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BRENNER_6

                                             July 20, 2010

  My great high school mystery novel
  project (concieved while I was in
  high school, and set in a high school
  remarkably similar to my own),
  actually went through a number of
  evolutionary changes.

      Originally I had this odd
      spontaneous prose/life game
      notion of how to go about it.
                                         THE_MIST
      But after I gave up on that
      (the prose it was generating
      wasn't any good) I started doing         And actually, there were
      some more conventional plotting.         some funny twists and turns
                                               the planning stages went
      I had a number of characters             through, I was experimenting
      running around that were                 with a number of different
      supposed to be based on me               techniques.
      at different ages.
                                                 For example, I disliked
        I was using working names                the way I often got
        like "Brenner6", "Brenner7"              bogged down in note
        and "Brenner9", meaning me               taking, and I tried
        in sixth grade, seventh                  limiting myself to a
        grade and ninth grade.                   summary that would fit
                                                 on a black board.
        The Toadkeeper liked the                 Names of characters,
        working names, suggesting                diagrams of
        that if I left them that                 relationships, etc.
        way in the finished copy
        people would think I was                 I worked out a method of
        "doing something really                  relationship diagrams:
        strange".                                the links between
                                                 characters would be
            (He didn't like the black            labeled with a circle,
            board for some reason...             square or heart for
            he thought that it meant             friend, enemy or lover.
            that I "wasn't serious",
            but I can't imagine why.             More complex relationships
            There's no right way to              could be graphed with
            do these things.  A black            multiple links and
            board makes at least as              arrows, e.g:
            much sense as Rex Stout's            Love in one direction,
            bare list of names, for              Hatred in the other.
            example.)
                                                 And there was no reason
                                                 you couldn't mix symbols:
                                                 both a heart and a square
                                                 on one of the arrows.

                                                 Then I started indicating
                                                 weaker relationships with
                                                 half symbols, e.g. a half
                                                 circle for an acquaintance
                                                 rather than a friend.
                        SOCIAL_NET
                                                     A "story" then could be
                                                     mapped with a sequence of
                                                     these diagrams showing
                                                     changing relationships...
                                                     e.g. unstable romantic
                                                     triangles settling down
                                                     to two-sided, single
                                                     vertex figures (or a
                                                     single edge and an
                                                     isolated point, or two
                                                     three isolated points...)

                                                        (Or to a stable
                                                        triangle, ala "Design
                                                        for Living".)


                                                           POLYANDRY


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