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Boarders Writing a Novel Thread 3


Gabriele

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Once again, I go and kill a thread....

I made some major decisions on my MS and I am editing furiously. There is some heavy lifting left ot do, but I am suddenly very confident in what I'm doing. I'm about half way through draft 4.5 right now and I think this is a good place to start the official 5th rewrite. I really, really think I'm close on this bad boy!!!!

In addition, I'm starting to really find a groove in what I'm writing in my other WIP. The action is picking up and the story is moving along nicely. On some levels it's a more intimate book than Winter is, and that's a good thing. My intent is to finish up to Chapter Ten on that book...which officially has a title now (Jaiman Zarachek and the Sisters of Khoda) and has some direction. It's very much a "vomit draft" and I think that it will really hit it's stride in the rewrite.

Summer school is over...it's writing time kids!

So where is everyone else????? We know Alae is hating her novel right now, what about the rest of you? Brady, I know you are out there...I am jonesin' for my Crows brother!!!

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My writing keeps stalling then starting up again, but i'm making unsteady progress. The plot is fully formed, and when complete could prove to be 500 pages plus. Good news is that everyone i've shown stuff to so far has been fairly impressed, which is keeping me going.

I've been left confused by one issue. What i'm writing crosses into sci-fi quite a bit, but i personally have never been a heavy Sci-fi reader. This has left me a little puzzled on definitions (though it isn't that important). In order to qualify as the sci-fi genre, must everything receive a full explanation (even if it involves pseudo-science)? Or can a few things remain 'blank'?

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There are degrees of sci-fi. Unless you're aiming for the heaviest of heavy SF, which I strongly don't recommend if you're not intimate with the subgenre, you need to leave quite a lot blank to keep it comprehensible to the reader. Consider that a high-magic fantasy world doesn't usually provide precise explanations of how its magic works, unless it's a crucial part of the plot - the wizards just know how it works and the rest of society just knows how it reacts to the wizards. In the same way, someone operating a spaceship's FTL drive or jumping through a wormhole or whatever doesn't need to know precisely how it works in order to use it. The same goes for all your tech. Some characters would know how it operates - but some people IRL know every little bit of how a car or a lift or an escalator works, and others just use them every day without thinking about it.

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The contemporary main char turning out to be the son of Satan never got off the ground. My rather gloomy vampire novel seemed a bit too gloomy.

So I've started a new fantays series. It's set in a fictional world but one that is based on the Napoleonic era, i.e muskets etc. The 'main' empire is a cross between Napoleonic era Britain but one that evolved from a Rome-type empire. Some of the early chapters are in this empire, the bulk will be in the equivilent of 'South America' and the Carribean.

The first protagonist is a privateer captain, a bit of a flamboyant swashbuckler type. The prologue and early chapters involve his ship getting sunk and him and his dwindling crew going through a jungle fleeing from savages. They make it to a kind of pirate freeport, mostly penniless.

The second protagonist is the eldest son from a wealthy military family and is facing his first battle as a lietuenant in an infantry battalion, facing 'barbarians' in the north. The imperial Brigade gets routed and he's one of the survivors. He gets posted to the 'carribean'. During his months long voyage, the story will focus on the privateer's escapades in the pirate town. Eventually circumstances will throw them together in a search for some treasure/mapping expedition in the jungles of 'South America'. I've still to map out most of the novel though I've handwritten about 50 pages of A4.

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Hmmmmm....I was just reading this page about the Lovecraftian Alien Gods....and I got an idea for a race. It was inspired by the Alien Gods, as well as the Sithi, and LoZ's Twilight People (specificly the way Midna moves in her human-ish form, not her imp form).

I'm thinking of incorperating this into my War of the Magi/Return of the Soulless/War for Elthion story...

Oh, and I finally started writing. I just finished the prologue.

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Here we go.

