases, I didn't plan it.  (For the record, the Chekhov's gun in Lethal Ladies was a pistol.  In The Soul Blade/, it was how Brenna felt about Officer Matt.  Also for the record, I have no problem with Chekov's gun, a phaser II.)

Trish at times acts as a reminder to me that the story is supposed to be a romance.  Jackie isn't as interested in either potentials as she is in her new game and the subsequent discovery that she's a mage.  Trish keeps pushing her bestie and me to get more romance into the romance novel.  Today, if I were to write Digital Magic from scratch, it'd be urban fantasy first and foremost, and then if there is chemistry between Jackie and anyone, the romance becomes the B-plot.

Steve returns, in Digital Magic Chapter 10.
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, lamenting the adaptations hits.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, The Mandalorian.

Digital Magic - Commentary 8

Jackie's world is not what she knew, in Digital Magic chapter 8.

Surprise, magic is real in the Digital Magic setting.  Well, not really a surprise given the title and the weird things happening around Jackie.  Jackie has a lot to learn, but that's what the video game is for.  Lance is meant to be one of Jackie's potential suitors, though they aren't heading that way at the moment.

One thing that occurred to me once I wrote Lance's spell is that there was no way I could maintain rhyming through the story.  I don't do poetry; I will not poem.  Good thing I figured out that magic runs on metaphor and Jackie also doesn't poem.  Jackie's metaphor will come in a later chapter.  Let's give the poor lass time to adjust to the idea that she's a wizard, Harry.

The metaphor for magic is a way for casters to understand something that is inherently alien to them.  With the right metaphor, a magician can manipulate magical energy to do what they want, like removing graffiti.  However, what works for Lance may not work for someone else, and new mages have to go through a learning process where they learn not just how magic works but how they perceive the world.  The idea has a lot of potential.  Too bad I couldn't see it at the time.

As I mentioned in the first commentary, the plans for Digital Magic is to mine it for ideas to be fleshed out in other stories.  That metaphor idea is one that really needs a good exploration as the A-plot.  In a romance, the A-plot is the romance, with everything else secondary, even if it is a close second.  Later works in the NaNo timeline did have romance.  The Soul Blade was almost thrown off by the romance portion trying to become the A-plot.  I also started skipping the romance part and having established couples, starting with a project that may never get posted here.  Digital Magic was a learning experience.

Trish demands an explanation, in Digital Magic Chapter 9.
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, wrapping up 2019 in movies.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, lamenting the adaptations hits.

Digital Magic - Commentary 7

Magic exists, in Digital Magic chapter 7.

What once would be done with telephone calls, emails, or even letters can now be done through some form of instant messaging.  When I wrote the start, I had Trillian and its interface in mind, but no specific messenger.  Since getting the chat into a text removes the formatting, it doesn't matter.  At the time, I hadn't seen how other writers handle the exchange.  Because of the nature of the chat, I went with the transcript instead of describing Jackie typing out her responses and waiting for Lance to reply.  The key to the scene was what they were talking about.

Jackie is freaked out and taking a leap, but she's not stupid.  Trish is now her backup plan.  Trish doesn't hear from Jackie after an hour and the cavalry gets called in.  It's not that I've got a masquerade deliberately happening.  It's more that, for most people, magic isn't real.  Jackie was one of those people.  This also comes up in Heaven's Rejects, but Digital Magic isn't as cynical, thanks to not having Nadia around.

Lance does the only thing he can to show that magic exists.  He uses magic.  And with Jackie setting the venue, there's no way for him to have set up an illusion beforehand.  No time, no way to know where Jackie will choose.  Jackie has no other option but to believe, though Lance implies she has a choice not to, despite everything going on.

This may be why I like the Shadowrun setting.  In Shadowrun, magic exists.  The stuff of legends, like dragons, vampires, and spirits, are real.  Magic is measurable and repeatable.  There is no masquerade; there's no need for one.

Paradigm shifting without a clutch, in Digital Magic Chapter 8.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, hiatus week.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, a seasonal entry as I try to fix Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

Digital Magic - Commentary 6

Safely home and back to more weirdness, in Digital Magic chapter 6.

