Scouting ahead

It isn’t quite the weekend yet, but I have Friday off this week. It’s getting close.

Old What’s Her Face decided to go to Nevada to visit her brother this weekend. Darn it! What will I do left to my own devices?

There is writing time in my future.

I need to get through another sea battle, suffer some kind of damage, and discover something unexpected. That sounds easy enough, but it isn’t.

I want to unleash my new character, and have some lines already in mind. The tough part is balancing the new plan, the eventual success, against the losses and the bummer parts of the story.

In other words, the fun has to balance with the reality of being a pirate. It wasn’t an easy life, and I need to reflect a bit of that.

Honestly, free writing usually solves these problems for me. I know my characters and how they will react to certain things. Then it becomes a matter of timing. In other words, it’s all fun until someone needs an eyepatch. You don’t want to discover the disaster until the successes are revealed.

After that, I need to design a whole country, city, and culture. There are things I want to happen there, but don’t know if I can fit them all. It’s probably better to overwrite it and clean it up on the next pass.

If anyone is interested, I pinned some graphics to help me out. Here is the Pinterest Board.

There is a temptation to spend a lot of time in this new country. In reality, they’ll probably need ten days. If I do it right this can eat up some pages without becoming boring.

What I’m not looking forward to is naming things. I hate coming up with names. Those usually aren’t hard to change and at this phase I can come up with something and change it later.

Another struggle point is how to leave town. They can accomplish their mission covertly and sneak away, or they can screw it up and shoot their way out of the harbor.

There is a lot to be said for the latter part, but it might eliminate an option from the denouement part of the story. Maybe I can make it a really big country, leaving them an option for a happy ever after in an alternate part of the country.

Am I blowing it by talking about this stuff? Does anyone feel like I spoiled a fantasy pirate adventure by mentioning they will get a happy ever after? I kind of doubt anyone wants to read an adventure story where everyone dies and cries.

Kind of excited about this weekend. It can’t get here soon enough for me.