Multimedia Storytelling

Sorry I've been quiet for so long. With NaNoWriMo finished, I'm back to revising the WIP I finished just before November began (those of you who helped me vote on which summary to use may remember the gist of the story). It's set in two worlds that eventually collide: one is the high-tech spaceship of my first narrator Rosen's life, and the other is the bayou of what was once northern Louisiana where my second narrator Kiara resides.*
Now, I should begin by explaining that I get sidetracked pretty easily. I like to think I have a good work ethic, but the second a new funny kitten picture is up on lolcats, I can slip off-track. But this time, I thought, maybe I can make my procrastination useful.
I'd been struggling a little with character motivation throughout editing this novel, when I remembered a discussion I had (years ago) with another player on the site where I used to role-play (and, rather dorkily, where I met my fiance). She told me that she always hunts down photos of her character before she starts to write a new RP, because the visual image helped her envision that character as a fully realized person. So I figured hey, if that works for RP-writing, why not give it a go with novel-writing?
I hunted around Deviant Art and Model Mayhem, and eventually stumbled across a pair of photos that look almost exactly the way I'd imagined these characters in my head.
I knew that Kiara needed a tough exterior, and I'd pictured her and her family as mixed-race (African-American, Hispanic and Native American in particular). When I discovered Pandora Pocket on Model Mayhem, I was struck right away by her strong body language and facial expression in this picture:

(photo credit: Christoph DuFoe)
But I was even more surprised to read her profile and learn that she is black, white, Cherokee and Spanish. Very cool.
Then I started hunting for Rosen - a tall, skinny caucasian male with black hair. In some ways, he was even harder, because I wanted a guy with effeminite, striking features, yet who didn't look like a total pushover. And he had to seem mischevious.
When I found a group of self-portraits by Classical-Genius on Deviant Art, I was on the fence until I saw this photo:

Then I knew I'd found my mental model for Rosen.
The time spent scouring modeling websites may not have helped me edit, but something about the experience, whether it was searching for real-life representations of my imagination or just taking a much-needed break from the page, shook my creative juices loose. I don't know how frequently I'll post this month, what with the holidays and trying to finish draft 2 before the Delacorte Press First Young Adult Novel Contest deadline. But I'll try to pop in and write about writing (or editing) sometime in between!

In other multimedia writing tool news, I stumbled across the Zydepunks while researching Cajun-style bands. Maybe when my first round of edits are finished, I'll reward myself by taking time off to mix a soundtrack for this novel ;)



What about you all? Do visual/aural aids help you write, or do they just distract you?

* Yes, I know the bayous are mostly in southern Louisiana, but this is set 300 years after southern Louisiana slipped into the ocean

Ghost Week Day 7

For the last day of ghost week, here's the story that I consider the eeriest, and the one that most effected me when I took the ghost tour where I first heard it...
The tour guide begins by telling a more recent event - something that happened on one of the tours he was giving. Halfway through the tour, the group reaches Clifford's Tower, where he tells the tower's bleak history. That night, however, before he spoke, one young girl in the group, who had never been to York or taken the tour before, cried out to her mother. "Why are the walls bleeding?" she asked, pointing at the tower.
The tour guide himself turned white as a ghost. You'll see why once you hear the rest of the tale.

Clifford's Tower sits on the highest hill in the city: the perfect defense location. In ancient times, a garrison of fifty footsoldiers and ten archers could hold the whole tower against a siege of hundreds strong. But the story begins a few centuries after the tower had fallen out of use.
In the late eleven hundreds, Jewish people were distrusted around England (and much of Europe). Paranoia and mob attacks on Jewish residents of the country had been on the rise for decades. But the fever reached a height in York one night in March of 1190. Men broke into the house of Benedict of York, a wealthy jew. They slaughtered his wife and family, looted his treasury, and set the house aflame.
The Jewish community leaders at the time collected their people and fled to this tower, where they would be safe. So they thought. However, the mob outside had reached a pitch so delirious that nothing save bloodshed would satisfy them. A monk climbed the hill beside the tower and ordered the Jews to relinquish their religion and embrace Christianity or die. But the Jewish leaders knew that even if they rejected their faith, this crowd would only disperse once they had been killed.
The cries outside the walls were to hang the Jews and draw and quarter their leaders. When a falling stone from the upper battlements crushed the Christian monk, the mob's fury grew still further. The Jewish leaders had to make a decision.
That night, the men slit the throats of their wives and children. Then they drew straws to decide who would lay hands on the rest. Ten men killed the remaining members of their community, then opened the doors of Clifford's Tower. The mob tortured the survivors to death and set the keep aflame. To this day, you can see the scorch marks on the inner stones.
On the first anniversary of the massacre, the entire town of York stared in horror as the walls of Clifford's Tower began to bleed. Since then, for nearly a century, blood dripped down the walls every 16th day of March. Recently, tests were performed on the stone which revealed that they are heavily filled with iron. This would explain the red colouring, except for one thing... The stones were taken from local quarries. And none of the quarries around York carry iron deposits.