Jackie needed time to recover.  There's no way she would want to stay at her apartment for long after what happened in Chapter 5.  Her parents' home is a safe spot, even if she has moved out.  Of course, that leaves the question, why did she move out if her parents live so close.  The answer, the one I came up with to answer that question for myself, is that she didn't want to be that far from school.  Jackie lives in biking range, though she prefers to drive in the winter.  She and Trish share the rent.

Jacinda returns!  I swear, I probably should have focused on the split between Jackie's adventures and Jacinda's.  However, I was aiming for a romance, not strictly SF/Urban Fantasy.  But I needed the Jacinda scene to get to the payoff, that Jackie can perform magic.  There's some action in there to break up the pace a bit.  The key part, though, is the mouse.  Poof, it's purple!

Wait, this is a romance?  Where's the romantic parts?  It's Chapter 6!  Jackie got hit on once, by Steve, and Lance has appeared briefly.  There's not even a romantic chemistry between Jackie and Trish.  What gives?  Is this a slow build up?  Not really.  I got more interested in the magic side of the plot that the romance fell from A-plot to tertiary back-up subplot.  Oops?  And, well, romance is difficult, at least as planned.  Naturally, when I decide that romance isn't something I can write well, Brenna has one in The Soul Blade, leading to a gap in the time spent writing as I try to figure out how to wrap up what was supposed to be a subplot while the main plot is coming to an end.  Maybe Digital Magic, despite being what I feel is a failure, gave me the experience to handle Brenna and Officer Matt properly.

Jackie's worldview is shaken, in Digital Magic Chapter 7.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, fixing Eegah!
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, hiatus week.

Digital Magic - Commentary 5

Family emergency, in Digital Magic chapter 5.

Jackie is officially freaked out.  Eyes where there shouldn't be any and now someone trying to enter her apartment.  Jackie called in the big guns - her mother.  In retrospect, this is a pattern for me when writing.  A solo lead character will tend to gather a large supporting cast that comes somewhat organically.  Brenna's family expanded in The Soul Blade and even Ione had a good-sized supporting cast in The Devil You Know.  I've fleshed out characters' family, friends, and schoolmates for a work in progress.  People don't live in a vacuum.  The ones who try tend to be the ones who aren't firing on all cylinders to begin with.

Time has once again destroyed a plot element.  Trish and Jackie have a landline phone.  Today, two university-aged young women probably wouldn't bother with a landline and stick with smartphones.  Jackie would be texting her mother instead of calling, not risking a noise.  Well, other than the new message notification.  But phones do have a volume control.

The problem with hinting at the supernatural is that unless the characters have a reason to believe, like in LTV Paranormalists, they're going to work out a mundane explanation.  Eyes appearing on walls and in mirrors?  Jackie's overworking herself.  Someone outside the door trying to break in?  Random burglars.  Even if not random, then they are possibly connected to Steve, if one of them wasn't him.  And when presented with the unusual that could be dangerous, most people aren't going to jump in to fight it without looking.  They're going to retreat to safety to regroup.

Tomorrow, life must go on, in Digital Magic Chapter 6.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, fixing Sonic the Hedgehog.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, fixing Eegah!

Digital Magic - Commentary 4

Private eyes, they're watching you, in Digital Magic chapter 4.

A restless night for Jackie, who may or may not be overreacting.  Ever since she got that game, things have been getting weird.  It's odd that she hasn't made that connection, but technology and magic tend to, at least in fiction, not play well together.  Sure, there are exceptions, but technology is usually treated as the equalizer.  And, really, who suspects a computer game of being nefarious without being a right nutter?

The benefits of using a city I live in as the setting is knowing what's around.  For an American city, I'd have people walking around with Starbucks cups.  At the time of writing, Tim Horton's would've been the most likely cup to see.  There's always a Timmie's around, and there's one on campus.  Today, it's a toss up between Tim's, which has really expanded in downtown Ottawa since 2007, and Bridgehead, a local chain that now outnumbers national chains in town except for Tim Horton's.  And if anyone from a café wishes for product placement in a future story, leave a comment below.  It might not work for a fantasy, but if you want the girls from Unruly or even your chain to be available in an interstellar empire, I can work it in.

