The Trumplandia Report

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

One of the issues I’m facing is I have a really strong concept, but I’m having some serious issues nailing down some basic aspects of the characters in the story. Originally, I wanted the Hero to be something of a loser at the beginning of the story and he reluctantly, gradually grows into being the Hero.

But the more I think about it, the more maybe the Hero should start off being a lot less me and a lot more a mixture of Pod Save America’s Jon Favreau and Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough. I want my Hero to be center-Left, but I also, given the pretty spectacular things he’s going to endup doing before it’s all over with, be primed to be a political leader.

The problem, of course, is I don’t really know that much about any of this and so I want to hone closer to what I know than maybe I should. As such, I think maybe I might give my Hero a flaw at the beginning that hampers his success. I’m thinking along the lines of he’s a drunk or something. That would be the kind of flaw that might put him in the position to be a success if he just sobered up long enough to do so.

And, yet, I don’t know. I just don’t know. I like the idea of the Hero being the owner of a bar. But given where this story is set, if he owns a bar and is all that talented, there would have to be a reason why he was there. At the same time, maybe it’s not he who owns a bar…it’s his romantic love interest? Maybe? Maybe it’s the woman in the story who is connected to a bar and yet why would our Hero be at the bar in the first place if he’s so successful.

This is all a lot of fun in its own way, but it’s also a real struggle. All I know is I need to settle on some basic elements of my characters and keep moving so I can throw everything up in the air again when I start writing the second draft. I can’t keep writing and rewriting things as if I’m trying to avoid actually getting anything done.

Something’s gotta give.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Something interesting about the novel I’m writing.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Some thoughts. This one is pretty interesting. Enjoy. I talk a lot about how cinematic the movie is and how I am growing more comfortable with the novel as a whole.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’ve done a huge amount of re-writing and the scifi novel I’m writing now has not only heart, but a cinematic flavor to it on a number of different levels. It is a really solid, really interesting concept and really now it’s just a matter of me putting the hard work into the project.

That’s it, that’s what I have to do. It simply takes physical time to write something as long as I want to write, which at this point is about 200,000 words. That’s the goal I’ve given myself. But a lot — and I mean A LOT — of work is yet to be done on this novel. It’s going to take me a long, long, long time — months — to get to a finished first draft. Then I have to sit down and do it all over again for a second draft. But I really like the concept. It keeps me entertained, if nothing else.

the state of the #scifi #novel I'm #writing https://t.co/kO3GUl2tP4

— Shelton Bumgarner 🔗 (@bumgarls) October 16, 2018

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have a really strong concept and you could even say I have a decent structure slowly beginning to form, but one big issue is the story doesn’t have any heart. I have a rough assessment of the story goals of the Hero, but I don’t really have any personal goal for the Hero.

To put it another way, I have my Luke with the goal of destroying the Death Star, but I don’t haven’t found a personal reason for him to get involved in the first place. I just have the general goal of my Hero without any personal investment on his part. As such, I fear I’m going to have to go back to the drawing board just a little bit.

Not a lot, but a little bit.

I doubt I’m going to have to re-write all that much — I hope — but I definitely need a basic personal reason for my Hero to get involved and stay involved. The only thing I have to work with is my personal saga associated with the magazine I started in Seoul for expatriates about a decade ago. They say write what you know, and that’s what I know.

If I do that, then some basic, fundamental elements of the story have to be changed from the get-go. I’ve been thinking this novel would be constructed like The Girl Who Played With Fire, but I think I need to make it a lot more personal and idiosyncratic than that. The only way this story is going to have heart is if I base it however loosely on my own romantic history. Again, if you look at the really good stories in movies the last few years, both the second Guardian’s of the Galaxy and Mission: Impossible — Fallout have a lot of, well, heart.

So, I’m going to have to rework the context of some pretty basic elements of the story. That’s the only way I can both give some humanity to my Hero as well as give him a pretty major flaw — that the only way he’s motivated to greatness is through the machinations of a woman he has the hots for. So, something like that. The more I think about it, the more my new course of action makes a huge amount of sense.

One thing I really have to give a lot of thought to is how to establish from the very beginning that this is a scifi novel. If I don’t do that properly, when the scifi kicks in, the audience will be left scratching their heads as to what they feel is an abrupt left turn.