Boarders Writing a Novel Thread 3

[Myrddin]

Enormously pleased with myself: I finished revising my novel yesterday - the one I've been stressing out over since April. :) It's now out with beta readers.

:cheers:

That's awesome!

I'm still working through my revision. I finished imputting text edits into Part 2 yesterday, but there's still alot to do there. One chapter needs to be overhauled and I have several places highlighted for more work (like smoothing out descriptions of fact checks).

[Warden of the MidWest]

I just started mapping out an outline for my first attempt at a novel. I'm not exactly sure where its going yet, but it just hit me last night in bed and I felt like I had to get something down on paper and out of my head.

It starts out with the mysterious death of a King after signing a peace treaty with a neighboring principality. A council of nobles and clergy are called to decide on a regent for the dead king's hei,r a one year old boy,until the child reaches the age of 18. The council chooses the king's brother, a powerful Duke, over the Queen, becasue a strong leader is needed to hold the kingdom together and maintain the peace with foreign nations.

15 years later and the King-regent has become a very powerful and popular ruler. His 20 yr old son has followed him as Duke of Bakkala, the most powerful province in the kingdom. He too is very popular with the people and is a great warrior and leader of men. There are whisperings that perhaps he should succeed his father as king in the place of his cousin, a shy and unremarkable boy of 16.

In the 15 years since her husbands death, the queen has grown bitter and manicaly attached to her only son. She has fallen in with a mysterious foreing cult, and has taken their high priest as her advisor, and some say lover. This priest has been sowing the seeds of discord within the royal family, and poisoning the thoughts of the young prince. He begins to question the King-Regents involvement in the death of the king. This all leads to a spate of assinations of the King-regent and many of the top clergy. The young Duke is able to escape back to his lands with some loyal knights and nobles.

With the Queen now ruling in his cousins name and the mysterious shadow cult in power, the young Duke must decide what to do. Shall he avenge his fathers death and seize the throne? Shall he go into exile? Can he remove the cult and Queen from power and trust in his cousin to rule the kingdom? This is about as far as I have gotten in my outline, and I am certainly intimidated by the prospect of actually starting the prose and all the minute details.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

How is Nano going for everyone? I passed 13k last night at the cost of being woefully unprepared for my seminar.

Poorly; November is a bad month for Nano, for me... research projects, random essays, presentations... damn you classes / formal learning!

I've about 4500 words on my WIP, but sadly only around 400 of those are Nano words.

I just started mapping out an outline for my first attempt at a novel. I'm not exactly sure where its going yet, but it just hit me last night in bed and I felt like I had to get something down on paper and out of my head.

It starts out with the mysterious death of a King after signing a peace treaty with a neighboring principality. A council of nobles and clergy are called to decide on a regent for the dead king's hei,r a one year old boy,until the child reaches the age of 18. The council chooses the king's brother, a powerful Duke, over the Queen, becasue a strong leader is needed to hold the kingdom together and maintain the peace with foreign nations.

15 years later and the King-regent has become a very powerful and popular ruler. His 20 yr old son has followed him as Duke of Bakkala, the most powerful province in the kingdom. He too is very popular with the people and is a great warrior and leader of men. There are whisperings that perhaps he should succeed his father as king in the place of his cousin, a shy and unremarkable boy of 16.

In the 15 years since her husbands death, the queen has grown bitter and manicaly attached to her only son. She has fallen in with a mysterious foreing cult, and has taken their high priest as her advisor, and some say lover. This priest has been sowing the seeds of discord within the royal family, and poisoning the thoughts of the young prince. He begins to question the King-Regents involvement in the death of the king. This all leads to a spate of assinations of the King-regent and many of the top clergy. The young Duke is able to escape back to his lands with some loyal knights and nobles.

With the Queen now ruling in his cousins name and the mysterious shadow cult in power, the young Duke must decide what to do. Shall he avenge his fathers death and seize the throne? Shall he go into exile? Can he remove the cult and Queen from power and trust in his cousin to rule the kingdom? This is about as far as I have gotten in my outline, and I am certainly intimidated by the prospect of actually starting the prose and all the minute details.

Interesting idea. I will say that "Bakkala" brought to mind the word "quacala" (spelling?) in Spanish, which means 'gross.'

I have one question though. How fully realized is your feudal system? I assume that it exists based on your mention of knights and dukes and such... sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine to see feudal systems poorly realized. But I'm not accusing you, far from it! I have only encouragement for you :)

[Warden of the MidWest]

Poorly; November is a bad month for Nano, for me... research projects, random essays, presentations... damn you classes / formal learning!

I've about 4500 words on my WIP, but sadly only around 400 of those are Nano words.

Interesting idea. I will say that "Bakkala" brought to mind the word "quacala" (spelling?) in Spanish, which means 'gross.'

