On Saturday, Charlesbourg time, Caro resumes writing the chapter where her two leads have tensions between each other due to various trade rumors targeting him. Something just doesn’t feel right: why did I even introduce Buffalo on draft day? Why did I introduce Jared? He just isn’t going to be a mere teammate of Gus and playing on the same PP unit in this game! I must have Buffalo play the game before the deadline and make Emma watch that specific game! I feel like some of the rest will make way more sense once I have written BUF vs. MTL.
She then turns her attention to the third pre-deadline plot-bearing game, Buffalo vs. MTL. Where the coach unveils the special units for the game: first penalty kill unit, second power play, and he’s playing on the second defense pair. And, of course, to forget about any playoff implications on either side, even though, at this point of the season, the Constellations are statistically eliminated from the playoffs, and on the verge of being mathematically eliminated.
And yet, Caro makes Emma still burn the candle at both ends, so, as with the previous game, Emma is going to listen to the game on the radio. So, a little early in the first period, Montreal gets a cross-checking penalty.
“Minor penalty to Constellations’ number forty-eight, Dumaurier, for cross-checking! Barbecues on the power play, Barbecues win the faceoff…” Caro, once again, reprises her role as a voice actress of a hockey play-by-play commentator, while glossing over the last name of the BBQs’ player, and writing down the whole sequence of play. “What a hit by Kurpnieks, steals the puck, and attempts to clear the puck into the Barbecues’ zone, Vendôme chases the puck in the neutral zone…” She then adds the crowd’s reaction to the puck-carrier being hit.
Capitolium, upon glancing at this manuscript upon which words are added by the minute, starts feeling like she’s closing on the 40,000 words, faster than he would have thought. Which also pushes him to write his own story at a faster pace, and dealing with the fallout of the Q’s trade deadline. How could someone with so little experience write that fast? She’s definitely relying on her knowledge of hockey more than she would like to admit. Most beginners writing at that speed tended to write copies of a copy…
Writing the game itself, to Caro, proves to be the easy part. It amounts to getting the highlight reel of a game into words, with perhaps a bit more focus on Gus’ shifts.
But then she goes around revisiting the chapter taking place after the game, to add whatever needed to reference the Barbecues game. After which point she calls it a day for writing, since she already reached a little bit over 37,000 words by Saturday afternoon.
She then catches a glimpse of Legnica’s stream, where she shows a scene in her manuscript where her sanjak-bey she calls a main character feels like he might need to give one of the ladies in his harem away to his suzerain beylerbey, while facing crippling debts.
“Some people will claim that, at least in romance, women will tend to write differently from men. That, even though talent is gender-balanced” Legnica tells her viewers.
Caroline: Sometimes nationality will have an impact, too; for hockey romance specifically, I feel like Canadian authors focus far more on the hockey aspect
Capitolium: The core giveaway is how they write characters of the opposite gender
And then other people watching Legnica chime in on more details of how gender can impact one’s writing. Like how the relationships are written, and the weight given to emotions and motivations vs actions. However, sci-fi and non-romantasy fantasy didn’t seem to have as big of a stylistic gender divide.
“I knew some female readers preferred to read female writers. Some male writers might be aware of how not to sexualize women, but by doing so, write men in women’s bodies” Legnica comments on how some readers could choose who to read based on author characteristics.
Glitter: It might be easier to forgive writing men in women’s bodies in stuff such as espionage and cross-dressing plots in historical, fantasy or sci-fi fiction, as suspects in mysteries, or in any other setting where gender isn’t much of a factor, but otherwise, it might be a case of “writing the character before the gender” taken to the extreme at best
Lagado: Speaking of mysteries, this is where I believe “interesting side characters, boring mains” came from
And then they start discussing how murder mysteries had a tendency to be more forgiving of a boring main character, and the aim to read one is to find out who committed a crime. Hence why one wants to commit it becomes important to enjoy one.
But then Capitolium DMs Caro when Legnica’s stream ends.
Capitolium: I don’t mean it derisively, but you heard Legnica’s viewers; they say that when women write romance, they get more invested in the relationship itself, and some readers would prefer life outside the relationship not to be an obstacle
Caroline: My entire book is based on the premise that life outside the relationship can and will interfere with one
Capitolium: In a way, you feel very masculine as a writer, and, as you said, very Canadian, too
Is it a good or a bad thing? As far as I’m concerned, hockey romance is perhaps the area of romance where Canadian authors even had a distinctive style, Caro seems a little puzzled by Capitolium telling her that her writing style is very masculine.
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Caroline: Is it a good or a bad thing?
Capitolium: Neither, just an observation
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The following day, Caro starts writing another scene she feels will be tension-filled, and taking place a day after Emma tells Gustavs about the trade rumors surrounding the team. The GM summons the relevant assistants to a meeting room after receiving the day’s first call.
The first offer of the day is for Jared Macer, Minnesota has offered next year’s first-rounder, along with… Caroline then writes a prospect’s name that never saw any screen time, wondering if it’s proper to add in any extras who will never again be mentioned… The various assistants involved in the war room, mostly in the analytics department, get to work to analyze where they feel both teams are headed, going into the future, and whether the GM can send a counteroffer.
