It's on now, if it wasn't already.
But to begin with, as this will probably be the first blog entry in the new folder to keep track of everything for Fighting With Their Eyes Closed, welcome! The last folder was getting way too full so now we're moving into another for the next pieces of information, documents, pictures and so on for most of it!
Anyway, in the last entry, I said that Willow's character was being developed quite a lot. That's continued and now I am growing to adore him which is always nice for writing. But as well as Willow, Lieutenant Grummond is taking a form that I also am growing to love. He's got a bit (okay, very) unstable and unpredictable personality and nobody really knows what he's going to do or say next which makes them pretty wary of him! Along with him, he's brought some nice little other scenes, as has Lieutenant Bisbee too, and all of the 'other' characters' personalities and such are being put into 'mini' character profiles that are shorter than Willow's, Carrington's and Fetterman's (and eventually Smoky's) but by no means 'short'.
The timelines are going on too. August is finished, as is September and at the moment I'm on October and there are some nice (probably the wrong word to use...) events that I'm going to try and incorporate into the story. Thank God for Dee Brown, even if he was wrong about Captain Fetterman (or at least in this story's terms he is...!).
A character dynamics sheet has also been started, talking about the relationships and opinions and feelings between different characters. There are about 22 different pairings to cover and so far, I think I've done about five; Carrington and Fetterman (that took ages!!), Carrington and Willow, Carrington and Brown, Carrington and Grummond and at the moment, Carrington and Bisbee.
Too, I've been reading Terry C Johnston's Sioux Dawn that is about the Fetterman fight and some of the events leading up to it which is pretty handy for the dialogue but he still portrays Fetterman as an arrogant, brash commander which I totally disagree with now.
Relating to the letter I mentioned in our county press last entry as well, I did get a reply back from that which was good!
Also, a plan to get to America next year has been set up and I'm entering writing competitions, car boot sales and so on to get enough money for it! This trip will definitely include Fort Phil Kearny (at least what's left of it) and the Fetterman fight location and I will at last get to see beautiful America!
In other news, I watched The Colt (2005) a week back and it is simply incredible. I don't really know what else to say about it apart from that it was absolutely beautiful.
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Saturday, 18 September 2010
Forward, men! There's character development and timelines over that ridge!
At last, big developments have been made on Willow's character in the past week or so. I started filling out a character profile sheet for him, similar to the one I did for Colonel Carrington a while back and identical to the one I started for Captain Fetterman, and then found another really good and detailed one online so printed that one out and started answering that one too, this time handwritten instead of typed up. Therefore, most of his family background is done and his failures, successes, regrets, fears, friends (most significantly a Lewis Burton during the early days of the Civil War who taught him a lot about the army) and a lot of his physical appearance too. I have also come to adore him quite a lot as I imagine he's going to be a very fun character to describe and write, with his little incidents and stories and sassy personality, incidentally the first real lead character I have had who isn't all polite and sweet. He has now become my favourite fictional character of mine and has quite a few little scenes reserved for him.
These little scenes get written down, whatever idea they are, and when the plan is written, they will be slotted in. Usually, they are little silly ones but more recently, they have been serving as a development tool for the Fetterman-Willow relationship, where Willow has gone off Fetterman after the War because of how much he does recruiting instead of fighting, which is not really his fault but Willow still dislikes it. So therefore, there are little scenes to make Willow like Fetterman again, such as Fetterman saving Willow from choking and also letting him out of the locked basement though that's got a different, long background to do it as well as being a little scene!
As well as this, I started a little excerpt of the story for my dad when he went on holiday to send him in parts. It is turning out to be longer than I first imagined but it is very nice to start writing some of this story, as well as planning it (although I do love doing that too!). I don't think the excerpt will be directly used in the story but I'll still try and use some lines. It was especially fun to write Carrington's character as the excerpt was set in the December 6th fight where Carrington is now quite jealous of Fetterman and gets very frustrated that he, himself, isn't doing very well in front of his men, especially when he falls into the icy cold water of the Big Piney Creek in front of everybody. Another good thing about writing this 'little' excerpt was that I had to plan it too and although that dug up quite a bit of confusion with where certain people *Grummond and Carrington* were a bit of the time, I'm glad I finished the plan because I'll probably use that for the plan of the chapter in the story about December 6th.
