Boarders Writing A Novel: Volume 14 A Memory of Civility

[HexMachina]

You could also go the Abercrombie route and have "elf magic", which is actually stuff from Earth but described as something missing from the world for a long time. This might not work so well though, if your other world is more technological advances than Earth

[First of My Name]

7 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

People from Earth would probably name some geographic features after Earth locations.

Thanks, that's a good suggestion.

17 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

You could also go the Abercrombie route and have "elf magic", which is actually stuff from Earth but described as something missing from the world for a long time. This might not work so well though, if your other world is more technological advances than Earth

So it's technology believed to be magic?
Technological advancement is a bit of a tricky issue, since technically they are further advanced, but the ruling elite keep this technology secret because of what it did to their previous planet (basically Earth was nuked to shit) and want to avoid the same happening here. So the technology exists but is unknown to 99% of the population, who believe most stuff like guns and bombs were abandoned on earth. As a result there isn't much technology that I could 'explain' as magic.

[Aniel]

17 hours ago, First of My Name said:

Question to you guys:
My story is set on a different planet but the people that live on it came there from Earth after it became uninhabitable. The reader doesn't know this at first. I'm looking for the best way to reveal this to them. One way I'm considering is mentioning Jesus when a characters visits a church, thus letting the reader know that the god the characters have been praying to is in fact 'our' god. However I'm thinking that this might not make it clear enough that these people are from Earth, because it might also look like I just copied something because it's easier (the same way that, for example, a Star Wars novel I read uses the term Celsius, and it's not a reveal but a way to simplify their measurement of temperature for the reader).
In short, I want it to feel like a big reveal without hitting the reader over the head with it. What do you think is the best way to handle it? Thanks in advance.

ETA: I'm also not sure mentioning Jesus is the best way to do it since I want religions to have evolved a great deal and involving him would imply that one of the biggest religions is still basically the same.

You could merge the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam and a couple of smaller ones) into one, using their common roots as a basis. One of the main differences is Jesus, since christians consider him the Messiah and jews don't, and the son of God, while muslims consider him a prophet only. And then you could also add things from other religions depending on where on Earth the people came from. There would definitely need to be a bit of research done, so anyone with half a brain would be able to see that it's not just copying. You could also change the spelling of some names to reflect the evolution of language and hide the reveal further. Abraham is probably the place to start if you like this solution (hence the name).

[First of My Name]

5 hours ago, Aniel said:

You could merge the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam and a couple of smaller ones) into one, using their common roots as a basis. One of the main differences is Jesus, since christians consider him the Messiah and jews don't, and the son of God, while muslims consider him a prophet only. And then you could also add things from other religions depending on where on Earth the people came from. There would definitely need to be a bit of research done, so anyone with half a brain would be able to see that it's not just copying. You could also change the spelling of some names to reflect the evolution of language and hide the reveal further. Abraham is probably the place to start if you like this solution (hence the name).

Merging major religions is something I was planning to do, yeah. Changing up some names is a good idea. Thanks.

What I'm planning to do now is to give some details about the origins of the character's religion in a scene in a church, and squeeze in similar details in later scenes, and at a certain point the reader will hopefully see that this all sounds a little too similar. I'm never going to outright state that they're from Earth in this book, since that doesn't even become relevant in the last part of this planned trilogy and it's more fun that way. Religion and names are good ways to accomplish this, I think.

[HexMachina]

You could perhaps have "shrines" on this new world of recognisable monuments from Earth (Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, that sort of thing). That might be a bit on the nose for what you want though, unless you describe them somewhat ambiguously.

[Spockydog]

 

3 hours ago, First of My Name said:

Merging major religions is something I was planning to do, yeah. Changing up some names is a good idea. Thanks.

I like to think that space-religion will be a bit more enlightened than what we've had on Earth for the past millennium or so. If it were my story, I'd just keep all the good stuff and get rid of all the misogyny and bigotry. And yeah, I'd totally change all the names.

But why the mystery? Is the fact these colonists are from Earth your big climactic reveal? If not, then there's no need to be coy about their religion (unless of course God actually exists in-world. Then you could have all kinds of fun).

 

[C.T. Phipps]

In my space opera novel, I had the protagonist comes from a cult which worshiped a Christian based offshoot.

