Okay, so since I've already plowed through a description of the first three books in my writing history, I might as well go through some of the more recent stuff as well.
My last semester at BYU, I decided to take Brandon Sanderson's creative writing class. I ended up wishing that I had taken it both sooner and more frequently, since that class broke me out of the revision loop I was doing with Guardians of the Past. His main assignment in the class was that I needed to pick a new story and start writing it from the beginning, one section at a time. It meant that I had to write something that wasn't in Jakeson's world, which meant that it had to be entirely new.
The story I ended up with was Brellan. It was a fantasy tale in a slightly darker world where a group of evil magic users manipulated people with mirrors. Basically it was two parts fantasy and one part horror, with the main hero battling all sorts of monsters as well as his own issues to save an isolated little town.
Brellan ended up having a lot of problems. The pacing sort of got lost about partway through the story, which was a major problem because the tension dissipated as well. Brellan, the main character, did not get nearly enough development, and ended up fairly contradictory, and the villain didn't get nearly as developed as she could have been either.
The main problem, looking back on it, was that I tried to include too many types of horror at one time. Brellan was supposed to face fear of rejection, fear of being killed by monsters, fear of becoming a monster, etc. That took the story and Brellan's character in too many directions for it to work out. If I ever get the time, I need to go back and focus the story a bit more on one theme--probably Brellan's fear of being turned into a Mirrorwitch's tool--and run with that. I think it would resolve a lot of the problems of the book in general.
In any case, Brellan was finished the fall after we moved to Houston. There were several months between the end of school and the finish of the novel where I made only halfhearted attempts to finish it, but it wasn't until I started the fifth book that I became determined to bring Brellan's story to a close. Right now the story still exists in its third draft, waiting for me to find the chance to revise it up to snuff. Perhaps someday I'll get the chance...
Showing posts with label Brellan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brellan. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Merge, Everybody Merge!
So as I was pondering today, it occurred to me that a lot of my best ideas come from mashing a lot of different themes, character ideas and plotlines together to make a new, chimerical monstrosity to work with. I’ve done it with a lot of my favorite stories, or at least parts of them.
How I typically put things together could be shown a bit more clearly by a short story I wrote called Killer. I pretty much started out with three ideas and smashed them together. The first was the character of Teancum, of Book of Mormon, spear-to-the-chest fame. He’s always kind of appealed to me, and the fact that he’s typically overlooked when those chapters are discussed added to my interest. Another idea was presented in a class I had during college, called Immunity and Infection. The teacher had been relating some information about various diseases, and mentioned an anecdote that caught my attention. He told a story about how a disgruntled employee had actually sprinkled Shigella bacteria on the donuts in the break room of the facility where she worked to get revenge on her coworkers. The sheer craziness of that situation was too good to pass up. The final piece to the puzzle, though was the whole idea of revenge versus justice. That theme has probably been done to death many, many times, but here was a way to approach it in an entirely new way. Thus, the story was born, and I think it turned out very well.
Wolfhound is one example of a novel when I did this, while Brellan is an example of a time when I didn’t. The former came together almost like the pieces of a puzzle, each character and plot event clicking in and settling perfectly against the others. All I had to do was write well enough to express what was going on, and the story took care of itself. The latter, on the other hand, seemed to make me work and fight for every page, and it always seemed a bit more insubstantial than some of my other stuff. When I finished the latest complete draft, I still felt uncomfortable with how it worked out, and from the start I knew it would need a lot of revision to work. From those experiences, it kind of seems like I just can’t write based on a single, overriding idea and have enough to keep the story really going. I need a bunch of stuff to bounce off of.
So that’s a writing technique I guess I use when I am putting together the idea for a story. How about you guys? Let me know if you have a particular way you work; it’s always interesting to me to see how my fellow writers think. Not that I have malicious plans about that or anything. Mwahahaha… See ya!
