Fragment #1 - The Novelist

To be honest, that's the way I wanted it: an indefinite persona already beset with confusion and insecurity. Too often a new writer feels he/she has to give all the details of the main character before giving them a personality. Most of the best new writers want you to learn the 'who' before you learn the 'what.'

The first Fragments I read by both Mesarthim and Alhena each went most of the way through the Fragment before really identifying the gender of their character. After all, how many people walk around thinking, "I'm a woman; I'm a man; I'm a Sauk?"

Writing is, in many ways, like a game of chess. The author is on one side of the board and his characters are on the other. An expert writer can carry a strong game all the way through the story. A good writer might have a strong opening but be weak in mid-game or end-game. An average writer would be perhaps strong in one of the areas and weak in the other two while a poor writer will be weak throughout the game and the story will never be told.

I consider myself an 'above-average' writer, strong in one area and perhaps able to bring a strong mid- or end-game. I can only hope to earn the status of 'good' or 'expert.'

I turn my back on the Eiffel Tower and make my way slowly down the plaza towards the edifice I'd noted earlier. I don't know why, but I feel the pull to move away from the river for now, though I know I will visit it soon enough. For now, the strange architectural structure of stone, metal and glass, with its 32 free-standing columns, has my attention. I pass through the center of the monument and turn to look at the writing etched into the glass. "Peace."

Peace. A dream for all--but rarely a fact, it seems. But this isn't why I'm here. I have no peace, for within me lives the characters I have created and now they desire to see my world--or in one case, return to hers.

I resume walking, curving around the pavilion between the monument and the street. Before me now stands the Ecole Militare--Military School. A formidable edifice, obviously hundreds of years old and apparently still in use. But not my destination. I turn to my left, walking down the street beneath trees still bare of leaf, watching the traffic pass by. As I approach an intersection of five streets, I marvel at the design and control, traffic seeming to have a life of its own and flowing with remarkable fluidity, not at all the random insanity I expected of European city streets. Even so, as I walk farther away from the vicinity of le Ecole Militare the walkway narrows and auto traffic seems to become more congested.

I ask Antoinette, "Where are we going," but receive no answer. I'm not certain she knows herself since this Paris is not her own; a Paris almost destroyed in an alien attack some thirty years in my future.

Who is Antoinette? A character in a novel. One of my novels. I'd created her as a love interest and companion for another, Jon Redd. However, her intensity and love for life almost subsumed Jon in the story, making it hers instead of mine. Jon rode with me too, as did others. But for now I was Antoinette's vehicle, carrying her to the places she once called home so that she may come to life in a world that might believe in her.

Despite my lack of money, she somehow knows how to survive; and in surviving herself, I am able to make my way. She takes me to tiny shops where she somehow, using my more masculine voice, entreats the owners for some scrap of bread, bit of meat, or even an old, dried carrot to assuage my hunger. I try to speak for myself, but my halting French earns me nothing but shouts and curses. Antoinette's flowing song and words, her expressive hands, have them treating me almost as family. I almost never understand all of what she says, but what little I can ascertain tells me that Paris is only the beginning of my travels.