I have one question though. How fully realized is your feudal system? I assume that it exists based on your mention of knights and dukes and such... sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine to see feudal systems poorly realized. But I'm not accusing you, far from it! I have only encouragement for you :)

At this point my feudal system is not completely realized, as I have just really begun work. I imagine that there will be 7-10 provinces or duchys in the Kingdom, each ruled by a Duke, Prince, or whatever terminology I can come up with to spice things up. I dont want to have seven Duke's, so some areas will have different rules and nomenclature, i.e. Dorne is a principality even though it is subject to the throne in ASOIAF. Each of these provinces will be subdivided into a few regions controlled by counts. I dont plan to delve into knightly estates or anything like that, the knights I was speaking of would be the elite soldiers and nobles, i.e. younger sons of Dukes and Counts.

[Humble Asskicker]

I've started on a novel of sorts.

It follows the mold of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The Chosen One is off screen for the entirety of the story.

The story spans around forty years and tracks the lives of several characters as they react to circumstances beyond their control as the Christ figure amasses armies against the great Sauron of the world that is prophesied (and who will never show up in the story - by the end of which the Christ figure dies of old age - although it's not certain that he won't some day).

The character I'm writing right now is a borderline retarded child who doesn't speak (and never will in the story). His parents died and he's been spirited away from his village by a pederast intending to sell him into slavery.

I'm really fascinated by dis-empowered characters for some reason.

[Prince Who Was Promised]

Why have the Chosen One and Dark Lord if the Chosen One is useless and the Dark Lord never shows up? Or am I missing something?

[Humble Asskicker]

Why have the Chosen One and Dark Lord if the Chosen One is useless and the Dark Lord never shows up?

Doubt. It's prophesied, but so what? Why should fantasy be any more certain or less ambiguous than life?

How long have some people been expecting the end of the world to come now? How many supposed anti-Christs have there been so far? And ultimately, what relevance are these cataclysmic events in the whole of most people's lives?

It really is just going into more detail on what modern fantasists like to allude to.

Perhaps it's too unorthodox to work, but I like the idea enough that I'll try to pursue it for a while.

I doubt I'll ever complete it, so it's not serious writing anyway.

[Prince Who Was Promised]

Oh ok, I was just wondering. Certainly sounds interesting.

[Arthmail]

This is just an observation, and its partly based on personal experience, but i think too many people are spending too much time working on world building, and not enough on actually writing. I mean, its nice and all, but i would say get the first draft out in rough, then do some remedial world building on the revision. I've read of other authors who call world building a trap, because you're not actually writing. On top of that, even the first draft is a trap, because so many people are tempted to go back and redo chapters over and over and they never finish.

In my opinion, just write the story and deal with the world after. I mean, you need an idea, but digging deep into histories and politics is only going to slow you down. Take it from a guy that spent five years dicking around on world building that has mostly changed during the revision.

[Humble Asskicker]

In my opinion, just write the story and deal with the world after. I mean, you need an idea, but digging deep into histories and politics is only going to slow you down. Take it from a guy that spent five years dicking around on world building that has mostly changed during the revision.

I like this approach, and it's how I'm tackling things. Aside from the brief outline I provided, I haven't really considered the world - or even the future plotting - in detail. I'm in this for the characters. The world comes into focus as needed, but I'm not going to build it more than necessary.

Which is fine, because for my current characters - who are in a state of extreme deprivation - stuff like history and national economy and in-depth knowledge of religion, is largely unimportant.

I do have a few rules I've set for myself though:

1) There won't be a single act of violence on screen.

2) If characters find themselves in a bind, go with it and explore the consequences rather than try to extract them.

3) No warriors as main characters.

4) No magic. Lots of superstition and suggestive miracles, but no magic.

5) No monsters or faeries ever on screen. They are spoken of, but never seen.

6) Religion is only as deceptive as its practitioners.

7) Absolutely no romance. Sex will happen, but not with someone the characters actually like or would want to have sex with.

[Arthmail]

I do have a few rules I've set for myself though:

1) There won't be a single act of violence on screen.

2) If characters find themselves in a bind, go with it and explore the consequences rather than try to extract them.

3) No warriors as main characters.

4) No magic. Lots of superstition and suggestive miracles, but no magic.

5) No monsters or faeries ever on screen. They are spoken of, but never seen.

6) Religion is only as deceptive as its practitioners.

7) Absolutely no romance. Sex will happen, but not with someone the characters actually like or would want to have sex with.

Uhm. What exactly does that leave you? And a few points based on your list.

2) I would note that while this can be good, characters will often take themselves on adventures that don't do much to help the narrative flow. For example, Robert Jordan had a serious problem with this, though perhaps his was caused more by a need to explore the world more and more. The point remains that this might, depended on how its handled, bog your story down.