Recognizable but merged like Herbert's Zensunni.

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

Damn it. Why Christians? Why not Space Aztecs or Zoroastrianists? 

[First of My Name]

21 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

You could perhaps have "shrines" on this new world of recognisable monuments from Earth (Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, that sort of thing). That might be a bit on the nose for what you want though, unless you describe them somewhat ambiguously.

Interesting idea, but since they backtrack a lot where technology is concerned after arriving on this new planet,

20 hours ago, Spockydog said:

 

I like to think that space-religion will be a bit more enlightened than what we've had on Earth for the past millennium or so. If it were my story, I'd just keep all the good stuff and get rid of all the misogyny and bigotry. And yeah, I'd totally change all the names.

But why the mystery? Is the fact these colonists are from Earth your big climactic reveal? If not, then there's no need to be coy about their religion (unless of course God actually exists in-world. Then you could have all kinds of fun).

 

Getting rid of the misogyny and bigotry was exactly my intention. On paper, everyone is now equal. People started to have bigger things to worry about than racism and gay marriage when they found themselves without a planet to live on.

It's not a climactic reveal, it just doesn't become relevant to the story until later on, and I think I might as well not show all my cards in the first act of the story. The reader will read about how the society you follow during this trilogy is deeply flawed (perhaps the most important theme is the inherent failings of human nature), and later they find out that it's actually our society, several hundred years in the future, and that their flaws are our flaws, so to speak. (That's why I'm not sure whether to call this fantasy or SF, but that's only going to matter to any eventual publisher).
So the idea is that first, the reader thinks of the characters as far-away fictional guys that fuck up all the time , and later on starts wondering if we're really all that different from them. I hope this all makes sense.

[Selysin]

I have a book cover and release dates for Instrument of Peace. This publishing thing might actually be happening. 

[The Marquis de Leech]

1 hour ago, Selysin said:

I have a book cover and release dates for Instrument of Peace. This publishing thing might actually be happening. 

Congrats!

(I've had a first glimpse of my own book cover - will post it when it's finalised).

[Aniel]

I just realized I haven't really said anything about my own writing since I said I didn't buy any ink for my pen. Well, I bought ink probably a week after saying that, the Iroshizuku Take-sumi (black) ink, and I'm really happy with it. Using a converter was way easier than I expected it to be. I've been writing by hand and I think I actually find it easier to concentrate on the actual writing - even though I sometimes play games at the same time.

Last week I had to buy someone a present and ended up buying myself another book to write in. Now, I'm not done with the first book (well, they're journals), but I want to keep 5 different books for the 5 main characters and their "satellite" POV's. It's probably not very economical, but look at these things! I've got the Nocturnelle and Old Leather Foiled journals to write in, as well as an accordion box in the Old Leather Black Moroccan style for all my drawings/maps/alphabets/random scribbles. If the finished books could have covers like these, I would be a very happy writer. Although as I'm writing this I realized that a scene I'm in the process of writing fits my working title pretty darn well...

In other news, I've also managed to beat my record for number of pages in a document! Yay! It used to be 52 for the longest time, but now it's 72. Ca 130 pages if you double space (I like keeping things compact as I write, so the document is currently single spaced). I don't remember the word count of that 52-page document, but I'm just over 35k now, which has me slightly worried over the word count on the finished product since I consider the story very much still in the beginning. I've already cut the first book in half once. I suppose I'll just keep writing until I reach the point I currently call the end, and then we'll see how long it is then. If it's too long, then two of the main characters have very little to do with the other three in the beginning and their POV's could actually be cut out of the first novel and introduced in what would be the second one with the only issue being the reader's reaction to having two main characters absent from the first novel. I should note that one of the three that would stay has sort of an internal compass she can focus on the other four so she knows that the other two exist, and by extension the reader does too. Then we'd end up sort of with a Sailor Moon (the original anime) situation, where you know that there are two more main characters, but they aren't introduced until episode 25 and 33 respectively.

Anyway, back to writing.

[Magnar of Skagos]

I have a great idea for a short story/novella I'd like to work on. 

[Ebenstone]

Well, earlier this month I had to do one of the hardest things ever...I fired my agent. I won't get into sordid details here, but it's not a fun thing to do. 

So now I'm back in the query pool with a new project. 

