ysabetwordsmith | Poem: "Where All the Parts Fit Correctly"

This poem is spillover from the October 2, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by

ng_moonmoth. It also fills the "something useful" square in my 9-2-18 card for the

ladiesbingo fest, and the "energy" square in my 9-30-18 card for the Fall Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the Steamsmith series.

"Where All the Parts Fit Correctly"

Summer sun glinted through
the windows of Maryam's workshop
as Ida Raynott bent over her latest project.

This was a monocle based on the glasses
that she had made for seeing aether.

It was elegant and beautiful,
a construct of glass and gems
and shiny metal fittings.

"Why won't this thing
do what it's supposed to?"
Ida grumbled, poking at it.
"Everything fits together,
but when I try to look
through it -- nothing!"

"Hell is where all the parts
fit correctly, but nothing seems
to work," Maryam said with sympathy.

"This never happens to you,"
Ida said, adjusting a wire.

Maryam laughed. "It happens
to me all the time, my dear.
Integration testing is the bane
of systems development. I
simply don't let that stop me."

"So you think I should keep
fiddling with this thing, even though
I have no idea what's wrong with it?"
Ida said. "I've run out of solutions."

"Then think of things you haven't
tried yet," Maryam suggested.
"What are you trying to do?"

"Adapt my prosthesis so I can
see both light and elements,"
Ida said. "It would be an asset."

"What if those things are
fundamentally incompatible?"
Maryam asked her.

"But they're not," Ida said.
"We can see visible light,
and with the right lenses,
the elements come clear."

"Under some circumstances,
yes," said Maryam. "However,
you're trying to run both of those
through a damaged eye. It might
be too much for your remaining
nerves to handle effectively."

"You think the problem
could be me, instead of
the device," Ida said.

"I think it's a hypothesis
worth exploring," Maryam said.
"You have to consider if it's worth
giving up partial sight in that eye
for visible light in order to gain
the elemental enhancement."

"Oh, it's worth it," Ida said.

So she dismantled the prototype
and redesigned it for elements alone.

It took a while, and a lot of tweaking,
and more than one cracked lens
that had to be replaced, but in time
Ida found something that worked.

She tried it on and grinned.
"I can see!" she exclaimed.
"The elements are clear as day!"

Ida turned in a slow circle,
gazing at all the items in
the alchemical workshop.

Then she wobbled.

Maryam caught her
before she could fall over.
"What's wrong?" she asked.

Ida put one hand on a workbench
and the other on her forehead.

"I'm getting dizzy," she said.
"Everything looks so different.
This new device is giving me
a bloody headache!" Then
she ducked her chin. "Sorry,
I shouldn't have said that."

"I've said plenty worse when
my projects didn't turn out
the way I hoped," Maryam said
with a wave of her hand. "You
don't need to worry about it."

"But now I've wasted all this time,
and more than a few materials,
with nothing to show for it," Ida said.
"I just wanted to make something useful."

"I wouldn't say that," Maryam replied.
"You've discovered a bunch of things
that don't work, so you can rule out those.
I think the problem now may simply be
that your brain doesn't have enough
energy to run a device that complex."

Ida slumped. "Then it's hopeless,"
she said. A moment later, though,
she jerked upright. "Or maybe not!
If I could rig an outside energy source,
then that might solve the problem!"

"It might, and that's worth a try,"
Maryam agreed. "However, right now
you're tired, frustrated, and achy. Let's
go into the parlor and have a nice cup
of chamomile tea. You can come back
and work on this again tomorrow."

"That," said Ida, "is an excellent idea."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okay okay, not mad Science. Still, fun, off-beat science, which is one of the best kinds! :)

Off-beat, yes. Steamsmithing is often a bit wacky, although styles vary. I love how the technology in this series forms a framework for character interactions.

My writing is about 90% character based - technology is just another way to display characterization for me.

You seem to be more weighted towards world than I am. Maybe world first, then character, then plot?

It can actually go in any direction. It's usually the characters I connect with first, and I explore the world while following them around. But I absolutely will write down details that other people don't care about, I'll stop and shoot the scenery.

I love worldbuilding. I'll whack out whole ecosystems for fun. I read science articles and think I should do a planet of that.

But I also characterbuild for fun. When I started doing Polychrome Heroics, very early on I sat down and racked up a few dozen characters just to see what kind of range there was. It was very illuminating.

Plot I'm less fascinated by, because it's more obvious to me and less likely to grab me and drag me away. I do love a good story of idea, it's just a smaller target. Sometimes I'll be reading or watching something and think, it should go this way instead, and I'll write that. Ironically Star Trek is the best for this: they'll edge right up to a great idea and then turn away.

