Boarders writing a Novel Part 12.

[First of My Name]

After a couple of very slow months, I finally feel like I've gotten my writing back on track a little. I now have 28,500 words of story and... 23,000 words' worth of notes on the story. Yikes. This includes 3 versions of the outline, but those in total only account for two thirds or something. I started keeping the nites in a separate file because the notes are practically a novella by themselves at this point. I add notes everytime I think of something that I'll use later on in the story, and this constant editing means I have a huge to-do list (do this in chapter 40, reference this in chapter 50, include more worldbuilding here...)

But anyway, I feel like I'm making progress again.

[The Reckoner]

Question about your nonhuman races.

The trick is to give then concerns that are beyond us. In my case, I have a species called the Vrashinka. They predate mankind, are reptilian in nature, and are driven by the desire for optimum activation and differentiation. There are other, older races that they identify as pathogenic. They hunt these races and bring them back to the nodes from which they're released. In encountering humans, they have come to consider us as pathogenic. The things that they identify as pathogens are broken down in the nodes and used to adapt the unactivated, undifferentiated Vrashinka to the threat of these pathogens. They're essentially based on the immune cells and serve as a counterbalance to overly emotional dragons that each take turns at trying to forge an enduring Utopia throughout the universe.

I'm just not sure if there's enough "inhumanness" to them.

[Neumond]

Question about your nonhuman races.

The trick is to give then concerns that are beyond us. In my case, I have a species called the Vrashinka. They predate mankind, are reptilian in nature, and are driven by the desire for optimum activation and differentiation. There are other, older races that they identify as pathogenic. They hunt these races and bring them back to the nodes from which they're released. In encountering humans, they have come to consider us as pathogenic. The things that they identify as pathogens are broken down in the nodes and used to adapt the unactivated, undifferentiated Vrashinka to the threat of these pathogens. They're essentially based on the immune cells and serve as a counterbalance to overly emotional dragons that each take turns at trying to forge an enduring Utopia throughout the universe.

I'm just not sure if there's enough "inhumanness" to them.

I like the immune-system approach.

Some questions to think about:

How do they look? Are they running on two legs, have two arms and two eyes?

How do they communicate? Through a language with words and grammar?

How is their society, tribe, whatever organized?

Do they have a sense of self? Do they have a sense of time? (many animals are believed, to not think of the past or the future and are just living in the moment.)

Do they have a need to educate their young? If so, how do they store informations?

How do they produce their young? Is their sexuality comparable to ours? Do they have two sexes or less/more?

The nature has some very great solutions to some of the problems:

Looks:

Have a look throughout the animal kingdom you will find many great inspirations. Much of the human-likeness is a result of having a technically advanced society. But there are ways to societies without technology. Think of whales and dolphins. Dolphin-Pods are highly organized with specified jobs. They have means to work together, have a sense of self and even kind of a culture through different languages. Also: think of octopuses they are pretty capable with their tentacles and highly intelligent.

Communications:

Through sounds is the obvious answer. But ants for example communicate through odors. There is even a famous algorithm sprung up from them. Ants find their ways through leaving an odor-trace on the ground. If two Ants find something to eat, they will use the same way back towards their home. And the trace gets stronger. Now other ants will start following the trace and soon we have the famous ant-streets without any word or even conscious organization.

Bees have a dance to communicate with others. And the Bee-queen will also use odors to control the hive. (Mind you bees, wasps and ants are related...)

(I would really recommend bee and ant-societies to everyone who wants to invent a society that´s non-human... It´s done already but everytime I came across some ant-bee-like creatures in fantasy they were still very human-like.)

society:

Are they all equal at birth and develop their roles through education or imitation? Or are there different varieties from the start. (Again think of Ants and Bees...)

How do they find their place in society? Through being very capable or through selection? Can they change their roles as a means of adaptation?

If you want the immune-system approach you should have a look at cell-differentiation.

Every cell is always in contact with it´s surroundings through it´s membrane (through receptors that are capable to receive "info-molecules" and through molecules showcased on or released through the membrane that give info about the status of the cell.

If a cell dies of an injury for example all the molecules in it spread through the intracellular matrix and the neighboring cells start proliferating to close the gap.

The embryonic differentiation is kinda similar.

You start out with one merged cell and it differentiates into a complete body of trillions specified cells through the communication between neighboring cells. You can find less complex examples in yeast-colonies.

Immune-cells recognize molecules on the surface of cells as being not part of their "tribe". They will be informed by other cells of the intruders and start attacking it. (antigen-presentation if you want to look into it. It´s very fascinating.)

The white cells differentiate from blood stem cells into different kinds.

They are specified. You have cells that attack specifically fungi, parasites, bacteria or corrupted body cells (through external reasons (viruses) or internal ones (cancer, mutation, aging...)).

Just food for thought: some people think what really makes us stand out is not our intelligence or sense of self.

There are self-aware animals and highly intelligent ones who surpass us in some areas.

In my country lives a bird called Eichelhäher in english it´s the jay. It´s a very beautiful bird that was shown to hide up to 5000 pieces of food and they found them again even if the stack was buried under deep snow and they even used some of their old collectives a year later. (This behaviour is sadly not mentioned in the english wikipedia but you could try google-translate with the german one.) How many humans would be able to do that? And this animal is not seen as one of the highly intelligent ones like ravens, pigs or dolphins, which were shown to be self-aware in front of a mirror.

What makes us stand out is probably our advanced ability to ask questions.

