Boarders Writing a Novel, Take 6

[The Marquis de Leech]

besides which the fucking sword needs an actual name, not a descriptive sentence.

Agreed. I honestly think the best way to treat such things is to simply call the thing a sword, then make it clear via description that what your world thinks of as swords is not what real-world westerners think of as swords.

I'm fairly lucky in the word department: my world is broadly nineteenth century in its development (but with utterly alien political and economic structures), so it's horizons are a bit broader than that of a medieval society. I can cheerfully write about sulphuric acid and pool cues without cringing about such stuff being too modern.

[Arthmail]

Yea. The problem of writing a medival era book is trying to glean when certain things were invented. Pool cues, and hence pool, is a good example. I can wiki it, but i'm never really comfortable with using wiki as a source for anything more than a basic understanding and i'm too lazy to look into it too much further.

My new book, a western fantasy, is honestly flying onto the page. Parts of the Scar were written as fast, but the Grey is simply exploding forward in my mind. I have 31 pages already in less than a week, considering work and all of that. I think i am still averaging around 4300 words a day. Its awesome. I just finished writing my first saloon shoot out, and it was a great deal of fun, though because i have been using swords and such in my writing for so long, the words seem a little more sparse. But that is what the second draft is for, to clean up and make more exciting. I think if this rate keeps up the book will probably take me about 2 months, plus or minus some time for other drafts, and should sit around the 150k mark, which i think is a good average.

[Ebenstone]

Wiki is a perfectly good resource...we're writing fantasy for God sakes, we've got some wiggle room as far as authenticity is concerned. I did it with tennis in WD (among other things), but I have no problem with anachronism where I need it.

As for naming swords, there was a great gaming book by Palladium that has all these different swords and weapons and what they were called. I have a hard copy and a pdf of the book that I consult when this comes up, as it has in both WD and Sisters of Khoda over the summer. I think you're getting too hung up on something minor...trust me, I'm guilty of it. Spent an hour researching shallops (river boats) and wound up cutting it. Focus on the story.

19 days in a row of writing. That's a pretty good run for me. Writing is slowed because of a bunch of stuff at work (participating in a unique situation that requires a lot of attention), but I'm still writing.

[Verboten]

Getting too hung up on details is my specialty, I'll have you know. Seriously though I do this for fun and part of the appeal is making up my own little world. The story I'm working on right now takes place in a huge port city that's heavily influenced by the Kingdom of Askun and honestly I've spent more time making up the details of the city than I have writing the story. This is changing but having a base from which to draw is good for me.

[James Nicholls]

Yea. The problem of writing a medival era book is trying to glean when certain things were invented. Pool cues, and hence pool, is a good example. I can wiki it, but i'm never really comfortable with using wiki as a source for anything more than a basic understanding and i'm too lazy to look into it too much further.

If the wiki page is long and well sourced I'm quite happy to take it's word. And as someone else pointed out one of the beauties of fantasy is that you can justify anachronisms.

My new book, a western fantasy, is honestly flying onto the page. Parts of the Scar were written as fast, but the Grey is simply exploding forward in my mind. I have 31 pages already in less than a week, considering work and all of that. I think i am still averaging around 4300 words a day. Its awesome. I just finished writing my first saloon shoot out, and it was a great deal of fun, though because i have been using swords and such in my writing for so long, the words seem a little more sparse. But that is what the second draft is for, to clean up and make more exciting. I think if this rate keeps up the book will probably take me about 2 months, plus or minus some time for other drafts, and should sit around the 150k mark, which i think is a good average.

Wow. I'm impressed that you can be so assured in your discipline. I started the year with some good short stories but I've fallen a bit by the wayside in terms of productivity.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Have hit 60k, and am nearing the end of a sort of tentative first draft. Basically I have one very polished first chapter, chapters 2-5 are reasonable but need tweaking, chapters 6-8 need some major tweaking, and chapter 9 onwards is a sort of glorified outline where I'm just trying to get down the bare bones. Putting meat on those bare bones will take things comfortably into my target range for word count (circa 100k). Am pretty happy with how things are progressing (I keep telling my inner editor that crappy first drafts don't matter. Easier said than done).

[The Marquis de Leech]

Yay. First "draft" complete at 65k. As I said, the entire second half is very rough, so it'll be a case of putting some meat on the bones. But it is so nice to have the full framework of a story to deal with at long last. :)

[Derfel Cadarn]

Congrats, im at about 48k words of Resurrection Men's first draft, im aiming for between 90k and 100k (thanks for your feedback so far).