How I typically put things together could be shown a bit more clearly by a short story I wrote called Killer. I pretty much started out with three ideas and smashed them together. The first was the character of Teancum, of Book of Mormon, spear-to-the-chest fame. He’s always kind of appealed to me, and the fact that he’s typically overlooked when those chapters are discussed added to my interest. Another idea was presented in a class I had during college, called Immunity and Infection. The teacher had been relating some information about various diseases, and mentioned an anecdote that caught my attention. He told a story about how a disgruntled employee had actually sprinkled Shigella bacteria on the donuts in the break room of the facility where she worked to get revenge on her coworkers. The sheer craziness of that situation was too good to pass up. The final piece to the puzzle, though was the whole idea of revenge versus justice. That theme has probably been done to death many, many times, but here was a way to approach it in an entirely new way. Thus, the story was born, and I think it turned out very well.
Wolfhound is one example of a novel when I did this, while Brellan is an example of a time when I didn’t. The former came together almost like the pieces of a puzzle, each character and plot event clicking in and settling perfectly against the others. All I had to do was write well enough to express what was going on, and the story took care of itself. The latter, on the other hand, seemed to make me work and fight for every page, and it always seemed a bit more insubstantial than some of my other stuff. When I finished the latest complete draft, I still felt uncomfortable with how it worked out, and from the start I knew it would need a lot of revision to work. From those experiences, it kind of seems like I just can’t write based on a single, overriding idea and have enough to keep the story really going. I need a bunch of stuff to bounce off of.
So that’s a writing technique I guess I use when I am putting together the idea for a story. How about you guys? Let me know if you have a particular way you work; it’s always interesting to me to see how my fellow writers think. Not that I have malicious plans about that or anything. Mwahahaha… See ya!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Writing Projects
I’m at a very unusual point in my life as an author, in that I suddenly have too many things to write.
For the majority of my life, I worked on pretty much one story. It was kind of like my pet project, the one that I had built up through high school and through most of college. It was a monster epic, some 360 pages of single spaced text in Word. I never got a full wordcount on it, but just thinking about how long it was makes me shudder at the prospect of having to edit it. I actually didn’t mind working with such a large project at the time, since the story’s background was tied up with quite a few of my other creative endeavors.
In contrast to that point in time, I now have four novels in various levels of progress. The first of them, Brellan is a story that I had worked on back in college for a short time, then picked up and finished later on after graduation. It started out as a horror story set in a fantasy world. Given my inexperience with the genre, I tried to emphasize the tension and the mystery parts of the story. Unfortunately, that meant that I skimped slightly on the background and character development, which a lot of my later readers picked up on. It introduced a lot of plot holes in the story, and prevented most people from getting into the situation. The book was also left very, very short compared to most fantasy stories. As a result, I decided to shift it to more of a dark fantasy story, and include much more detail than the original contained. Due to how the revision process has worked out, though, I have only recently gotten enough commentary and ideas to start, so Brellan is still in very rough shape.
My second effort, Wolfhound, has taken a totally different route of development. It started out as a stereotypical science fiction story, and quickly grew into a novel that I still really enjoy. Wolfhound is actually a book I could see myself writing sequels to, and is pretty much the first story of mine my wife could actually read from start to finish and honestly say she enjoyed the experience. The story actually took shape much more quickly than Brellan and reached a semi-finished state much sooner. I’ve actually started querying agents for it, though I wonder if my characters still need too much work. Given that characters have never been a particular strong point (I’m far more about plots, really) I don’t know if that will improve without drastically altering things to a point where I wouldn’t be satisfied with it. So, it is a YA sci fi book that I think is awesome.
My third project is tentatively called The New Realm: Frontier. It is currently at about the halfway point for the first draft, and I have a fairly good feeling about it. Set in a standard fantasy world, the story has an interesting plot and a setting that I like enough to stick with for a while. That, and the enemies are creepy. :) I just came up with a sturdier outline for it, so things should develop well. I just need the time to finish it.