Too, I started carrying on with the timelines, which need to be finished, really, for the story's plan to begin to take form. July was finally finished, though some handwritten notes may be written around the edges of the printed copy from other books (especially the John H Monnett book), like what happened to the other printed timelines (namely the 1865 and the 1866 January-June timelines), and the August 1866 timeline has also been started.
In other news, there was a rather stupid article in our Isle of Wight County Press the other day that had the writer insulting Native Americans at the Battle of the Little Bighorn by calling them 'those horrid Sioux Indians' and just generally being offensive towards them, while also comparing them to our government forcing our Island into doing something we didn't want to do and trying to join us with the mainland. In short, the article was pointless, inconsistent, confusing and offensive so needless to say, I wrote a letter in that I'm soon going to post to the newspaper! :) Getting to people the old fashioned way, Captain Benteen-style!
These little scenes get written down, whatever idea they are, and when the plan is written, they will be slotted in. Usually, they are little silly ones but more recently, they have been serving as a development tool for the Fetterman-Willow relationship, where Willow has gone off Fetterman after the War because of how much he does recruiting instead of fighting, which is not really his fault but Willow still dislikes it. So therefore, there are little scenes to make Willow like Fetterman again, such as Fetterman saving Willow from choking and also letting him out of the locked basement though that's got a different, long background to do it as well as being a little scene!
As well as this, I started a little excerpt of the story for my dad when he went on holiday to send him in parts. It is turning out to be longer than I first imagined but it is very nice to start writing some of this story, as well as planning it (although I do love doing that too!). I don't think the excerpt will be directly used in the story but I'll still try and use some lines. It was especially fun to write Carrington's character as the excerpt was set in the December 6th fight where Carrington is now quite jealous of Fetterman and gets very frustrated that he, himself, isn't doing very well in front of his men, especially when he falls into the icy cold water of the Big Piney Creek in front of everybody. Another good thing about writing this 'little' excerpt was that I had to plan it too and although that dug up quite a bit of confusion with where certain people *Grummond and Carrington* were a bit of the time, I'm glad I finished the plan because I'll probably use that for the plan of the chapter in the story about December 6th.
Too, I started carrying on with the timelines, which need to be finished, really, for the story's plan to begin to take form. July was finally finished, though some handwritten notes may be written around the edges of the printed copy from other books (especially the John H Monnett book), like what happened to the other printed timelines (namely the 1865 and the 1866 January-June timelines), and the August 1866 timeline has also been started.
In other news, there was a rather stupid article in our Isle of Wight County Press the other day that had the writer insulting Native Americans at the Battle of the Little Bighorn by calling them 'those horrid Sioux Indians' and just generally being offensive towards them, while also comparing them to our government forcing our Island into doing something we didn't want to do and trying to join us with the mainland. In short, the article was pointless, inconsistent, confusing and offensive so needless to say, I wrote a letter in that I'm soon going to post to the newspaper! :) Getting to people the old fashioned way, Captain Benteen-style!
Saturday, 4 September 2010
The Road Goes On
After ordering a new book about a week or so ago called Where A Hundred Soldiers Were Killed: The Struggle for the Powder River in 1866 and the Making of the Fetterman Myth by John H Monnett, it arrived last Friday and having a timeline to adjust, I got on with reading it. After the rather Carrington-centred Fetterman Massacre by Dee Brown, it was a nice balanced look at the fight and the events that led up to and succeeded it. Of course, I loved the Dee Brown version for the details about the journey of the 'Carrington Overland Circus' to Fort Phil Kearny but it didn't really dispute or question anything. Forty or so years later, Monnett's book (along with Shannon D Smith's Give Me Eighty Men I read a while back) was released and these two authors had access to a lot more information, a lot of it contradicting the statements made about Fetterman, saying he was arrogant and disobedient.