I can see that. There's a wonderful diversity of character in your work. I get a really strong sense of place out of it too.

I use plot and world as ways to get to the character beats that I want to hit. Urban fantasy is great because I can steal most of my setting from reality. You seem to have a delightful mix of near reality in your T-America! But more world building than I have patience for doing.

>> I can see that. There's a wonderful diversity of character in your work. I get a really strong sense of place out of it too.<<

Yay!

>> I use plot and world as ways to get to the character beats that I want to hit. Urban fantasy is great because I can steal most of my setting from reality. <<

Okay, great. Have you explored all the different plot shapes?

http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com/cgi-bin/mag.cgi?article=046&do=columns&vol=mette_ivie_harrison

I used a spiral plot in The Origami Mage because it's standard in Asian literature. But it's also in Calliope because the characters have to keep circling a central problem, gaining more skills, before they can get on top of it.

When most of the stories use the same structure, you can make something very different just by picking some other structure.

>> You seem to have a delightful mix of near reality in your T-America! But more world building than I have patience for doing. <<

It's like building a ship in a bottle. Some people build model boats. I build model languages, ecosystems, and planets. The biggest is the mini-ecosystem in my yard. A bald eagle flew out of it recently. I'm calling that a win!

One rule of worldbuilding is to do only what you need. That's a good rule for most writers, very efficient. I do more because it's fun.

Oh I LIKE that way of thinking about it. I can see why Calliope needs to spiral. She has a lot of things to resolve.

I base my plots on the character development beats I want to hit. I want Eliza to gain self confidence every chapter. What does that look like over the short term? What does that look like long term? How does everyone else in her life respond? How does the world respond? I guess it ends up being like the Scott Pilgrim plot diagram - minor climaxes leading to a larger one.

>> Oh I LIKE that way of thinking about it. I can see why Calliope needs to spiral. She has a lot of things to resolve.<<

So does Vagary.

Look for little loops where a topic is opened, developed, and then either improved or resolved. Like the situation with the house, Vagary breaks in more than once, which is not helping Calliope cope with the boundary issues inherent in the bond. But he learns to stop doing that because it bugs her, and she becomes more willing to invite him in sometimes. Calliope starts out very resistant to spending any time with Vagary, but the more she gets to know him, she gradually begins to accept invitations to go places with him and even invites him to come with her. Vagary begins by chasing Calliope and she pulls away from him, but then he tries to stop that and to seek the company of others, whereupon she throws a fit and blames him for the bond pulling at her. The closure of the first spiral round of the main plotline is their attempt to break the bond, which gives both of them the chance to make a choice for real this time. So then they have to start over, trying to build a healthy relationship, but now they're in a very different place than the first time even though they're going through a lot of the same stages.

>> I base my plots on the character development beats I want to hit. <<

That sounds great.

>> I want Eliza to gain self confidence every chapter. What does that look like over the short term? What does that look like long term? How does everyone else in her life respond? How does the world respond? I guess it ends up being like the Scott Pilgrim plot diagram - minor climaxes leading to a larger one.<<

Yeah, I'd look for different aspects of confidence, like at home or at work, with a skill or with personal appearance, etc. and find ways to vary them with a different challenge each chapter. It's a lot like a video game that requires characters to defeat the minions and then the minor bosses in different areas before reaching the big boss.

They have a lot to work through, both of them. Sounds like Vagary doesn't have models for healthy relationships. And the additional pressure of the bond isn't helping with either of their boundary issues.

>> They have a lot to work through, both of them. <<

They sure do.

>> Sounds like Vagary doesn't have models for healthy relationships. <<

He didn't growing up. Later on, he connected with Kraken, and they do have good resources. But Vagary had to level-grind his way up. It's why one of the first things he said to Calliope was a request for what to learn next. He's learning things as he needs them, because there's so much missing, and he keeps falling into the gaps over and over. Some of his mistakes are actually because of what he learned -- like treating her space as his, because that's how he learned to interact with people, in a shared space. He didn't really understand the difference, because the bond feels so different to him, and he had nearly nothing in the way of boundaries from his birth family. :/ But once set, he could see them and remember them.

Conversely, Calliope grew up trying to playact the "boy" role and not understanding why that was so much work, and it was hard to get close to people. So she missed out on a lot of things that most people learn as children or teens. I think she did better at the Chickasaw language camp, and that may be because native folks are just more laid-back about two-spirits in general, even if the topic doesn't come up per se.

>> And the additional pressure of the bond isn't helping with either of their boundary issues. <<

Yeah, it made some things a lot worse. Eventually it'll make things better, but not until they fix the fucked up parts.

Poem: "Where All the Parts Fit Correctly"

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