I've an idea for a story inspired (in part) by the Viking conquest of northern England, although any historical invasion scenario could apply, except that this particular one took place by ship. Anyway, invaders arrive and are evidently invincible until they start to incorporate and rely upon native troops, who have either been provided by surrendered states or levied from conquered areas. Eventually they stop, for no apparent reason, and the nations in the south (why do "bad people" in fantasy always come from the north?) have time to prepare a cohesive and unified defense, despite ethnic and historical differences.

That's all background; the plot centers on a multi-national group assembled from the best elements of the remaining armies whose purpose is to venture north and generally cause mayhem and buy ever more time for the defenses to be deepened and for allies to be gathered.

So it's kind of a take on the quest trope; they are sent to retrieve a group of people who managed to fight off the seemingly invincible sorcery of the invaders, so that the nations in the south can figure out how it was done. But I want the story to transcend the quest (if I can be so arrogant as to use the word transcend here), because (as I have imagined it) the plot will thicken once the reasons for the invaders' long halt are discovered.

I have the entire thing outlined pretty well and the characters have been brewing in my head for a long time. Some of them were originally envisioned for a different project that I abandoned once I realized it was ridiculous, but I think they fit well here.

Something that I thought was funny - the original plot that I came up with (and had actually outlined, though the plot didn't flow as well as my current one does) centered on a subversion of the quest trope, where the heroes arrive at the resting place of this artifact that will supposedly save them only to find it missing. Then I read...

SPOILER: spoiler for a pretty well-known series that not everyone has read yet
Joe Abercrombie

... although to be fair in my version they had to then make their own "ancient artifact of awesomeness."

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The contemporary main char turning out to be the son of Satan never got off the ground. My rather gloomy vampire novel seemed a bit too gloomy.

So I've started a new fantays series. It's set in a fictional world but one that is based on the Napoleonic era, i.e muskets etc. The 'main' empire is a cross between Napoleonic era Britain but one that evolved from a Rome-type empire. Some of the early chapters are in this empire, the bulk will be in the equivilent of 'South America' and the Carribean.

The first protagonist is a privateer captain, a bit of a flamboyant swashbuckler type. The prologue and early chapters involve his ship getting sunk and him and his dwindling crew going through a jungle fleeing from savages. They make it to a kind of pirate freeport, mostly penniless.

The second protagonist is the eldest son from a wealthy military family and is facing his first battle as a lietuenant in an infantry battalion, facing 'barbarians' in the north. The imperial Brigade gets routed and he's one of the survivors. He gets posted to the 'carribean'. During his months long voyage, the story will focus on the privateer's escapades in the pirate town. Eventually circumstances will throw them together in a search for some treasure/mapping expedition in the jungles of 'South America'. I've still to map out most of the novel though I've handwritten about 50 pages of A4.

That sounds pretty cool.

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Here we go.

I've an idea for a story inspired (in part) by the Viking conquest of northern England, although any historical invasion scenario could apply, except that this particular one took place by ship. Anyway, invaders arrive and are evidently invincible until they start to incorporate and rely upon native troops, who have either been provided by surrendered states or levied from conquered areas. Eventually they stop, for no apparent reason, and the nations in the south (why do "bad people" in fantasy always come from the north?) have time to prepare a cohesive and unified defense, despite ethnic and historical differences.

That's all background; the plot centers on a multi-national group assembled from the best elements of the remaining armies whose purpose is to venture north and generally cause mayhem and buy ever more time for the defenses to be deepened and for allies to be gathered.

So it's kind of a take on the quest trope; they are sent to retrieve a group of people who managed to fight off the seemingly invincible sorcery of the invaders, so that the nations in the south can figure out how it was done. But I want the story to transcend the quest (if I can be so arrogant as to use the word transcend here), because (as I have imagined it) the plot will thicken once the reasons for the invaders' long halt are discovered.