My final project is a book I am currently calling Pioneer, a title that will most likely change. It is another sci fi novel, though this one picks up a different theme. While the main character is slightly military still, the mechanics of fighting in the universe are much different, as are the motivations. Rather than a war, more or less, the characters are migrating and colonizing. Plus, this story has crazy space mechs for weapons. Bwaha. It is still no more than a third or so of the way through the first draft, but I think it will come together nicely.
In addition to these four, I have a few other ideas piling up in my head. A post-apocalyptic story, another story about a paranormal, Lovecraftian detective story of some kind, and a possible remake for my original book, as well as other crazy ideas keep bouncing in and out of my skull. It’s hard to find time lately to get work done on what I’m already dealing with, let alone this other stuff. Sigh.
So what do you guys think I should focus on? Submitting and/or wearily fine tuning Wolfhound? Rewriting Brellan? Or just focus on getting the two newer stories out? Cause at this point, dividing my time between the lot might end with me going absolutely insane, or just dropping it all. Let me know what you think, and I’ll see ya round.
For the majority of my life, I worked on pretty much one story. It was kind of like my pet project, the one that I had built up through high school and through most of college. It was a monster epic, some 360 pages of single spaced text in Word. I never got a full wordcount on it, but just thinking about how long it was makes me shudder at the prospect of having to edit it. I actually didn’t mind working with such a large project at the time, since the story’s background was tied up with quite a few of my other creative endeavors.
In contrast to that point in time, I now have four novels in various levels of progress. The first of them, Brellan is a story that I had worked on back in college for a short time, then picked up and finished later on after graduation. It started out as a horror story set in a fantasy world. Given my inexperience with the genre, I tried to emphasize the tension and the mystery parts of the story. Unfortunately, that meant that I skimped slightly on the background and character development, which a lot of my later readers picked up on. It introduced a lot of plot holes in the story, and prevented most people from getting into the situation. The book was also left very, very short compared to most fantasy stories. As a result, I decided to shift it to more of a dark fantasy story, and include much more detail than the original contained. Due to how the revision process has worked out, though, I have only recently gotten enough commentary and ideas to start, so Brellan is still in very rough shape.
My second effort, Wolfhound, has taken a totally different route of development. It started out as a stereotypical science fiction story, and quickly grew into a novel that I still really enjoy. Wolfhound is actually a book I could see myself writing sequels to, and is pretty much the first story of mine my wife could actually read from start to finish and honestly say she enjoyed the experience. The story actually took shape much more quickly than Brellan and reached a semi-finished state much sooner. I’ve actually started querying agents for it, though I wonder if my characters still need too much work. Given that characters have never been a particular strong point (I’m far more about plots, really) I don’t know if that will improve without drastically altering things to a point where I wouldn’t be satisfied with it. So, it is a YA sci fi book that I think is awesome.
My third project is tentatively called The New Realm: Frontier. It is currently at about the halfway point for the first draft, and I have a fairly good feeling about it. Set in a standard fantasy world, the story has an interesting plot and a setting that I like enough to stick with for a while. That, and the enemies are creepy. :) I just came up with a sturdier outline for it, so things should develop well. I just need the time to finish it.
My final project is a book I am currently calling Pioneer, a title that will most likely change. It is another sci fi novel, though this one picks up a different theme. While the main character is slightly military still, the mechanics of fighting in the universe are much different, as are the motivations. Rather than a war, more or less, the characters are migrating and colonizing. Plus, this story has crazy space mechs for weapons. Bwaha. It is still no more than a third or so of the way through the first draft, but I think it will come together nicely.
In addition to these four, I have a few other ideas piling up in my head. A post-apocalyptic story, another story about a paranormal, Lovecraftian detective story of some kind, and a possible remake for my original book, as well as other crazy ideas keep bouncing in and out of my skull. It’s hard to find time lately to get work done on what I’m already dealing with, let alone this other stuff. Sigh.
So what do you guys think I should focus on? Submitting and/or wearily fine tuning Wolfhound? Rewriting Brellan? Or just focus on getting the two newer stories out? Cause at this point, dividing my time between the lot might end with me going absolutely insane, or just dropping it all. Let me know what you think, and I’ll see ya round.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)