Ghost Week Day 6

Christmas Eve, 1995. A young man is headed home from Oxford for his first visit since he started attending the University that summer. The trains are all running behind schedule, so his parents instruct him to meet them at church - a small parish on the far bank of the river Foss from York's city center.
By the time the man hurries across the bridge toward his parent's church, it is dark outside, and he can hear the faint sound of choir music from inside. Mass has already begun. He hurries down the street to the double-doored entrance, when he hears someone call his name.
He turns around to see Mrs. Bishop, a long-time family friend. She smiles and waves at him. He holds the door open for her, but she shakes her head. "I'm just on my way by," she says. "Tell your parents that I said hello, and Merry Christmas, will you?"
"Of course," he answers, and ducks inside.
He stands at the back until mass has finished, then finds his parents in the crowd, shaking hands with friends. He kisses his mother hello, hugs his father, and relays Mrs. Bishop's message to them.
The moment he does, his mother's face goes white.
"What's wrong?" he asks.
"We weren't planning to tell you until you got home..." she says. "We didn't want you to be upset, it might detract from your studies. But... Mrs. Bishop passed away this October."
The three of them rushed outside, but the streets were empty save for the churchgoers making their way home.

Ghost Week Day 5

Happy Turkey Day to all of my US readers! In honor of the holiday, my next ghost story is about family parties (as if those aren't frightening enough on their own...):

In the later half of the 1800s, a wealthy doctor and his wife resided in a small but beautifully decorated townhouse on Stonegate (a street that's home to several of the city's most haunted pubs). The couple soon became famous for the lavish parties they threw in their first-floor ballroom. Anyone who was anyone attended, from the mayor to some of the city's most well-known socialites.
When the couple's daughter turned 5, they decided she was old enough to attend one such holiday party, provided she promised to behave, and went to bed on time. The child made her promise, naturally, and her mother purchased the girl her first party dress to wear.
The night of the party, the little girl weaved in and out of the guests, trying to take in all of the elegance and excitement at once. As always happens when you're young, the clock struck 9 o'clock all too soon, and her father caught her in his arms and carried her upstairs to her bedroom on the third floor.
But the girl was too enchanted to sleep. She snuck out of her bedroom again and peered over the balcony at the party below. Perhaps, at this point, a woman in a particularly lovely gown passed by, or a gentleman's fancy tophat captured the girl's attention. Whatever the cause, the girl leaned out over the stairwell further to see, and as she did, her hand slipped from the banister...
She fell four stories, from her attic bedroom to the basement floor. Her father raced downstairs after her, but her neck had broken in the fall. There was nothing he could do.
Two centuries later, those who have lived in the house swear that they can hear the laughter and chatter of a party downstairs, then the cries of shock as the party takes a dark turn. They can also hear a child's footsteps up and down the steps, and on the third floor balcony, you can sometimes catch the faint giggle of an excited young girl, longing to join in with the party below.

Ghost Week Day 4

Number 5 College Street, York, is situated in the most densely haunted neighborhood in the city, with the Treasurer's House around the corner, the Minster towering above it, and St. WIlliam's College on its right. So it's hardly surprising that this cottage has a phantom of its own.
The small townhouse has two front windows - one broad set that look out over the street from the living room, and one tiny window, next to the drainpipe that runs from the roof, that looks out on the street below from a guest bedroom. At all hours of the day and night, passersby on the street below have witnessed a young girl, hands pressed to the window, sobbing and crying for help. Many times these concerned neighbors have stopped to knock on the door of the couple who live there now.
"Excuse me," they say, "But there is something wrong with your daughter. She's crying something awful."
"We're very sorry," the couple always reply, "But we have no daughter."
In 1604, the Great Plague hit York. Approximately 3,512 people in the city of York, whose population at the time was only about 10,000, died. One family however, living at number 5 College Street, had managed to avoid the plague thus far by being very careful. Neither the mother nor the father left their house at all. Their young daughter went out to the market once a day to buy food and provisions, and always returned home as fast as her legs could carry her.
But one night, as the girl's mother tucked her into bed, she noticed large, black boils growing under the girl's armpits. The mother said nothing to the girl, just hugged and kissed her goodnight as always. Then she left the bedroom, and turned the key to lock her daughter inside.
She went downstairs and told her husband. He was very upset, but agreed with the mother's plan of action. The next morning, they packed their bags and left the house with the rising sun. Before they left town, they locked the front door and painted a red X to mark the house as infected.
Later that morning, their daughter awoke and climbed out of bed to go downstairs. But when she tried to open her bedroom door, she found it sealed tight. She banged on it with her fists and cried for her mother, but of course, no one came. Eventually she turned to the window, where she called for help to the passersby. Many people saw her. They also saw the red X painted on her door, however, and so not a single soul stopped to help. Whether she died of plague or starvation is not known, but the girl's spirit lingered, and past residents of the house say they can still hear her, late at night, crying herself to sleep in her tiny bedroom.