I have the entire thing outlined pretty well and the characters have been brewing in my head for a long time. Some of them were originally envisioned for a different project that I abandoned once I realized it was ridiculous, but I think they fit well here.

Something that I thought was funny - the original plot that I came up with (and had actually outlined, though the plot didn't flow as well as my current one does) centered on a subversion of the quest trope, where the heroes arrive at the resting place of this artifact that will supposedly save them only to find it missing. Then I read...

SPOILER: spoiler for a pretty well-known series that not everyone has read yet
Joe Abercrombie

... although to be fair in my version they had to then make their own "ancient artifact of awesomeness."

Sounds cool. That's definatly something I'd read.

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  • 2 weeks later...

'Myrddin' 'Jul 28 2009, 17.56'

"I'll throw out a challenge: is your word count on your books more, equal, or less than your posts in the "Boarders writing a Novel Thread"? If your answer is equal or less, go write. ;) (I'm probably closer to "equal" than I want to admit...)"

------------------------------

Hi!

My very first and not-so-edited draft was exactly one thousand pages long (excluding appendixes). That was some time ago.

Now, it's still way too big a story, but it's getting edited the way I want it to be (I have killed quite a few darlings, and all that). The second latest draft that I'm editing was 446 000 words long (including two short appendixes).

The very latest draft - the one I'm currently working on - is 425 000 words long, including two rather extensive appendixes.

Still too long, I know, but I'm getting there. Hopefully.

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Ever find yourself spending far more time figuring out the backstory than you do actually progressing the plot? This is my problem right now.

You know what? Fuck Jay Coppersmith and his shadowy-but-as-yet-incredibly-vague agenda. Fuck the mechanics of road-building and cartography. I have a fire to put out, a map to steal and a thrilling escape to engineer. The background stuff can wait till I've got the damn thing moving again.

(um, and until I've read Dust of Dreams. Priorities, what can I say?)

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The second latest draft that I'm editing was 446 000 words long (including two short appendixes).

The very latest draft - the one I'm currently working on - is 425 000 words long, including two rather extensive appendixes.

Wow. :stunned: I thought my (thankfully now trunked) 220k monster was huge.

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Ever find yourself spending far more time figuring out the backstory than you do actually progressing the plot? This is my problem right now.

You know what? Fuck Jay Coppersmith and his shadowy-but-as-yet-incredibly-vague agenda. Fuck the mechanics of road-building and cartography. I have a fire to put out, a map to steal and a thrilling escape to engineer. The background stuff can wait till I've got the damn thing moving again.

I know what you mean....

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Guess it's time for me to join the rest of the board and tell my horror stories too:

I've started writing 8 novels so far, the first two were fan fiction in middle school, next two were original fantasies in high school that I realized I just wasn't good enough yet to write and didn't want to waste the ideas so I shelved them, and will probably get back to them later.

Which leads to: Novel 5, titled "the First Lie". I hate this novel. It took up all of my writing time through college, 4 years of my life, and it's still a mess. Just for the heck of it, I went back to look at it earlier this year in an attempt to use some of my new found abilities to edit it into something that wasn't bad, and I only made it about six chapters before I threw it into the trash again. It actually made me so mad that I had writer's block for a month afterward. This thing is in my psyche, bad.

My idea when I began it was to use established genre archetypes and DnD tropes to form a classical fantasy with dwarves and elves and dragons, and then to start twisting and corrupting them as the story moved forward. Something like what Abercrombie eventually did, but much more tongue-in-cheek and PG.

So all of 18 I began the world building and the actual story at about the same time. For world building it was probably 100k words worth, mapped out 12,000 years of history, rising empires, clashing city-states, advances and forgotten technology, good stuff. I also mapped maps, lots of them, drew castle designs, built up economies and armies distinct to each city-state or nation. Very complicated and admittedly cliche where the elves and dwarves were concerned, but that was the point. Oh, my other big idea in the world, besides using archetypes, was that the story takes place after a cataclysm where the gods of the world actual DIE. Zero gods. All gone. The idea being how does one generation that knows without any doubt that "God is dead" deal with it, while at the other time clashing with the generation whining and complaining about what they lost. Fantasy at the time I was writing always had a habit of gods "going away" and I was sick of that. No one from above was going to save my characters.