[Zoë Sumra]

Yay. First "draft" complete at 65k. As I said, the entire second half is very rough, so it'll be a case of putting some meat on the bones. But it is so nice to have the full framework of a story to deal with at long last. :)

Congratulations. :)

I've started typing up the Backup Plan, still being around 20K into it in the handwritten draft: MCGeek helped me talk through a plot problem the other day, so I should be able to progress with it shortly. Just need to submit RD a few more times now...

[superblindguy]

Going to jump in here as a complete noob, so hopefully you all won't judge me too harshly :)

I realize this would probably be better for a cartography forum, but I'm hoping for a writer's point of view on this.

For the past year, just in my spare time, I've been developing my story, writing 15-20k, ditching the idea, but taking the points from it which worked, and scrapping what didn't. From doing this, I've developed a basic plot structure, cultures, peoples, and styles. The problem I'm having is that I'm not able to develop good worlds (physical, so continents and such).

In a nutshell, there are three main plot arcs:

- The political maneuvering and subsequent civil war of a Kingdom (Western continent, separated from the rest of its landmass by a chain of mountains)

- War of the clans (a Northern group of peoples settled into archipelago), and its rebuilding

- The enslavement of those in the East, and their assault on the rest of the world

(If people want to criticize the barebones plot, go right ahead! :D)

But yeah, can anyone recommend resources to learn how to design a world (how did GRRM do such a great job of Westeros?), or have some ideas of their own, I would be eternally grateful!

[The Marquis de Leech]

But yeah, can anyone recommend resources to learn how to design a world (how did GRRM do such a great job of Westeros?), or have some ideas of their own, I would be eternally grateful!

My personal preferred way of dealing with world building:

First question: fantasy by necessity contains supernatural elements (otherwise it wouldn't be fantasy). Are these fantastical elements widespread or are they rare? If they're widespread, the social structures of that society should reflect that.

Second question: what level of economic and social development are your cultures dealing with? Iron Age? Renaissance? 25th Century futurism? How would your supernatural elements interact with that? If you can do something with magic instead of a donkey, your society should have a damn good reason for using donkeys.

Also consider literacy levels (is there a coherent education system?), wealth distribution, and how if you have rich people did they make their money (land ownership? factory ownership? clever trading?). Does true power reside with a landed aristocracy, priests, or the merchants?

I hope that's some help.

[Arthmail]

Wow. I'm impressed that you can be so assured in your discipline. I started the year with some good short stories but I've fallen a bit by the wayside in terms of productivity.

I ran into a speed bump, and have lost some days. I just didn't like the chapters that needed to be done.

Then something cool happened and i kept going. I'm at 50k, which is 62 pages. So i guess i've only done about 3k a day for the last week. Not what i wanted, but...

Still, going strong.

[superblindguy]

My personal preferred way of dealing with world building: [...] I hope that's some help.

Thanks for the quick response!

The main magical 'element' of the world, was a set of stone tablets with the ability to communicate between each other. This is how the Western Kingdom has stayed together for so long. Other than that.... My main problem is that everything I come up with, from supernatural elements to even the shape of continents, reminds me of something GRRM or another author has done.

The time period would probably be the 1500s, where gunpowder is just beginning to be used. How would the supernatural structure affect it? Not much, actually. the Scrying Tablets are only for communication, where most of the technological advancements of that time were in warfare.

Education is probably what you would expect for the time: not amazing with commonfolk, but the nobility is taught to read and write and other basic skills. The rich Lords made their money by trading. Each "province" within the Kingdom has certain resources (that was how it was divided), so that one area could not on its own dominate. The appearance of power is to be in the ruling King, but in actuality it is the Lords of the Provinces who keep the Kingdom together.

--

For all the story lines I have planned, I would need quite a bit of physical space in the world. Do you people draw your world out or just keep it in your mind? If you put yours on paper, how?

[Zoë Sumra]

The main magical 'element' of the world, was a set of stone tablets with the ability to communicate between each other. This is how the Western Kingdom has stayed together for so long. Other than that.... My main problem is that everything I come up with, from supernatural elements to even the shape of continents, reminds me of something GRRM or another author has done.

Practically everything was somebody else's idea first. Even if you deliberately react against the zeitgeist, you'll find a dozen other people doing the same thing. Don't sweat it too much.

I would, though, point out that a long-range communication device could be crucial for warfare and frequently hijacked for military use. You may get readers questioning the pacifistic element (certainly ones from here).

For all the story lines I have planned, I would need quite a bit of physical space in the world. Do you people draw your world out or just keep it in your mind? If you put yours on paper, how?

