Visual Stuff

~ Jenny

When I wrote with Bob, he used to make me walk the terrain. We’d go to wherever the book was set and talk the story through while we walked around. The one I remember best was in the Carolinas, a big white house on a river, because I was saying things like, “Okay the gazebo for the wedding is over here, and there’ll be furniture on the front porch, maybe a swing, for that scene when the bridge goes in . . .” and Bob was saying things like “The bad guys will dock here and the scuba divers will attack the wedding from here . . .” (No, there was no scuba attack; Bob had a learning curve in writing romantic comedy, aka, nobody we like dies.). I dutifully tramped around after him through the Southern low country for Agnes and we spent one memorable October evening at an amusement park in Pennsylvania where people had chain saws for Wild Ride, but I finally had to admit that it was all worth it because he was right: walking the terrain helps a lot. (This may be why I do so many scenes in diners. I can sit the terrain.)

My version of walking the terrain is collage.

I do huge intricate assemblages for the real books, but all I need for this project is some idea of what the characters feel like (not look, feel, personality behind the faces not the faces), and I do that by flipping through images until the Girls say “That one.” It’s helpful to have more than one avatar for a character because the combination of several different people helps separate the character from whatever real people have grabbed the Girls, especially if the real person is an actor known for a certain role. Mixing several placeholders together helps undercut anything existing.

I did a quick scan for redheads for Lily because it’s important that she be a redhead and no, I do not know why. This is discovery draft, if we question every intuitive move we’ll never get anywhere. This is Sticky Time: if something sticks to the story we go with it. The thing was, I couldn’t quite see Lily. I knew she wasn’t skinny, that she’d be healthy and skeptical and strong, but both of the placeholders I found were thin and one was elegant and those things were wrong. Still the attitudes were right so I started with this:

There were two things that weren’t working here: Too thin/elegant and too hostile. The Lily in this collage is not fun. Okay, she’s going through a bad spot here, and none of these attitudes are wrong for her, but I’m missing the part of Lily that makes people like her. My concept of Lily needs work.

So I went looking for more pictures, but then I found one where she was wearing glasses. That picture wasn’t right, but I remembered that the photo that had nailed Fin for me was a placeholder in glasses. The idea of them both wearing glasses was kind of interesting. At this point, I was spending way too much time on a project that’s basically “let’s do something fun on the blog to distract from the plague,” but I was pretty sure that the glasses were key.

And then I remembered that I had a whole folder of collage glasses that I could put on pictures and I found them, and there was one pair that started a whole train of thought and I could see the scene and hear it, so I stopped looking at collage stuff and wrote WHICH IS THE POINT OF COLLAGING, TO INSPIRE YOU TO WRITE.

The Girls really love collage.

Here are the glasses that inspired 1056 words today:

Glasses are going to be HUGE in this project. Also the word “huge” which is cropping up a lot. Also, Lily’s a waitress, and that should be in there. And the cat.

For the rest of the cast, I just grabbed one picture each because this is just playing around and I do not have time to collage that many people. Annoyingly, since I had such a struggle with Lily, I found one picture of Fin, and he just walked in and sat down as he’s meant to be. It took me a minute to get Bjorn, but then it was obvious. Cheryl was also obvious even though I hadn’t thought her through. (Minor characters are always the easiest.) I thought about Vanessa and Nadia and found placeholders, and then after an hour looked at them and thought, “Nope, switch ’em around,” so Nadia is now Latina, which works just fine, and Van is now black which reminds me of Daphne but there’s bound to be some image bleed between books since they both have diners as important settings. Anyway, the placeholders are better swapped around.

Oh, and here’s the revised Lily collage.

It is, of course, like everything else in discover drafting, a work in progress and subject to change. Going back to Nita now. See you and Lily again on Friday.

ETA: Talked about the cast collage, forgot to put it in.

40 thoughts on “Visual Stuff”

  1. That picture of her in the centre is perfect! And I love the glasses motif. And I want to see the placeholders for the others. I laughed that Fin just walked in and sat down as he’s meant to be. No, I’m not forming a mild crush on Fin already, honest.

  3. Love Vanessa and Nadia, and all the glasses. Looking more closely, seeing things clearly, refocusing… And this was probably accidental, but I keep looking right at Fin’s watch. It makes me think there’s a time constraint somewhere in this story, or that time/ timing is going to be important somehow.