The good news is that I've already gotten two positive responses from my first wave of queries. 

As for writing, the whole upheaval kind of threw a monkey wrench in the YA thriller I was writing and I've only managed about 12k for the month, which stinks because I only needed about 20k to finish. There's still three days left in the month, so maybe I can make a run, though I doubt it. 

After I finish the thriller, I'm either going to revise a contemporary novel I wrote or bust out a new fantasy idea that's brewing in my head. It's not the traditional fantasy I was toying with, but something for tweens or youngish YA. We'll see. I have to finish the thriller first. 

[polishgenius]

I meant to start participating in this topic after getting involved in that short-lived writer's dump thingy. But then I didn't. Shame on me.


I've recently discovered that my most persistent project is going to almost certainly have to be split into two to work (a new character forcibly added herself late last year, and vastly improved the shape of the story, but it became quickly apparent that she'd need to be Obi-Wan'd, and I can't do that and then lead straight into the final finale. It also solves several other pacing problems and might allow me to adapt a scene I was fond of that I initially had very early on but had to excise because it required everyone to act nonsensically to get there, but it's going to require a lot of re-jigging), so maybe I should use that as an impetus to actually start interacting with people about my writing rather than just going 'err yeah, I'm kinda trying to write'.





On First of my Name's thing a few weeks ago; is it in your mind that religion should be the medium for the reveal? If not, you mightconsider something like place names. Keep the ones you set it in generic or new, but at some point when you feel ready to confirm what's going on, have a reference to an event that happened in, or someone that came from, old New York or London or Tokyo or some other equally unmistakable Earth location. Something like that.

[Aderyn]

Hello, fellow writers

My writing projects have been on a hiatus for a long time and now I'm struggling to get started again. I've been trying to sharpen my quill by typing text in a continuing stream without planning too much ahead. That's how I like to do my warm-up whenever I start writing something.

I've had an idea for a fantasy story at the back of my head for almost six years now, but all I've really done so far is world building and also trying to figure out what this story is actually going to be about. To be honest, I had already forgotten about this potential story until I discovered some old notes I had about the story and characters and some maps and pictures I'd drawn, and that made me eager to continue working on this idea again.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Just giving people a heads-up that Inspired Quill (the nice people who accepted me last year) are re-opening the submissions period in May:

http://www.inspired-quill.com/submissions/

[Andrew Gilfellon]

Has anyone else looked at their world and story and realised that it's not working? That their ideas that have been with them for years. In my case, since 2003, are not working with the growth the story, but would still work as a separate idea.

How do you split those ideas in half? I'm trying to do that now, but I'm feeling incredibly guilty about it, but at the same time I don't think I can force all of my backstory and plot into what I'm writing now, so I'm losing about 80% of what the main story is, but still have a story to tell without connection to my well developed world. 

Splitting them in half, separating them in two, I would lose 500 years of history on either one, same with characters and motivation, but still end up with two book series, which I can see would be a positive, but I just feel incredibly guilty about having to change and swap around ideas even though some things work out sounding better by doing so.

I think in part this is made worse by my Asperger's. 

[Derfel Cadarn]

3 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Just giving people a heads-up that Inspired Quill (the nice people who accepted me last year) are re-opening the submissions period in May:

http://www.inspired-quill.com/submissions/

Waiting for it to reopen so I can resubmit Resurrection Men.  But their max word count isnt clear - it says 100,00 - is it just missing a 0 (in whih case I'm 6k words over) or have they just not decided?

i emailed earlier in the week for clarification, hoping its a bit more than 10k.  I'm sure it was higher last year, I sent in my 108k version in with no issues.

 

Kristell Ink is open for submissions until tomorrow too.

 

 

[Selysin]

18 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Waiting for it to reopen so I can resubmit Resurrection Men.  But their max word count isnt clear - it says 100,00 - is it just missing a 0 (in whih case I'm 6k words over) or have they just not decided?

i emailed earlier in the week for clarification, hoping its a bit more than 10k.  I'm sure it was higher last year, I sent in my 108k version in with no issues.

 

Kristell Ink is open for submissions until tomorrow too.

 

 

That's definitely a typo. If I recall correctly it's actually 110,000 but I sent Sara another email in case yours got lost in the shuffle.