To be honest, I'm a lot happier with this new image of him in the story. Although Shannon D Smith's book turned everything on its head, the result was a better representation, I think, and now I've come to hate the arrogant and disobedient image of Fetterman. The new book I bought by David Monnett strengthened that and also helped with a lot of other details about the events that happened to the Powder River Country over the years. Therefore, the timelines that I've been writing over the past couple of weeks (ones that ended up as the 1865 timeline, the 1866 timeline from January to June and currently, the July 1866 timeline and eventually, stretching to 1867 with the Wagon Box Fight, the Hayfield Fight and the political events that came to be after the Fetterman fight) have had to be slowly adjusted - or added to - to constitute the new details.
As well as this, a sheet on the Other Characters of the story is slowly being written, with probably a lot more detail than I actually need, and a Log of Events has been created. For some reason, I decided to start this after a few months of research and development of the story, so I had to look through the diaries I've written to see what I'd done on particular days, which took a while but now, it's up to date. Also, Willow is being developed some more, with more and more being added to his Character Profile.
And luckily now, a week or so ago (maybe a bit more), my Laptop was fixed so that's back in action too!
The development goes on!
To be honest, I'm a lot happier with this new image of him in the story. Although Shannon D Smith's book turned everything on its head, the result was a better representation, I think, and now I've come to hate the arrogant and disobedient image of Fetterman. The new book I bought by David Monnett strengthened that and also helped with a lot of other details about the events that happened to the Powder River Country over the years. Therefore, the timelines that I've been writing over the past couple of weeks (ones that ended up as the 1865 timeline, the 1866 timeline from January to June and currently, the July 1866 timeline and eventually, stretching to 1867 with the Wagon Box Fight, the Hayfield Fight and the political events that came to be after the Fetterman fight) have had to be slowly adjusted - or added to - to constitute the new details.
As well as this, a sheet on the Other Characters of the story is slowly being written, with probably a lot more detail than I actually need, and a Log of Events has been created. For some reason, I decided to start this after a few months of research and development of the story, so I had to look through the diaries I've written to see what I'd done on particular days, which took a while but now, it's up to date. Also, Willow is being developed some more, with more and more being added to his Character Profile.
And luckily now, a week or so ago (maybe a bit more), my Laptop was fixed so that's back in action too!
The development goes on!
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
The Journey So Far
Okay, where to start, where to start...
Well.
Over the past week or so, I've been crawling through a timeline of 1865 through 1867 and listing down the events. It's turned out to be pretty detailed though that's a good thing as I hate missing things out. So far, 1865 is done and January through to mid July is also done but we've just had to take my Laptop down to a computer fix up place because it's being stupid and crashing all the time so everything's been left on it. Hopefully it'll be alright!
However, I did save some things to memory stick that I wanted to edit so I'm going to try and carry on with the July timeline which I had to separate out into its own part because that month has a heck of a lot going on in it!
Going through though, I've come across a problem as I really don't know where to start the story. On one hand, I could describe the whole journey to the fort site, with the ups and downs and mistakes and successes, with the fictional Willow being our eyes and ears for a lot of it but then this would probably take quite long and drone on a bit. I personally love the journey but to be honest, it's not too much of a kapow! starting, so to speak.
So, on the other hand, I could start with Lieutenant Templeton's part. This is a lot more sudden, with some Officers travelling to the fort and being swarmed upon by Indians along the way. It also has a good part with one of the enlisted men, SS Peters, listening to Lieutenant Daniels' talking about 'something bad' he thinks is going to happen to him. It does the next day, along with Templeton as they run into Indians out of sight of the waiting party. And when Templeton returns after Daniel's riderless horse scurrying out of the timber, he simply says: ''Daniels! My God, Indians!'' before collapsing. I imagine this might be a better starting.
However, if I was going to go along with the journey part too, I'd have to maybe put in another fictional character who Willow would later meet and relate with. If I will, his name will be Captain Lewis Burton but that's not definite yet.
Also, I've decided on a fictional Indian to tell us their side of the story and his name would be something along the lines of Smoky because I've always wanted to call somebody that. Smoky River, as a full name.
In other news, somebody suggested a programme to help with planning called YWriter that helps plan individual scenes, characters, locations, view points and so on...This will be very handy when it finally comes to writing the story!
Well.
