Boarders Writing a Novel, Draft 7

[Derfel Cadarn]

Just finished thr first draft of Resurrection Men, coming in at 98,581 words, 40 chapters plus a prologue and epilogue. Now i can clarify character bios, plot out the changes needed and take a chapter at a time. :)

[Kaldaur]

I've finished the first part of, something, it came in around 8000 words. I feel it's a good setup for the rest of the novel (?), still, I worry about reaching a proper length and of course whether anyone would care about the story.

It's fun but slow going though, vacation and small children don't really make for much writing time.

I've found that I need to sit down early on in the process and decide if I want to try for publication with a specific novel. There are some novels that are incredibly fun to write, but with common publication practices the way they are, the book will never see the light of day in a traditional-publishing venue. You need to decide early on if that's something you're okay with. If you don't care if that happens, then write whatever you want and either self-publish it or file it away. At the very least, you finished a novel which is something most people never actually achieve.

[Isalie]

I've found that I need to sit down early on in the process and decide if I want to try for publication with a specific novel. There are some novels that are incredibly fun to write, but with common publication practices the way they are, the book will never see the light of day in a traditional-publishing venue. You need to decide early on if that's something you're okay with. If you don't care if that happens, then write whatever you want and either self-publish it or file it away. At the very least, you finished a novel which is something most people never actually achieve.

I think that's good advice. Right now, the goal is to reach something like 65k and try to query as something like lit/contemporary w/e, I'll define it when it's done. But it wont be genre so I guess that leaves mainstream or magical realism or something.

If it turns out too short, I guess I'll decide between adding a subplot or shelving, prio 1 is finishing it either way.

[Kyle Baratheon]

I posted a while back saying that i would try to write a fantasy story over summer. I've hatched an idea that I think would work well. I love ancient history, and the story of the transition of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire is a fascinating one. I want to base by story off this, creating various Houses similar to that of Westeros, representing the Houses of Brutus, Cicero etc. I won't be using these names or anything, merely studying events relating to them and personality traits to give me good starting ground. I am not going to just blatantly copy the story from the Wikipedia pages or anything, but mould it and make any alterations.

But I was just wondering, is this right? Would this just make me an anti-creative copycat? It's kinda worrying me...

[Masamune]

ASOIAF itself is based on the War of the Roses are other such historical events. What would be the difference?

[polishgenius]

I think if you're first deciding to write a book and then looking for things to write it about, you've run into problems straight away.

But in specific regard to the idea, well, many of the best fantasies are based on historical events to greater or lesser extent.

[paddington]

I guess it all depends on how closely you follow the raise of the Roman Empire. How closely you follow the people invovled and the culture of that period.

[Neds Head]

I would say take inspiration from it, then come up with your own story ideas and see how you can mix them with the history aspect.

[Sci-2]

Just start researching and writing. Have fun with it.

[sologdin]

i once thought that a novel involving the immediate aftermath of the western empire's destruction would be a good fantasy, if it gave effect to the weirdnesses described by galfridus, the nibelungenlied, the mabinogion, &c. much of the material involves, at least indirectly, filling the jurisdictional void after the fall of rome, and, if artificially cumulated, could be nifty.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

So,The King Henry Tapes, the Urban Fantasy series I've posted about and have been working on for the last couple years has been published digitally for awhile now and I finally got all the sites it's up on to price-match the first book to be free, so I don't feel like too much of a hoe for mentioning it. Thought some of you might be interested in seeing my writing after all the complaints about editing I've posted on and off.

"The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady" Synopsis:

]King Henry Price is fourteen and he loves everything he's not supposed to--stealing, cursing, and fighting to name a few. One day after his usual hour of detention he comes home to find an enigmatic woman named Ceinwyn Dale sitting in his kitchen, telling his parents lies about a special reform school. What she tells King Henry is different, she tells him he's a mancer, a Geomancer to be exact, that he's special, one in million maybe. She sure ain't a fairy giant and King Henry sure as hell ain't Harry Potter, but why not? Has to be better than the life he's already got.

King Henry Price is twenty-two, a recent graduate of the Asylum as an Artificer. With the special ability to create lasting items of the Mancy, he's spurned the Artificer's Guild and struck out on his own to found an Artificer workshop looking to do things his way. One night, a vampire baroness claiming she's named Anne Boleyn walks into his shop, telling King Henry he's going to help her, and she's not taking 'no' for an answer. King Henry is pretty sure the whole name thing is just a joke, but only pretty sure...

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005JX356O

iTunes: http://itunes.apple....465247264?mt=11

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesand...aley/1105609858

Writing wise: working on book 3, hating all the distractions that a presidential election/Olympic year brings. They're the worst...