3)What is wrong with warriors? And if you are aren't going to have a fighting character, or in point (4), a magic using character, what exactly are you going to have. I am pretty curious about that.

4,5,6) Honestly, this is starting to sound like historical fiction. If thats the case, any number of time periods and incidents from our world would provide great places with which a story can happen. Also, from a purely monetary standpoint, historical fiction will probably sell more.

7)You might have just lost half your readership. People want some sort of romance, however little screen time its given. Even the idea that these characters are driven by something other than the plot.

So in other words, what the heck are you writing?

[kuenjato]

This is just an observation, and its partly based on personal experience, but i think too many people are spending too much time working on world building, and not enough on actually writing. I mean, its nice and all, but i would say get the first draft out in rough, then do some remedial world building on the revision. I've read of other authors who call world building a trap, because you're not actually writing. On top of that, even the first draft is a trap, because so many people are tempted to go back and redo chapters over and over and they never finish.

In my opinion, just write the story and deal with the world after. I mean, you need an idea, but digging deep into histories and politics is only going to slow you down. Take it from a guy that spent five years dicking around on world building that has mostly changed during the revision.

I agree with this, and I'm one of the big "world builder" advocates 'round here. I do think certain bases should be at least thought about and perhaps outline-articulated before one starts, so that they know the end destination. As for me, it's mostly (but not always) the details of world-building that emerge as I write. The backstory and basic geography were worked out beforehand, but even those have altered to a greater or lesser degree as the project has progressed (particularly details of the geography). Now that I've roughly 550k divided between the ongoing series and a side volume of short stories/novellas, and a progressing timeline now around 30 pages, it's actually easier to just write, as the foundation is well established both in the head and in print.

[Prince Who Was Promised]

This is just an observation, and its partly based on personal experience, but i think too many people are spending too much time working on world building, and not enough on actually writing. I mean, its nice and all, but i would say get the first draft out in rough, then do some remedial world building on the revision. I've read of other authors who call world building a trap, because you're not actually writing. On top of that, even the first draft is a trap, because so many people are tempted to go back and redo chapters over and over and they never finish.

In my opinion, just write the story and deal with the world after. I mean, you need an idea, but digging deep into histories and politics is only going to slow you down. Take it from a guy that spent five years dicking around on world building that has mostly changed during the revision.

I agree somewhat, but with me what comes after is determind by what comes before. Ecspeacially with the story I'm telling. All the relations and politics going on and the beginning of the story thourought are the result of things that happend long ago, some going back thousands of years. My worldbuilding is almost done except for a map, and honestly the more I work on the history, the more the current story clears out.

[Mad Queen]

7)You might have just lost half your readership. People want some sort of romance, however little screen time its given. Even the idea that these characters are driven by something other than the plot.

ASOIAF is doing okay with practically no romance. Jon/Ygritte is the only one I can think of and it was a tiny part of the story. Besides, Ygritte dies soon afterwards.

[Arthmail]

ASOIAF is doing okay with practically no romance. Jon/Ygritte is the only one I can think of and it was a tiny part of the story. Besides, Ygritte dies soon afterwards.

I suppose it depends on your definition of romance. Twilight romance, or probably something closer to what my parents have...which is a normal adult relationship. Of those, admittidly, Ned and Catalyn are all that we have seen so far at that level...but there was that Oakhart fellow and...whats her name, before he got killed. The back story of Cersei and Rhaegar is technically romance, of a sort, as is Tyrion and his little missus...Shea? (Man, need to reread, i'm forgetting bits and pieces. Guess it has been almost over a year since i've touched the books). Also, Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo. Renly and Loras? Ha.

So i would say there is a great deal of romance, its just closer to real life, meaning its not always pretty and not always at the forefront.

I agree somewhat, but with me what comes after is determind by what comes before. Ecspeacially with the story I'm telling. All the relations and politics going on and the beginning of the story thourought are the result of things that happend long ago, some going back thousands of years. My worldbuilding is almost done except for a map, and honestly the more I work on the history, the more the current story clears out.

You've been reading too much Bakker, son. Now i won't in any way assume to know anything about your story, but i'll draw from what experience i do have, namely my own process.

I am in the same boat. The past plays a constant and heavy role in the overall story arc. I have some 28,000 years of history, and while not all plotted out, there is a goodly chunk that i do know. (I like to think of that which i don't know as great uncharted islands yet to be discovered.....my little geeky world building heart just pulses with joy at the thought). I have working governments, as in i know specific political systems, in three of the kingdoms, with rough sketches for about 8 more. (Euran is a traditional monarchy, though certain aspects of feudalism have been changed. Arathrim is based off of a clan system, though with different elements there as well. Terran is a dual monarchy, based on elections of the most capable leaders at the time. Mannduran is racked by civil war, but ultimately its monarchy is really an oligarchy, with the Church of Gehas as the true head of the nation. Naegian is an empire, Herktan a tribal society....etc, etc. I could go on all day. Down geek, down!)