In 2007, the local weather was starting to fluctuate a bit, but not to the extremes over the past few years.  Jackie was exaggerating about sunbathing in February, but we've seen thirty to forty degree shifts in temperature over the course of a day or two, going from deep freeze to spring-like weather.  We also see it going the other way, from fall to Arctic, is the same amount of time.

Of course, when the weather can follow the city limits, then there is something weird going on.  Not that anyone would notice here unless they actually took a closer look.  During some of the storms from the remnants of hurricanes this past summer and fall, Ottawa somehow had a rain shield.  Rain hit all around, but nothing got into the city.  At a past apartment, I've seen rain hit a part of the city while leaving my area dry.  In the story, though, the weather acting odd is a hint that something is up.

Jackie's hope for the bus is also dated.  Of all the things to have gone pear-shaped in the past twelve years, I wouldn't have expected the bus service to tank.  It was having problems in 2007, and the O-Train, now called Line 2, was a pilot project at the time.  The O-Train was also the first major improvement in transit service to Carleton University in decades.  People were using the bus.  A year after Digital Magic was written, the bus strike of 2008-2009 struck, and things started going downhill from there.  Today, good luck getting anywhere by bus.  Massive service cuts coupled with an LRT not ready for prime time.  I have a full rant to write up post-NaNo on this, but for now?  Jackie shouldn't complain too much about the bus service she's getting.

The eyes in the window came from a lucid moment while either falling asleep or waking up.  It was just too cool to not use, even though I really don't write horror.  Urban fantasy, though, can use the element.  This is a scene that I could easily salvage from the story for use elsewhere.  Right now, that's the fate of Digital Magic, to be taken apart for the good ideas.  The rest can lay quietly in a folder somewhere.  I'm sure that I've used Jackie and Trish, not by those names, in another work as it is.  Professors in Computer Science liked to mention code reuse.  I'm just taking the concept to another field.  It's not plagiarism if I give permission to use my own work.

Lance finally appears in person!  Took him long enough.  I can now try to work on a love triangle.  I've seen enough anime to know how those work.  I've watched Marmalade Boy, which had love polyhedrons.  Of course, the issue isn't just tossing potential points in.  There needs to be chemistry.  Remember this for later chapters.

Tomorrow, I always feel like somebody's watching me, in Digital Magic Chapter 5.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, unexpected hiatus.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, fixing Sonic the Hedgehog.

Digital Magic - Commentary 3

Time to get the weirdness going, in Digital Magic chapter 3.

Opening with a half-remembered dream was my attempt at getting readers prepared for the magic that comes later, plus the dangers of the antagonists.  Jackie still doesn't know she has the capacity to perform magic, here.  Mild spoiler that, yes, but it's in the title, too.  She brushes it off as dehydration, one of the causes of a hangover.

I'm still working on describing surroundings beyond, "It's a 10x10 room with a chest in the middle."  I wanted to give Jackie and Trish's apartment a lived-in look by two young women who really need to find time to clean.  I'm sure they do have time, and they can clean their apartment up when needed, but they've let it go with the semester's crunch time.

With Steve having been the first potential romantic interest introduced in body, it's time for Lance127 to make his proper appearance.  What's a romance without romantic rivalries?  But that only works if there's two men around.  Otherwise, Jackie can romance Steve while sexting Lance127 and there's not much conflict that can be drawn out of that in a narrative.

The in-game invasion was a test by the game admins to see who figured out how to get the effective spells.  The goal the admins have is to see who has the curiosity and who can make the approrpiate gestures to find the hidden menus.  It's not quite a sword in a stone, but the admins aren't looking for just one new mage, they're looking for many.

While Jackie is the main character, she has her own supporting cast.  No one lives in a vacuum.  There's always family, friends, co-workers, classmates, the friendly barista who knows your order better than you do, the surly passenger on the bus, and so on.  Introducing Jackie's family here was more to make sure that Jackie seemed more rounded.  She loves her mother, but she wants to be on her own now that she's an adult.

