Fun stuff

Ahhhh... I've finally reached th' part in my story where things get t' start falling apart. My thirteenth chapter is titled "Unraveling"- an appropriate title. It's the tormictionists/torreaderist's dream- see just how many subplots can start falling apart at the same time AND switch between them at the worst possible places!!! I'm lovin' it.... =-D

An Example of Torreaderism

I just ended a chapter with the words:

"She was going to die."

Man. That's evil. I almost feel guilty. Especially since the character DOESN'T die... *evil grin* To make matters worse, the next chapter switches to a different set of characters! In fact, I may not give the conclusion to this problem for a whole 'nother CHAPTER.... mwahahahahaha!

*wipes laughter tears from eyes; cartoon-villain-ish voice* I'm so evil.

Morbid Fascination (copied from my other blog)

Ok... a couple you have asked me to finish the story. Ok, ONE of you has asked me the story, and I will, but I currently don't really have the time for Oodstu and Rilloma [if you haven't read my "Drifting Through Shadows" blog, don't ask]. I've got lots of school, I'm SUPPOSED to be writing music, but... well... my favorite characters are stuck in a rather intense situation, and, well... you know.... I just HAVE to write! :-)

[tormictionists- you will be interested in the following]

This intense situation involves a poisoning. Which are awesome, but I sometimes struggle to create a unique poison (I'm working on that, btw). So why try? I went to wikipedia and found STRYCHNINE!!! MWAHAHAHA! A few things about strychnine before I get on school- strychnine is very violent, very fast, *Wesley voice* and among the deadlier poisons (any of you who haven't seen "Princess Bride" will miss that reference, sorry). I wish I could launch into a nice little informed speech about the thing, but alas, that is not condusive to my time frames, so suffice it to say this: you don't wanna ingest strychnine. It creates violent muscle convulsions, so violent that the victim will often die in 2-3 hours from EXHAUSTION. That's saying somethin', right there. With strynchnine poisoning, one can also suffocate, because the poison paralyzes the the neural pathways that control breathing. Either way, the victim is almost certainly dead within 2-3 hours of exposure (untreated, of course... not sure the stats on survival rates, but I'd say, the sooner you're poisoned and get to da hospital, the better).

I read all this and had one o' those evil lightbulbs pop over my head. It was PERFECT. Only... I'm in Uhrya and I need a slightly different poison than this, but ohhhhhhh baby did it give me inspiration. (my chracters are quaking in a corner right now thinking "Yeah... too MUCH inspiration")

Well, off t' do school so I can work with my poison/poisoning/poison victim some more this af'anoon!

Old Times, Tara-edition

Yeah... I remember my early days of tormiction. A couple pals and I were going to co-author the EIGHTH installment of the Chronicles of Narnia *snickering*. It was tormiction out yer ears, I'm tellin' ya! Someone was unconscious every other page. And the page in between was spent trying to get the person unconscious on the LAST page recovered enough to be unconscious again on the NEXT page. *evil grin* It was baaaaaad, I'm tellin' ya... :-D

Sick

I've got a nasty flu/fever thing. Had it for the past week and it isn't showing any signs of letting up soon. But there's a sprinkling of good in every situation- I've gotten some GREAT inspiration while lying in bed, with a cough racking my entire body (literally) and a hammer pounding at my temples (NOT literally) and a fever teasing me with the old "hot... no cold! hot... no cold!" gig. And I've got a question for all those other authors out there- how come characters never just get COMMON colds? Are MCs somehow IMMUNE to the common cold? Or a sore throat? Or a bad bruise? You name it... it seems the only time an MC ever gets hurt/sick, it's big. Which is fine, but I propose we make our characters HUMAN- they can get a bad cold for a reason other than falling into an icy river. They can have a fever from a cause other than devious poisoning.

And now I'm back to bed... to analyze my condition and try to burn it into my memory.

Oh... and sickness isn't always only good for tormictioning. I just had one of the best torreadist while trying to fall asleep last night. *evil grin* Be afraid. Be very afraid. Fever does strange things to an already strange mind...

A Glare for Ms. Grant (A Tormictionist's Dilemma)

*sigh* It's a fact of life- a character gets too beat up or captured under the wrong circumstances and they're... well... dead. It's a fact of life. It's a limit on tormictioning. I've done it, and I've helped Tahlia do it. Big deal. However... it IS a little hard when you find yourself LIKING a character who you KNOW is doomed to die. Mixed feelings- I'm eager to plot his death with as much torreadisitc value as possible, and yet I want the character to live and prosper and finally be free from mine and Tahli's tormictioning when (and, sadly, IF) he makes it to the end. *dramatic sigh* So I feel I must send a glare to Ms. Grant. (even though I'm winking at her with the other eye... *evil grin*)

Close Relative

No... this is not going to be the post about the uncle-slash-adopted-father-figure who is killed when the hero's farm is raided by the horribly evil bad guys after his guts. *shudders and turns up nose in disgust* No. If you want to know about that, go talk to Christopher Paolini. I'm going to be talking about a close relative TO tormiction.

Torreadism.
(torreadtion; torreadists; etc)
1. To torture, torment, and/or play with the reader in such a way that both advances the story and keeps them captive to the story.

my oh my... anyone who thinks tormictioning is fun hasn't seen NOTHING yet. Torreadism is superior in a few ways:
a. it is often a bigger challenge, for those of you/us who LIKE tackling constructive challenges
b. it is often much more plot advancing, even though it is just as enjoyable as tormiction
c. there is a wider variety of ways to accomplish torreadtion- you can do it by tormictionizing, by leaving off chapters at suspenseful parts, the possiblilties are about as endless as your imagination and skill at The Craft (aka, writing)

*resignedly* Of course... it's not half as theraputic as tormictioning... *evil grin*