Ghost Week Day 3

This next tale is not a continuous haunting, but a one-time experience that took place in York's Minster, the gothic cathedral of the city, sometime during the middle of the nineteenth century.
A father and his daughter, along with a number of the father's gentlemen friends, stopped by the Minster to admire the architecture. As they walked, one of the gentlemen took his friend's daughter by the arm to better hear her as they discussed the construction of the Minster.
The father walked some distance ahead of these two, so he did not notice the stir among his friends that arose when a young man dressed in full naval uniform walked toward them. The gentleman pointed the sailor out to the young girl, since it was unusual to see a man of the sea so far inland.
The girl immediately appeared faint. Concerned, the gentleman called for her father. Before the father could arrive, however, the man in uniform reached her side. He leaned over and whispered, "This is a future state." Then he walked away down the center aisle of the church.
The gentleman left the girl in the care of her father and hurried after the naval soldier to ask what he meant by upsetting the young lady so. However, the seaman was nowhere to be found.
When the gentleman returned, the girl seemed recovered, and her father continued his stroll around the chapel. As soon as her father was out of hearing distance, the girl explained that the man in uniform was her brother, away at sea that year.
When they were very young, she and her brother had made a pact - whichever one of them died first would find a way to contact the other at the exact moment of their death, if possible. His appearance in the Minster that day assured her that he had passed away at sea. She did not want her father to hear the distressing news just yet.
A week later, news arrived of her brother's death at sea, the date and time corresponding exactly with her encounter in the Minster.

Ghost Week: Day 2

Since yesterday's story was pretty creepy, I'll stick to a more light-hearted tale today. Some of you may know this one, if you like ghost tales, because it's one of York's most famous (the international ghost hunters have checked out this site more than once, too):

One afternoon in the 1950s, the young apprentice plumber named Harry was at work in the basement of the Minster's mediaeval treasurer's house. He had climbed up on a step ladder to perform some of his work, and was deeply involved when the sound of car horn, ostensibly from the street above, started him out of his reverie. He thought nothing of it at first, though he noticed the sound had been especially loud. Perhaps the walls in the basement just echoed a fair bit.
Several minutes later, however, he heard the horn again, five times as loud, as if someone had blew it right in his ear! Poor Henry was so startled he slipped backwards off of his ladder and landed on the stone floor below.
What he witnessed next has been retold hundreds of times throughout York.
As he lay on the cold floor, wincing from the fall, a man in dull, battered armor marched straight through the wall of the basement.
Harry stared, but the man did not appear to see him. He raised a metal instrument to his lips and blew, producing again the horn sound that had so startled Harry moments earlier. Behind this lone man, an entire legion of Roman footsoldiers emerged from the wall.
In spite of his terror, Harry was able to note some important things about their attire. Then men's clothing was shabby and in need of repair, they carried round, mud-splattered shields, and wore green kilted skirts. Harry also noticed something even more peculiar - all of the men's legs seemed to end at their knees, as if they marched along on stubs.
Terrified, Harry waited until the last man had passed through the far wall of the cellar, and then he raced upstairs and out of the house.
He told a handful of his closest friend about the experience, but made them swear not to tell another soul. They agreed, confused and a little concerned, perhaps, for their friend's sanity.
That is, until forty years later, when the basement of the Minster treasury was dug up in order to expand. In doing so, the construction workers stumbled across the ruins of a Roman road, eighteen inches beneath the concrete floor: just at knee height.
When Harry's friends heard about this, they urged him to go public with his story. Harry did, after a few heavy rounds of peer-pressuring, and the rest, as they say, is history.