Time has not been kind to the story.  Amalgamation was pushed through without thought of how it would save money by the Government of Ontario under Mike Harris, who was trying to push off any provincial service he could to munipalities.  While the former Regional Municipality of Ottawa- Carleton had major problems, such as direct accountability to the voters, the merge was done without considering the full effects.  We're still paying for it now.  The other problem is that Mexicali Rosa's no longer exists.  I'm not sure what happened, but the individual restaurants became independants, then also disappeared.  The one at the Dow's Lake Pavilion changes names every few years.  I probably should have just made up a name.

The weather weirdness also didn't survive the twelve years since the story was written.  Thanks to climate change, extreme weather changes in Ottawa are regular.  We've been having record highs, record lows, and record temperature changes.  For at least two winters now, Ottawa has seen highs of -30 for a (frozen) solid week or two, followed by a sudden increase to around freezing for a few days before again dropping back down to -30.  A few years ago, Ottawa had a much greener Christmas than it did a summer, thanks to a drought followed by an unusually warm winter.  So, the bizarre weather Jackie's seeing isn't really an indication of something odd happening around her.

Fortunately, the faceless eyes in the mirror are timeless.

Tomorrow, the new challenger appears, in /Digital Magic/ Chapter 4.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, fixing The Crawling Hand.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, fixing Sonic the Hedgehog.

Digital Magic - Commentary 2

Things I regret - writing a romance from the first person point of view.  Welcome to the commentary for Digital Magic Chapter 2.

Chapter 1 established Jackie as a home body, someone more content to stay in than go clubbing.  I also established that her BFF Trish was her opposite in that department.  Naturally, one of them had to win, and for the sake of plot, it was Trish.  Hard to meet the designated romantic interest without going out.

Or is it?  I'm still setting up a few plot points in a somewhat clumsy style.  The video game does come into play, I promise.  It's kind of implied by the title.  Lance179 is already getting a lot of screen time for being an online gamer.  Jackie just hasn't met him in person.  At this point, I had a few ideas going on in my head on where the story was going to go.  It helps to have a direction to go in.  No ending in mind, but I had the core elements started.

To make things easier on me, I'm using Ottawa as Jackie's hometown.  That was one less thing to research.  I've done the same with later works, including LTV Paranormalists, though that has the added bonus of adding weirdness to the city.  Ottawa needs more weird.  However, Shattered doesn't exist.  I placed it in the Byward Market in a location where a restaurant is, so I know the surroundings.  If I can visualize what's happening, I can write it.  Digital Magic is how I learned that trick.  The other locations mentioned do exist, even after twelve years.

Steve is the first potential romantic interest in the flesh.  He and Jackie hit it off, at least for a random encounter.  I have no idea if Steve's approach would work.  What I was trying to do is have him seem like the ideal man, one who can listen to a woman and put her at ease.  One who doesn't push himself on Jackie.  I'm not sure, even now, how he comes across, though.  Feel free to leave a comment below about him.

I mentioned at the start that I regret writing /Digital Magic in the first person.  The big reason is that I am now restricted to Jackie's view point.  I can't show what everyone else is doing and I don't want to info dump by having characters monologue.  It's not a problem here at Chapter 2, when I'm still setting up the threads.  Later, though, I probably could have used an outside view.  Live and learn.

The video game elements gave me a new idea while I was writing this one, an idea that still involved Jackie but also her Jacinda character.  The game takes character emoting to an unusual level.  Extra details that would probably be patched in a few months after release these days.  Jacinda is almost alive at points, showing emotion.  There were points where I found myself wanting to write her story instead.  Again, live and learn.

Tomorrow, sober second thoughts, in Digital Magic Chapter 3.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, fixing The Raven.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, fixing The Crawling Hand.

Digital Magic - Commentary 1

Digital Magic was my second ever NaNoWriMo project back in 2007.  I figured a SF/fantasy/romance mashup should be easy.  Ha!  This is what I will call my glorious mess.  Romance isn't easy.

The idea I had was to mix magic, video games, and romance.  Sounds like it should be at least interesting.  What you'll see is that I got focused on one element at the cost of the other two.  But, there's stuff in the story that I feel I can salvage for use elsewhere.  Not a complete loss, but disappointing in retrospect.