Time passes and she decides to go forward and add a new team, as well as a prospect MIN is willing to trade away, to get Macer traded to the not-Wild. And, of course, she remains brief about the tensions trading away Macer would cause, focusing on the main course, Gustavs.
“Welcome to tonight’s stream, and let’s hope that I’ll reach forty-thousand words tonight! I must warn you: the current chapter is a little heavy on the hockey. Especially since, in my previous stream, I explained what the trade deadline was for, and when it was. I also want to emphasize how even the decision of who Gus will be traded to, and I admit I shot myself in the foot by writing the draft day chapter before the trade deadline one, will cause tensions in the front office!”
Lagado enters the VC. “I wonder what kind of tension do you get out of what I fear will be, once again, full of the same by-the-numbers storytelling as the draft-day chapter!”
“There were times when teams might have refused a better package for a player because they feel the trade would haunt them later, and I wonder if it’s a good idea to introduce it”
The most publicized instance of what Caro describes is, well, the Canucks’ goalie situation back at the 2013 draft. Oilers offered a better package than the Devils, but they instead traded away Schneider for pick #9 to NJ, Capitolium is reminded of what Caro plans to introduce.
And then Caro goes into more depth about the considerations that go into “selling” players to playoff contenders: the expected depth of the trading partners’ prospect pools, their rosters’ strengths and weaknesses, short and long-term, their cap situations as well as the draft board, into writing the three offers the Constellations are considering for Gustavs.
“For those here who read hockey romance, which statements are you more likely to assume, in the absence of actual hockey, in the context of their leagues, and until proven otherwise: players are unremarkable, players have talent commensurate with their spending habits or players are sufficiently overpaid to be untradeable?”
“You forgot about the no-trade clauses!” Capitolium scolds her. “Almost everyone with any real star power have one!”
“While no-trade clauses are given out like candy in the NHL, they are typically done to provide more stability because they can’t pay more money for free agents. Since Gus doesn’t have one, he’s a hotter commodity than comparable players who do. Getting a player with a NTC, partial or full, to waive it for a specific team is often a factor that can drive a trading price down”
Everyone either 27 years old, or had seven or more years of experience in the NHL can get NTCs, Marie-France is swiftly reminded of who even gets these NTCs.
Maridun: So you’re writing a third-act breakup that’s induced by external factors…
Marie-France: You already have a lot on your plate without adding no-trade clauses to it
“Much less salary retention: a $2.25M cap hit isn’t high enough to make the Constellations retain salary to trade Gus away”
And a team can only retain salary on 3 contracts, at most 50% of any player’s cap hit can be retained, at most 15% of cap space can be taken up by retained salaries, Caro then resumes writing the whole tensions arising from receiving offers for Gus, with Seattle, Buffalo and Dallas all fielding offers. Which, it must be said, feel very good. Maybe even too good to be true. There seems to be a lot of back-and-forth between the various people in the front office as well as between GMs.
As soon as the next sprint starts, her viewers start wondering how much the guy improved, and how much he was worth.
Marie-France: A player with a $2.25M cap hit is usually worth between a second and a third-rounder; why were there offers for far more than even a second?
“Did you read the last two games? Gus clearly improved his offensive game!” Capitolium scolds Marie-France, while writing his own scenes where the MMC’s love interest helps him complete the coursework he struggles with.
“Yeah, especially given his position solidly in the top four” Caro gets sidetracked a little.
Come on! I should get to 40k words tonight, it’s just a matter of pacing myself! Caro psyches herself up while the sprint unfolds with her viewers also joining in.
However, the newcomers outclass her very easily in this sprint, since Caro manages to write a mere 200 words in 10 minutes, while the fastest of these newcomers come in at almost double that. And even Capitolium managed to have written more words during these 10 minutes than she did.
The next scene has the GM and his assistants spend a sleepless night, and then have the front office tormented about the ramifications of accepting either trade offer. Especially since the frontrunners are Buffalo and Dallas at this point of the chapter.
Accepting one of these offers is so tempting: the breakout season Kurpnieks is having will mean we must trade somebody away. We can’t afford to keep the defense together next season, especially not when Kurpnieks is due for a raise, she writes, while her viewers, finally answer the question she asked earlier:
“In my experience of reading hockey romance, players are assumed unremarkable until proven otherwise, notwithstanding that proof to the contrary usually involve spending habits” Lagado answers. “So it’s really players having talent matching their spending habits”
Come on, one more word, stay on target! Caro starts sweating when she keeps writing a scene where the GM mulls over the choice of who to trade away, and to whom. By this point, she plans on making the GM send the paperwork to the league office for trading Macer away. And, as she closes in on the 40,000-word mark, decided that perhaps ending the chapter with the GM picking up the phone without specifying who’s at the other end, might be the better ending to it.
Once the sprint ends, she updates, as per usual for the end of the stream, her word count on NaNo’s system.
“Woohoo! I hit forty thousand words!” an exuberant Caro shouts, showing the cheevo.
“You’re almost there!” Capitolium tries to encourage her. “By now you should realize that you put yourself through an infernal pace of writing to get this project finished, that not even published authors, trad or indie, sustain long-term”
“Forty thousand words in seventeen days! Now that’s what I call an infernal pace!” Caro realizes that she still has 4 cheevos left to go before the 100% objective is accomplished, and then sighs. “I guess, the gamer in me makes me want to put myself through such an infernal writing pace…”