You probably know of Koko the gorilla, and of Kensi the bonobo. They seem to have mastered language to a high degree. Being able to understand and use it for their needs. Koko is said to have asked for a kitten. Kensi will ask for bananas.

But we never heard one of them ask a question like every human child does as soon as they are able to..

Not just questions of what is this in front of my eyes. But questions like: Why is the grass green? Why is water wet? Where do babies come from? What is a star? Why does everything fall down?...

If you think this through you could come to a place where our whole technology and society is build upon questions.

What is religion if not an attempt to answer the fundamental questions?

What is advanced technology, if not the product of people who wondered about what is possible?

Why did we fly to the moon? Why do we long for Mars?

Why do we imagine stories with magic if not to answer the what if-question?

Conclusion:

So to invent a non-human society I would highly recommend to think about such things. To imagine how they could have evolved and what remnants of this evolution have to be there.

And I would recommend on trying to think about what makes us human.

Because this is the only way to avoid human-like rubber-mask aliens a la star wars/trek/...

[The Reckoner]

I couldn't ask for a better reply! Anything I can help you with in return?

[Neumond]

You are very welcome. No need to thank me.

As you probably deduced I rather enjoy the topic so I thought about it quite a bit when I started my world building.

In the end I´ve decided against an alien race and I think it was a good decision. This post (minus the cell differentiation part) was just a summary of my own thought process and conclusions I drew at the time :).

So it feels good, if at least someone is able to profit from these efforts.

[The Reckoner]

This may be a bit on the nose, but in naming the two types of Vrashinka, I've chosen the Tzhel and Bzhel. The nodes I mentioned are essentially lymph nodes.

[Neumond]

So I take it your Vrashinka have a proper language? Or are these names given by someone else?

Now I imagine some massacre of x´zhels in your nodes... not the most efficient way I guess. :idea:

The most important thing, is your satisfaction with the names. Writing a story with "wrong" names is kinda hard.

[Magnar of Skagos]

Just curious, what are your opinions on chapter lengths? Do you prefer less, but longer chapters; or short, but many chapters?

3,500 words, 5,000, 10,000?

[EruditeFool]

Just curious, what are your opinions on chapter lengths? Do you prefer less, but longer chapters; or short, but many chapters?

3,500 words, 5,000, 10,000?

As long as it needs to be. A chapter for me varies from about 1,000 words to 5,000.

I think the most atypical chapter I ever read was in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. The was a one-sentence chapter there.

[The Reckoner]

Oh, I'm very happy, especially with the lack of apostrophes and hyphens. If you couldn't tell, they're basically fantasy'd up versions of T-Cell and B-Cell.

[Starkess]

Querying sucks. Suspect my writing sucks. Nothing to do about it but keep repeating the cycle. :bang:

[Kyoshi]

^Do they at least tell you what they don't like about your work?

[Seasick Shrimp]

As a non-english-native-speaker I felt like I had to ask; Is querying when you send your book around to different publishers?

[Zoë Sumra]

As a non-english-native-speaker I felt like I had to ask; Is querying when you send your book around to different publishers?

To different publishers or, more commonly, to different agents.

*huggles Starkess* Just hang in there. It can take a long, long time.

[iiandyiiii]

I'll second (or third, or whatever) that querying really, really sucks. Most don't bother to reply, and even those that do usually reply with form rejections. Self publishing is so easy nowadays, in both ebook and paperback, that it's a real and legitimate alternative. I still query, but I don't do it for a year any more -- I give it a handful of months, and if no one bites, then I start the self-pub process.

[Neumond]

Oh, I'm very happy, especially with the lack of apostrophes and hyphens. If you couldn't tell, they're basically fantasy'd up versions of T-Cell and B-Cell.

I could tell, hence the massacre imagery ;). In my native language Cell is written with a Z so the names are even easier to get.

Glad you are happy. Every apostrophe avoided is a good one ;).

Starkess: It´s not necessarily your writing. Perhaps your theme isn´t en vogue at the moment. Or you just lack the luck.

I don´t want to think about the masses of great authors out there that never get a shot because they aren´t lucky enough...

So I wish you the best of luck.

Writing is kind of psychotic. But I like this the best about it :drunk:.

[Magnar of Skagos]

I have found so many good story ideas researching history. Not even the lives of historical figures or battles or events, but stuff as simple as Roman familial structure, early-medieval English architecture, etc.

[Ebenstone]

Querying sucks. Suspect my writing sucks. Nothing to do about it but keep repeating the cycle. :bang:

Keep at it. It's a long process sometimes. There's no easy way of doing everything. I got my agent with a Hail Mary query...I was just about ready to shelf the project and move on to another project to query when I sent it out. It was three or four months of back and forth before we decided to work together. That was three plus years ago....publishing works glacially when it's fast, but I firmly believe that SEASONS will find their home.

[Myrddin]

Querying sucks. Suspect my writing sucks. Nothing to do about it but keep repeating the cycle. :bang:

Not so. It just means you haven't found the right person who will hug and squeeze your work. And call it George. :)

Most successful writers have a drawer full of rejection slips. Badges of honor. Battle scars. However you count them, put them away and keep going.

[Ebenstone]

Not so. It just means you haven't found the right person who will hug and squeeze your work. And call it George. :)

Most successful writers have a drawer full of rejection slips. Badges of honor. Battle scars. However you count them, put them away and keep going.

So much this. My agent tells me all the time that on that given day at that given moment that's not what they wanted. I've read your stuff. You are very, very good.