  4. I looked at the collage and read what you said about too skinny. I have another “Ginger” for the board, Diane Spencer. English comedian. She pronounces ginger with an initial hard g, like garden or garage. Angular face, not classically pretty. Funny, if rude. Adult humour with a u. Probably too skinny as well, but the size edit function on MS Paint lets you widen the images a bit.

    1. Like, hard g at the beginning and rhymes with finger? That’s pretty common, to use as a noun – you’d call someonea ginga. It’s sort of a joke derogatory term. I say, as someone with my own ginger tendencies.

      Comedian Tim Minchin has a bit to say (sing) about that here
      https://youtu.be/KVN_0qvuhhw (content warning – swearing, references to racism).

      (PS if you fall down a Tim Minchin wormhole, then you’ll possibly need a whole lot more content warnings).

  6. Love the glasses (okay, especially on the cat). For some reason, I picture Lily always trying to contain her mop of hair – up, braided, trying to keep it from taking over the world. I think because my first image of her was running from a Viking and hair is just too easy to grab. Crazy what thoughts your have without even realizing. Well at least not until there is a collage.

    1. I think so too. Pony tail or messy bun. She works in a diner, let’s corral that hair.

  8. My favourite Lily is the image in pink with the pink cateye glasses. She looks like she’s barely holding back a smile, and she’d be fun to get to know.

  9. Love the collages. Redhead makes perfect sense – he looks like a stereotypical viking, she looks like a stereotypical celt. It’s like they’re wearing army uniforms in a war.

  10. This is awesome. But to be picky, it is nalbinding. Although if you google “nail binding”, it pulls up nalbinding or nalebinding. Uses 1 needle. Very cool, I have made gloves in this fashion. Fun. As a crocheted you would probably learn it pretty easily.

    1. I know. I caught it the first two times spell-check changed it and missed it the third. Will fix now. Thanks!

  12. Cheryl looks like Catherine O’Hara, whom I adore. And lol at the cat with glasses!

    I’m interested in what the glasses mean. Looking into the past or the future. I imagined the cliché where the librarian takes off her glasses and all the sudden people notice she’s attractive. Fin could take off his glasses and Lily would say, “Why Thorfin, you’re beautiful without your glasses!” 🙂

      1. If you haven’t checked it out, you might like to watch Schitts’ Creek. I think it’s on Netflix. Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy and it is awesome.

        1. I had heard about it but it looked like not my thing. Gaffney likes it, too, so the two of you have convinced me to give it a try. I heard the first two episodes are not good and then it gets great.

          1. Good to hear. I watched the first two episodes and quit because I hated all of the characters and wanted to scold them…

  13. Not to be picky …but Fin is wearing a wedding ring?? Does this have a meaning to the Girls??

    1. It just means the actor is married, not Fin.

      I’ll take it out the next time I mess with that collage. If I mess with that collage. This is just playing around, not a book.

  14. I really like the concept of walking the terrain. It gives sizes and shapes and relationships to what the characters are traveling through.

  15. Oh, laughing so hard at the idea of trying to put a pair of glasses on a cat. I love Pangur!

    And Fin! And Cheryl is hysterical, I immediately think of a very eccentric, off-beat person.

    Collaging looks like fun. I think my favorite one I ever saw was your wooden collage of a street of houses… or am I imagining that you did that? It was a whole little amazing mini-world, regardless.

    1. As a hero, yes. As a pain in the ass, goofy, recovering alcoholic younger brother, he works fine.

  18. Love, love, love.
    Interesting that for your angry heroine, the Girls chose rose-colored glasses.

    1. I think that may be why she’s so upset. She’s generally a positive person and this is screwing with her worldview.

  19. I find your collages fascinating. I keep thinking I should try this approach, but I never end up doing it. And I’m a visual person, you’d think it would help me! It’s amazing that giving your character one thing–in this case glasses–inspired a thousand words. That’s awesome!

  20. I never get quite that creative with it, but I do tend to drop images in my WIP files. 🙂 The cast collage is A+. I would definitely read that book!

    1. Yes, but I left you the bombs and the guns. Compromise is the basis of any partnership, Bob.

Comments are closed.