Sunday, June 20, 2010

Victory!

(Or should I say, Victoire!)

I have done it. I have wrestled a series of events during the winter of 1489 in France down to a series of specific actions taken by characters in my novel. W00t!



It is broken down by act, and thank God they make eight different colors of ink or I would never have gotten it all in there. The green and purple ink are two characters I totally made up for this story, while the rest represent actual historical people who were alive and involved in these events. I can't really explain why this makes it all feel more manageable to me, but it does. It reduces big sweeps of history down to an action I could watch a person perform. And by doing that, by making history actions people take, I can weave it into the story so that it doesn't feel like it overshadows the characters.

However, now I have a headache and must go lie down...

5 comments:

Becky Levine said...

Absolutely beautiful.

Janet said...

Wow! Thanks for posting about your process. It all looks so organized and neat and tidy. I can see why this would cause a headache!

R.L. LaFevers said...

Oh trust me, Janet. It is ANYTHING but neat and tidy. In fact, I should post a picture of all the failed charts that went into creating this neat and tidy one. :-)

andalucy said...

Congratulations! But yes, I can imagine that was headache-worthy.

Stella said...

Wow! I'm in awe.