Over the past week or so, I've been crawling through a timeline of 1865 through 1867 and listing down the events. It's turned out to be pretty detailed though that's a good thing as I hate missing things out. So far, 1865 is done and January through to mid July is also done but we've just had to take my Laptop down to a computer fix up place because it's being stupid and crashing all the time so everything's been left on it. Hopefully it'll be alright!
However, I did save some things to memory stick that I wanted to edit so I'm going to try and carry on with the July timeline which I had to separate out into its own part because that month has a heck of a lot going on in it!
Going through though, I've come across a problem as I really don't know where to start the story. On one hand, I could describe the whole journey to the fort site, with the ups and downs and mistakes and successes, with the fictional Willow being our eyes and ears for a lot of it but then this would probably take quite long and drone on a bit. I personally love the journey but to be honest, it's not too much of a kapow! starting, so to speak.
So, on the other hand, I could start with Lieutenant Templeton's part. This is a lot more sudden, with some Officers travelling to the fort and being swarmed upon by Indians along the way. It also has a good part with one of the enlisted men, SS Peters, listening to Lieutenant Daniels' talking about 'something bad' he thinks is going to happen to him. It does the next day, along with Templeton as they run into Indians out of sight of the waiting party. And when Templeton returns after Daniel's riderless horse scurrying out of the timber, he simply says: ''Daniels! My God, Indians!'' before collapsing. I imagine this might be a better starting.
However, if I was going to go along with the journey part too, I'd have to maybe put in another fictional character who Willow would later meet and relate with. If I will, his name will be Captain Lewis Burton but that's not definite yet.
Also, I've decided on a fictional Indian to tell us their side of the story and his name would be something along the lines of Smoky because I've always wanted to call somebody that. Smoky River, as a full name.
In other news, somebody suggested a programme to help with planning called YWriter that helps plan individual scenes, characters, locations, view points and so on...This will be very handy when it finally comes to writing the story!
Thursday, 5 August 2010
A Slow Advance
It's slow, but the research is coming on.
Fetterman's profile is almost done, Carrington's original one is being looked over (as I can't stand having him all innocent and vulnerable anymore, after the things I've heard about him) and fictional Willow is being developed now. As he's the main character, I figured it'd probably be sensible if I understood him a little more :D
As well as this, the Add/Adjust/Lose adjustments to the original plan are being made. However, the original plan only covers a little section of the story so there's a whole lot more where that came from. Lieutenant Wands, the Officer of the Day on December 21st 1866, now has a bigger part though and he's on the Fetterman side. Now he's the one who is doing all the discovering about Carrington's maybe-not-quite-so-defensive-after-all orders and is horribly confused for most of the time. And with Willow, he's been caught up in that now and there is also the arrival of a suspicious little piece of paper in Fetterman's hand when they find him that may change everything for Carrington. :)
And with Grummond, I can't wait to start writing him! He's excitable and fun and a little crazy and that's always good to write.
In other news, I watched Gettysburg last night and it has to be one of the most incredible films I've ever seen! I now wholly and fully support Mr Joshua Chamberlain! :)
Fetterman's profile is almost done, Carrington's original one is being looked over (as I can't stand having him all innocent and vulnerable anymore, after the things I've heard about him) and fictional Willow is being developed now. As he's the main character, I figured it'd probably be sensible if I understood him a little more :D
As well as this, the Add/Adjust/Lose adjustments to the original plan are being made. However, the original plan only covers a little section of the story so there's a whole lot more where that came from. Lieutenant Wands, the Officer of the Day on December 21st 1866, now has a bigger part though and he's on the Fetterman side. Now he's the one who is doing all the discovering about Carrington's maybe-not-quite-so-defensive-after-all orders and is horribly confused for most of the time. And with Willow, he's been caught up in that now and there is also the arrival of a suspicious little piece of paper in Fetterman's hand when they find him that may change everything for Carrington. :)
And with Grummond, I can't wait to start writing him! He's excitable and fun and a little crazy and that's always good to write.
In other news, I watched Gettysburg last night and it has to be one of the most incredible films I've ever seen! I now wholly and fully support Mr Joshua Chamberlain! :)
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