I don’t usually post too close together. Normally, there’s at least 3 days between them. I did plan on posting Shatter Me on Sunday just gone but Christmas is a hectic time. However, I’m also aware that I told you I would post how far I got with my character profiles and lore-building on Death’s Hourglass today. So, I’m sticking to my word and writing a progress report.
Character Profiles Progress
These are not complete but I have made progress with them. Mostly with the protagonists. I know more about Mara’s parents and siblings also.
Hayden
Hayden is still hard for me to figure out, I’m not going to lie. He’s not giving me much other than he has been through enough to have a form of PTSD. What I do know is that Hayden is divorced and he has a daughter. He’s stubborn, scared of the dark, an atheist, and sees the Angel of Death as a villain. However, he also sees Mara (one of the Angels of Death) as a child because of how young she is.
As one of the protagonists, he has an important role to play. I think that role also has something about teaching Mara that what happened in her human life might be why she sees the life as Death more purposeful.
One of the things I do need to do is work out what happened between Hayden and his ex though. I know she is still alive, they share custody of Delia. I just know it won’t be that either one of them betrayed the other’s trust.
Mara
Mara I had more success on. Before, I had her have supportive parents that both tried to protect her when they realised there was something ‘odd’ about her. But now, I’m thinking differently. It would have been a highly religious time back in 1340s that a child who could see when someone was about to die wouldn’t be one celebrated, even by parents.
Human Mara is lonely, her only friend was a sister she lost too soon. Her mother doesn’t acknowledge her and her father gives her the bare minimum until she is able to marry. He attempts to arrange marriage before any suitor realises there is something strange about her but the household succumbs to the black death.
As Death, she thrives. She comforts others and surrounded by those just like her. The afterlife after Death is unknown which is why she doesn’t want to move on any more than Hayden.
Lore
The world is coming along in snail steps. I know what the bodiless souls look like and what that looks like. I know that there is a committee of Death and they all can speak to one another in hologram form.
One of the issues I’m having is that Human Mara would be able to tell what colour someone’s colour is moments before their last breath. But, then that makes it harder. The ‘oddness’ her parents pick up on is revealed the moment she sees that person die. I’m thinking, maybe sudden deaths, the colour shows, but terminal deaths (e.g having the plague before showing symptoms) might start to show the colours earlier.
Would really love to hear your thoughts on this.
Progress
I have made progress with the narrative, also. On Saturday, I hosted writing sprints on Bluesky. I do these sometimes, and the idea is to write as many words as possible throughout the session. As I schedule them for other people and not everyone can go to the same one, I tend to schedule them throughout the whole day.
The first session I got 667 words, then the second I got 500ish words. In total, I did 9 sessions. Not all of them hit 500 words, I don’t think, but I think It was roughly 300-600 each, so I got a lot of words done.
Pretty pleased with it to be honest.
Type of Plansters
First, just to remind you, a Planster is someone who plans and also doesn’t plan but writes from the seat of their pants. So, in the other post last week, I told you that I think I have discovered there are subcategories to the planster type. Let me know what you think after.
The Organised Plantser: The planner that pants
This is the person who still needs the plan but the idea isn’t formed. So to formate the idea, they pants the plan. They don’t start writing the novel until every bit of the story makes sense, but they don’t know the story yet. The Organised Plantser needs to figure things out. They will have sheets, notes, bibles, anything written down, trying to understand everything. But they don’t mind if the story takes a different direction. Everything is a mess and nothing comes in order.
The order comes when they write their first word.
This is different to the planner who has a concrete idea first, jots down what they have and develops from the inside out but there are similarities between the two.
The With-the-flow Plantser: The pantser that plans
The pantser that plans has an idea. It’s clear but the route to the idea is murky. They may have a rough draft of prose, little extracts that fit… somewhere. Or the extracts just end up being background information. They’re not sure yet. But the ideas are there, only there are things missing and once they’re found, things make sense.
So to figure out what is missing, the pantser plans from what they already know of their idea. That may be that they already know a great deal about their character and what their character is thinking, but not exactly what the character needs to get to the end result. This type of planner will write at the same time as making their sheets and at the same time as making their bible. These notes will provide an overview so that when the pantser planner gets stuck, they can look at their notes and see what could possibly be the reason why. What has made them stuck.
I think I am this one. I make notes only when I am stuck and I write once I am unstuck. The issue I am having with Death’s Hourglass, I think, is that the original idea first came during undergraduate study and I didn’t have the time to develop it when it was fresh.
Where would you place yourself? Also what are your thoughts on my progress?