But a goodly amount of that is IRRELEVANT to the story. At least, that is, to the initial draft. The initial draft is the basic plot outline of your book. It is the bare bones, the foundation. If it was a game being designed, the first draft would be some game designer doodling on the wall with his kids Crayola crayon while taking a crap. Its that rough.

From there the redrafts refine things, flush out the problems. Stephen King said in his book, On Writing, that its best to just write the first draft and then put it away. Because you are going to want to pull it out, to polish the bits that are currently glaring problems (and they will be glaring problems, this is the first draft after all.). Avoid this.

My book is easily five years behind because i didn't learn this truth so long ago. I spent ages drawing maps, filling in histories, etc. But as the story progressed, a goodly amount of what i had initially thought cool didn't sit as well when put onto paper. The world, and the history, changed to reflect not only the realities of putting it to paper, but the growing depth of my own reading and understanding of some of the systems that i was putting into place. In other words, it didn't fit. I ended up stripping over half of the history down and rebuilding it, while totally changing many of the political systems within the game. As for my maps, i lucked out...cities and streams and rivers and mountains actually appeared in places that would work in a real world setting, not just a fantasy world. So, mostly, it stayed the same, though again, there were changes.

After this long bout of verbal poo, all i'm going to say is...write. Get the basics down, and then look to doing it again. Because too many people that i have seen, on this forum and elsewhere, have gotten lost in their own worlds....and by doing so, no one else gets to see them and experience the wonder.

So now that i have learned all that, what do i have? A finished first novel, a mostly finished second novel. A synopsis, a query to follow shortly, and then a chance to send it out AND get published. Because i believe in it, and its good. But its good because i actually finished the damnable thing.

\End rant.

[TheEvilKing]

Cranked out a thousand words today. That's more like it, although I've pretty much failed Nanowrimo spectacularly. I'm thinking of extending my own personal Nanowrimo by a week since this past week has been fucked. Is that cheating?

[Mad Queen]

I suppose it depends on your definition of romance. Twilight romance, or probably something closer to what my parents have...which is a normal adult relationship. [...] So i would say there is a great deal of romance, its just closer to real life, meaning its not always pretty and not always at the forefront.

I'm not sure Humble Asskicker has banished 'normal adult relationships' from his story. 'No romance' might just mean 'no Twilight romance'. It's hard to find a book with no 'Twilight romance'. ASOIAF is one of the few with very little of it. Ned/Catelyn isn't terribly romantic, Oakhart and Arianne have one sex scene before Oakhart dies and we get the impression Arianne was just using him to get to Myrcella, Cersei and Rhaegar have barely spoken to each other, Tyrion/Shae ends with murder and Shae is a prostitute, Dany was forced to marry Khal Drogo, Renly/Loras is completely in the background. Only Jon/Ygritte was really romantic.

[Arthmail]

Romance def.

a. A love affair.

b. Ardent emotional attachment or involvement between people; love: They kept the romance alive in their marriage for 35 years.

c. A strong, sometimes short-lived attachment, fascination, or enthusiasm for something: a childhood romance with the sea.

2. A mysterious or fascinating quality or appeal, as of something adventurous, heroic, or strangely beautiful: "These fine old guns often have a romance clinging to them

So:

1)Ned and Catalyn is romantic, as in they are both emotionally attached and involved to each other, see (b).

2)Oakhart and Arianne: See point c.

3)Cersie and Rhaegar could techincally be 2.

3)Tyrion Shae: take your pick, but Tyrion loved her, whatever the outcome. Romance does not necessarily have to go both ways.

4)Dany was forced to marry Khal Drogo, but seemed to care for him afterwards...so.

5)Renly Loras was a bit of a joke.

It seems you only accept very strict definitions of romance. I don't, and the dictionary doesn't, so...well, that makes me right. Bwahahahaha.

Anyways.

[Mad Queen]

People who turn to the dictionary to try to make a point instead of sticking to the real issues in hand should be hanged. Twice. We are discussing Humble Asskicker's story, not what the word 'romance' means according to the dictionary. If we don't know what exactly Humble Asskicker considers 'romance' and is excluding from his novel, let us just ask him. If he is writing a story like ASOIAF, he will do fine in my book. There are too many books and films already that include superfluous romantic sideplot, because romance is supposedly all that female readers care about. Not this one.

[Gabriele]

There are too many books and films already that include superfluous romantic sideplot, because romance is supposedly all that female readers care about. Not this one.

Not this one, either. :P

I have relationships between men and women in my book, and sometimes they may even involve love. But no Romance in the Mills & Boonsl meaning.

(Which is not the old meaning, btw, where romance was an epic adventure story à la Dumas.)