[Zoë Sumra]

Essentially, I want to fix the magnetic north pole (NOT the gregraphic pole) of my world away from its axis. This pole would be situated near the center of the primary kingdom in my story. So I've got two questions: 1) would this make navigation significantly more difficult? and 2) would the four cardinal directions (north, east, south, west) remain a valid and acceptable method of location-finding if they were fixed to the sunrise and sunset rather than magnetic north? I feel like the answers to these questions are obvious, but I've still got the remnants of several hours of brainstorming running through my head, and I can't quite tell myself :P

Assuming your poles are polar and your tropics are tropical, people are still going to be able to think of going north and south, because - if they start on the equator - getting colder, in each direction, is always going to have a meaning. East and west already have significance as the places where the sun rises and sets and would just get more significance if the magnetic axis pointed that way.

Bear in mind that IRL navigating north/south is a piece of cake compared to east/west, because of the magnetic poles at north and south and their corresponding lack at east and west. The history of accurate east/west navigation is a tale of shipwrecks, suffering and, eventually, clockwork (hence why the Greenwich meridien is the "middle" of the world measured east to west - ships became able to navigate east to west when they developed a super-accurate clock kept to Greenwich time. Their existing instruments were sufficient for them to tell the time at their present location, and so long as they had something to compare to - Greenwich time - they could work out where they were by working out when they were in relation to Greenwich). In your world, the situation would be reversed: navigating west-east would be easy and north-south would be rather difficult.

[TheDanish]

Assuming your poles are polar and your tropics are tropical, people are still going to be able to think of going north and south, because - if they start on the equator - getting colder, in each direction, is always going to have a meaning. East and west already have significance as the places where the sun rises and sets and would just get more significance if the magnetic axis pointed that way.

Bear in mind that IRL navigating north/south is a piece of cake compared to east/west, because of the magnetic poles at north and south and their corresponding lack at east and west. The history of accurate east/west navigation is a tale of shipwrecks, suffering and, eventually, clockwork (hence why the Greenwich meridien is the "middle" of the world measured east to west - ships became able to navigate east to west when they developed a super-accurate clock kept to Greenwich time. Their existing instruments were sufficient for them to tell the time at their present location, and so long as they had something to compare to - Greenwich time - they could work out where they were by working out when they were in relation to Greenwich). In your world, the situation would be reversed: navigating west-east would be easy and north-south would be rather difficult.

This is both very helpful and quite interesting - thanks a bunch! I must go edit some of my notes...

[Derfel Cadarn]

I'd expected to be half-way through my second draft by now, but so far I've only done the prologue and first chapter. :(

My earlier illness really delayed things but now its done I hope to get back on track this weekend, and also get back to reading the other submissions on the writers board.

I've also been doing some planning on a second series set in contemporary times but in the same universe, with a few characters crossing over. It's essentially a crime thriller, but with a secret police taskforce charged with keeping the normal and supernatural societies separate.

I'm still working out what elements to include, in particular magic. I want to keep it pretty unwieldy, ie no fireballs or lightning. Necromancy, posibly divination (if i can keep it consistant without it working only when the plot needs it to). Probably some form of animatory magic i.e using constructs like dolls. Some of the elements will need to be blended into the second draft of Resurrection Men.

[tijde]

Is the other board only open to writers, or would an aspiring copy editor/proofreader/ebook formatter be welcome?

[Zoë Sumra]

Is the other board only open to writers, or would an aspiring copy editor/proofreader/ebook formatter be welcome?

Anyone from here's welcome.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Having recharged the batteries, I'm back to work with this thing after a month off. I will finish this thing, damn it!

[Arthmail]

Just finished thr first draft of Resurrection Men, coming in at 98,581 words, 40 chapters plus a prologue and epilogue. Now i can clarify character bios, plot out the changes needed and take a chapter at a time. :)

Is this the entire novel? Man, i've started the sequal to the book i had professionally edited and its already 53,000 words. It will likely be as long as the Scar (the first book) itself, which was 181k. Considering that the first book is going to sell this thing for me or not (if i can decide to go traditional publisher or indie - i was in the book store yesterday looking at all of the friggin titles that i have never heard of, and a moment of panic set in, hoping that i wouldn't be one of them but knowing the vagaries of the business will likely put me there if i go that route), i'm not nearly as worried about word count. I think 181k is good for the second one as well.

I think part of the strength of the first book is that it can act as a stand alone should it need to.

But i just don't know how people can tell a story in 98k. Frick, my original draft was scrapping 200k until i got some nice feedback that sent me back in with pruning sheers.

[Derfel Cadarn]

It was always envisaged to be that length. I plan to have it be a series, albeit relatively standalone. The main arc spans 4 novels, interspersed among the main plot of each novel. After that it (assuming I get that far) it will be pretty much standalone albeit with each story continuing the plot.

I don't expect the second draft to change much in terms of word count, as I'll be fleshing out descriptions as well as cutting out excess words and scenes.

[Ebenstone]

Good writing trumps all, but editors are leery of anything over 130-140k in fantasy. Winter's Discord is about 130k, Spring's Tempest 135k....I could've stretched to 160-170k, but listened to the advice I was getting. My book Sisters of Khoda was a tidy 95k, though I wading into a new rewrite that might change that number.

And any of you hooligans bring up Rothfuss, I'll start swinging. There are always exception.