And I loved the world, still do today, it's got something going for it. But the actual novel, which is about 250k and will never EVER be rewritten or added or subtracted to as far as I'm concerned was a mess. I've hashed over why that's so quite a lot. I think the problem was two fold.

One, I aimed for a five part mega series that was beyond my skills. The first novel was a introduction book that didn't actually begin what the other four novels would be about, but it did explain the world and involve you in classical man-behind-the-scenes taking over conspiracy, where our few heroes had to stop it or else it would tumble out of control. I guess I should also explain that when the gods died, the EVIL lords that had previously been trapped, were unleashed on the world and said, "you know what? we are the gods now, worship us." So the idea was to stop the conspiracy without having the EVIL lords come in and kill everyone. So this stuff was complicated but again, cliche.

Two, in my youthful vigor, I didn't write an outline first. So, first draft, way too skimpy, giant holes where stuff just magically happened, too much coincidence and some major purple going on I'll admit. So the rest of it was built on bad foundation and I was continually adding to it to try to explain things that was happening, having to go back and reedit, just crazy amounts of this kind of thing until I finally just got incredibly depressed about the whole work and moved on.

4 years, goodbye. Yet, best decision I've ever made looking back on it. I learned a lot during that time. Part of the problem with having to go back and re-edit was that I kept getting better and wanted to redo stuff. Besides that, I outline EVERYTHING now and on the other side, let world building flow to meet the story as I write it, not the other way around.

Which leads to: Book 6. Burnt on traditional fantasy I decided on something simple and after a year where I was so messed up I couldn't even look at a word document, I outlined a funny, happy, half romantic comedy, half teen movie in book form and after a year of work I finished it a few months ago. 100k words exactly, funny, well paced. Not anything amazing or avant-garde or too cute for school, but completed, ego boosting. Just started the third draft on it.

Books 7 and 8...back in spec-fiction with some confidence, just started and hopefully they'll get published.

So my lesson I learned? Don't bring out the big guns first.

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Wow. :stunned: I thought my (thankfully now trunked) 220k monster was huge.

-----------

Well, what can I say? It's a big one, and only the first in a series of four volumes.

I believe that GRRM's A Storm of Swords is 419 000 words, or so, without appendixes.

And some (or, indeed, most) of Steven Erikson's Malazan-books are huge, so I hope it wont matter in the end.

The story, if it's good enough, can be as long as it needs, right? And trust me, I never wanted it to be a short story, or anything.

Oh, and I write in Swedish, so if it were to be translated to English it would be some ten-twelve per cent shorter, word- or pagewise. (In my case it means over 40 000 words shorter ...)

Hopefully, I'll be able to peel off a few more pages, and delete a few thousand words. And then ... send it to a publisher, or put it in my drawer? We'll see what my confidence tells me when I have the opportunity to work on my story some more.

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Up to 42,000 words now. For the first time since I started writing this novel, I am actually beginning to believe that I may finish it. I reckon it will come in at around 120,000 words.

I'm finding it quite cathartic to blog about any problems or achievements I face when writing.

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I have reached the very important milestone of just having written the 13'711th word of my story. Two chapters and a prologue down, plenty more still to go. :cheers:

I'm really getting into the writing again now after having a bit of break from it. I've done detailed descriptions of many of my characters - descriptions of looks, personality and history - so I think I have the makings of a decent, varied cast now. I already know where the plot is going, both in this book and in the rest of the trilogy. I think I've also got the style sorted, too. I have my main POV characters, but also short snippets from other, supporting characters so that the reader can see what is going on in their minds, too.

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