I only ever write three types of story: space opera (99% of the time), epic fantasy and urban fantasy. The urban stuff is set in modern day London and uses accurate London street maps: the space opera doesn't need topographical maps - I know where on each relevant planet all the major cities are, mountain ranges, areas of plains farmland, mineral rich spots etc., but accuracy is only important within cities, for the majority of which I have street maps of crucial areas. For the epic, yep, maps.

Incidentally, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri's mapping tool can be pretty useful up to a certain point.

[ledlevee]

I wrote three fantasy novels in a trilogy when I was younger and sort of put them aside. Now I'm fleshing them out and revising them. GRRM has had an influence on the revision, though they're still the same novels for the most part. I used to read a lot of Fritz Leiber fantasy, who's also gritty at times. I like the idea of bad guys who aren't really so bad and good guys who aren't really so good. The protagonists are mostly thieves, criminals, and rebels. Anyway, so I'm getting near 90,000 words with the first book on this revision, about halfway through. By the time I'm done revising this draft, should be like 120,000-150,000 words. I may have to cut a lot out before I try to publish it. We'll see. I think GRRM probably attracts alot of people writing their own books. He's what I'd call a writer's writer. It's cool to see so many people writing books here. Good luck and I hope to see some in print some day!

[ledlevee]

PS: I've learned it's better to start with a draft that's a lot more words than you expect the final draft will be and to cut stuff out of it, rather than vice versa. I think GRRM said in an interview that his final draft involves going through and cutting out extraneous language. I thought that was really good advice. I've gotten some poems published and this always works with poetry. Why not prose?

[Myrddin]

Ledlevee,

Sounds like you're doing it right (having all three books done in at least draft form). I'm still churning on the 4th draft of my first novel in a trilogy. What scares me the most is polishing it, getting an agent, selling it, and then needing to write the second one in 6 months. You'll have a considerable leg up in that scenario.

And 120-150 is a good realistic range for epic fantasy.

PS: I've learned it's better to start with a draft that's a lot more words than you expect the final draft will be and to cut stuff out of it, rather than vice versa. I think GRRM said in an interview that his final draft involves going through and cutting out extraneous language. I thought that was really good advice. I've gotten some poems published and this always works with poetry. Why not prose?

In my experience, this is partly true. My first draft came in at 210k. I then got it down to 175k. By the end of my current draft, I hope to be closer to 160k. I wish it could get south of 150k, but I can't seem to get there without gutting it. I'll go write a completely different story before doing that.

Since it's easy for me to expand a story then distill it, I'd rather take a 90k story and flesh it out to 120k.

[ledlevee]

Yeah, I guess everyone has their own style when it comes to revising. Either way, I'm a compulsive reviser. I have to keep reading it over and over and changing stuff until I get through each chapter at least once without one glitch, then I decide I'm done revising. It's tough to know when to send something out. I don't enjoy the business side either. Hopefully I can get a good agent at some point. Anyway, good luck with your book. Sounds like you're close to the finish line. Yeah, definitely don't gut it. I didn't mean actually cutting out parts of the story. I guess I mainly meant taking out anything that seems extraneous.

[Gabriele]

On the current topic, names can be tough. Sometimes one just occurs to me, which is so nice, but other times I have to really hammer at it until it sounds "right." And one of the worst feelings is when an editor suggests re-naming a character. It's like, "No! You don't understand. Changing the name changes the entire character in my head."

That's so true.

I'm not going to face an editor any time soon ;) but I know from others that they do sometimes want a name change. And some of my names are a tad complicated since I more or less pull a GG Kay or Jacqueline Carey on my Fantastorical; that is I keep late 12th century northern and central Europe, with the names and half of the history altered, but the maps and the cultural feel pretty much intact. It's not my fault parents called their kids Arc'hantael, Muirethach, Røgnvald or Llywelyn instead of John or Bob. (Actually, I simplified the spelling to Arhantal - it still gives a Bretonic vibe.) I tried to pick less 'exotic' names for my MCs, though; Roderic, Alastair and Kjartan should work. And woebegone if an editor wants me to change Kjartan to Sven. There will be bloody DEATH.

[SpaceChampion]

Has anybody been reading James Allan Gardner's Skills List Project on http://www.sfnovelists.com/ ?

I find his explanations about the process of writing incredibly useful, far more than any other source i've read in the last 20 years struggling to figure out this writing thing.

It's not complete, and i could definitely use more insight on the process of plotting, but i've found other sources for that, so I'm feeling more confident about this whole endeavour than i ever have before.