The first scene is on Jackie's favourite game character, one of her own devising.  She's playing a nameless MMO, one not based on any that existed at the time.  To be honest, I don't play MMOs.  If I want to go slay monsters with friends, I'm pulling out D&D or some other RPG.  The MMO is more or less what I want to see in one, not what exists commercially.  And, given that there's a twelve year gap between when I wrote Digital Magic and today, there's a tech gap as well.

Chapter 1, like many of my Chapter 1s, presents the main character, in this case, Jackie, in a typical day in her life.  I realized in later works that I do this to show when things start going weird for the character.  There's dropping a character /in media res/ to get the action going, and that works if weird is normal for the character.  Here, though, Jackie is a student, not a spy or a mystery writer.  Heaven's Rejects can get away with the weird coming up early; that's Nadia and Ian's job.  Digital Magic needs the slow build up.

The not-quite-off screen sex scene just happened.  I tend to pants my way through writing, so if something came about organically from the scene, I went with it.  Trish is the more outgoing of her and Jackie.  There's backstory, and some of that comes out later.  They are friends, but Jackie is well aware of who Trish is, and vice versa.

I may have been asking for trouble writing in the first person.  Thing is, I couldn't figure out how to work a later scene in third person.  While I pants, if I get an idea of something to add, I will work my way up to it, using the idea as a guide post.  The advantage of first person is being in the character's head and knowing what she thinks and feels.  The disadvantage is that you're stuck with that character.  The character has to be interesting.  While Jackie did go digging through the settings, I'm hoping her thought processes help keep things fresh.

Tomorrow, girls' night out in Digital Magic Chapter 2.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, The Expanse Season 2.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, fixing and remaking The Raven.

Heaven's Rejects - Final Commentary

Heaven's Rejects was fun to write.  I had no plan, just characters and a broad concept that let me send my cast wherever I wanted if the whim amused me.  The series wasn't serious, as the animated Elvii can attest to.  The goal was to try a new twist on the masquerade a lot of urban fantasy tries to maintain.  The masquerade is blown, so let's have a camera crew follow a team!

The characters helped a lot.  They had strong personalities that carried a few chapters alone.  Demona was fun to write - half-succubus, half-Catholic, all librarian.  Nadia turned into her Demona's opposite, mortal, flawed, and perpetually cranky.  Ian was the fun-loving one of the group, the stable bedrock for the other two.  The dynamic kept things fresh for me.

Drawbacks, though, were the lack of planning and the subsequent pacing issues.  I had to rein in the desire to get to the punchline with the Elvis impersonators in the third arc.  The second arc had things boiling up without a solution until I started digging into American history.  The chapter length should've been shorter in a few cases.  Hindsight leads to learning if viewed properly, though, and the problems I had while writing Heaven's Rejects should be smoothed over in the future.

The lack of planning, though, also lets me take into account weirdnesses that come up while I'm writing.  The zombie Elvii were inspired by the bingo cards created by the local municipal liaisons.  I'm not committed to a specific ending if something better comes up.  There's a trade off between planning and pantsing, and while pantsing takes effort during the act of writing instead of off-loading some of it before writing begins, it also feels more organic.  I had an outline for By the Numbers that I kept to until the end, where the direction of the story meant Numbers leaving.  The story was kept in a steady direction, but it didn't feel right at the end of writing.  It works now, after the passage of time.  Meanwhile, stories like Unruly and The Soul Blade had the story grow organically, leaving me more satisfied at the ned.

One thing that I may not do again is include character asides with their pics.  The formatting takes time, and I'd want a greater variety of images to reflect the characters' moods.  It was an experiment with Heaven's Rejects.  If I could draw, I might have gone that route.  I do like having pictures to refer to with my characters, even if I have to build them in a video game.  The act of describing the character forces me to consider elements I'd have never thought of.

NaNo is coming, so I hope to remember what I learned with Heaven's Rejects.

Tomorrow, going back a bit, or romance be hard, yo.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, The Raven.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, The Expanse Season 2.