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Posts Tagged ‘series’

Back to the Drawing Board

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

If you’re here looking for my GUTGAA Pitch Polish entry, go here.

I’m within sight of finishing the first draft of my YA alternate history, THE BARD’S GIFT, probably next week. So it’s time to look up and start thinking about what I’ll work on next, while the first draft cools a bit.

I have plenty of choices. Revisions to MAGE STORM are certainly at the top of the list. I have another story in first draft that I need to get back to, BLOOD IS THICKER, the sequel to BLOOD WILL TELL. And there are a couple of short stories that I need to polish up. I have a pretty good idea what to do with all of those stories. And that’s certainly enough to keep me busy until I can go back to work on THE BARD’S GIFT.

But, even though I may not start working on it yet, there’s one more story I’ll at least be thinking about as I try to figure out what to do next. This story was my first completed novel (if you don’t count the thing I wrote in college–and I don’t). In that incarnation, as THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, I thought it was a mainstream fantasy. Now, that version has so many serious flaws, I’m not even going to try to list them here, but, in spite of those flaws, I still love the characters and the whole arc of the story (which was always intended to be a series).

Therefore, last year about this time, I started a rewrite, this time as middle grade. I called it MAGIC’S FOOL and had even started the sequel, MAGIC’S APPRENTICE. The original story had to be changed, of course. Some elements had to be dropped and in order to tell a complete story in about half the length I had to choose a different central conflict. I like the results and was planning on going back for another round of revisions and then polish it up.

That was until WriteOnCon, where I found out that agents and editors don’t want stories with main characters betweeen twelve and fourteen years old. Bummer. My main character in MAGIC’S FOOL was thirteen. (He had started out as fifteen in THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.)

So now, I have to go back to the drawing board and decide what to do with this story. It’s not an easy choice, like MAGE STORM, in which I can easily change or delete a couple of elements and make the protagonist younger, say around eleven. Thirteen was already pushing the limits on just how young this character can credibly be.

So, as far as I can see right now, my choices are:

  1. “Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead.” Just ignore this age limit or maybe delete the one or two references to the protagonists age and go ahead with it as it is. This feels a little like trying to swim upstream (even more than is normally the case).
  2. Keep the story as it is now (more or less) and just make the main character a bit older. Go back to fifteen as he was in the original. To do this credibly, the story would have to be expanded by about half again as much (from around 50,000 words to somewhere around 75,000 words). There are things I could expand. There are also a couple of subplots that could easily be added–and which would add depth to the overall plot. I’d be betting that agents and editors really mean it when they say they want boy YA stories.
  3. And the third possibility would be to go back to the original story line and central conflict. I’d still have to rewrite it, of course. That would actually be better and easier than trying to revise it. This version has what may be a more satisfying central conflict. That’s a draw, frankly. Now, I could still go two ways with this. I could still try to make it YA. There really aren’t any plot elements that are inappropriate for YA, although I might handle one of them a bit differently. Or I could just leave that alone and let it be a mainstream (adult, but not in a sexy way) story.

I’ll be giving this some thought as I work on the other revisions I’ve got stacked up.

 

 

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Themes

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on March 25, 2012| 2 Comments »

A theme is the central concept of a story. I don’t generally write a story with a theme in mind. However, it often happens that when I finish a story, I realize that there is a theme in there. When that happens, I can use that knowledge to inform choices that I make in the revisions to strengthen that theme, if I want to. Often, I don’t even ask myself what the theme is. I’m focused on telling a good story. Though, when I do, I can usually identify it pretty quickly. Sometimes, it surprises me.

For example, MAGIC’S FOOL, and in fact the entire series that starts with MAGIC’S FOOL, is about acceptance in various forms. (I really am going to have to think of a title for the series as a whole soon. Something to do with the two kinds of magic, I think.) In this case, though, it’s a little different for me because MAGIC’S FOOL and it’s sequels are rewrites of earlier stories with the unfortunate titles THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and THE IGNORED PROPHECY (TSC and TIP for short). Now that I’ve decided it should be a middle-grade story, the events of TSC with a little of TIP thrown in will be broken down into three separate stories. The fourth book in the series will cover the central plot that was planned for the end of the original trilogy, but never written. It’ll actually flow much better this way.

What’s different this time is that I recognized the theme in those earlier versions, so I could construct the story around it in the first draft of the rewrites.

In MAGIC’S FOOL, the theme actually comes close to also being the central conflict as the protagonist has to learn to accept the things that make him different from who he expected to be. That works, I think, as a good middle-grade internal conflict. My beta readers who have it now will let me know if they feel bludgeoned by it, I hope. But I don’t think it came off as that strong. The two critiques I have back so far haven’t mentioned it, at least.

Still, that conflation of the theme and the central conflict is not something I necessarily want to continue throughout the series. In this case, I’ll have to be aware, not of what theme is developing in my story, but of keeping the theme and the central conflict at arm’s length.

That’s a little different than my usual course, where I don’t even recognize the theme until I finish the first draft. In the long run, of course, that’s all to the good: a learning opportunity.

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Middle Books in a Series

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on March 18, 2012| 6 Comments »

This subject comes up for several reasons. The main one, of course, is that it’s something I’m struggling with myself. In another month or so, I’ll start the second draft of BLOOD IS THICKER, which is the sequel to BLOOD WILL TELL. While I complete the research and preparations for THE BARD’S GIFT, I’ve also been sporadically working on MAGIC’S APPRENTICE, which is the sequel to MAGIC’S FOOL. In both cases, there will be at least one more book in the series.

As I see it, both from reading and writing series, there are three problems inherent in sequels, in particular in the middle books.

The first is one I hope I don’t have in any of my stories because it annoys me as a reader: when the middle book in a series is just a bridge between the beginning and the end. These books often lack an identifiable story arc of their own. They’re just there to get you from the beginning to the end. It’s a problem most often encountered in trilogies.

The second is one of just maintaining reader interest, even if the book does have its own story (although this becomes much, much harder for middle books that don’t actually tell a full story). I have a theory about this that I’ve blogged about before. Particularly in fantasy, in the first book the reader has the wonder of discovering this new world, its magic and its rules, and the characters. The last book has the whiz-bang fireworks of the climax of the series. The middle book is, well, stuck in the middle.

This is where I think there’s a certain genius in series like HARRY POTTER. J. K. Rowling doesn’t show us all of Harry’s world in that first book. We’re still discovering new things well into the series. Yes, THE SORCERER’S STONE gives you the wizarding world, Diagon Alley, Gringot’s Bank, Hogwarts, and quidditch. But THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS gives you the flying car, the whomping willow, huge spiders, and the basilisk. THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (on the television right now as I write this) gives you hippogriffs, dementors, and the Marauder’s Map. I don’t think I even have to go into THE GOBLET OF FIRE. The point is, the wonder of discovering this world is stretched out throughout the whole series.

There’s a lesson in that, I think. Now, if I can just figure out how to apply it to my own stories.

The third problem is one that relates especially to independent stories within a series. To a certain extent in this kind of series, it shouldn’t matter if the reader takes the books in order. And there’s the problem. When I start to write the second (or, in this case, third) book in the series, I want to set it up so that the reader can plunge in even if they’ve never read the first book. But, and here’s the problem, I’ve got all these places and characters that I’ve already established. Some of the things that have already happened in the first book are going to influence the relationships between these characters and how they approach the problems presented in the second (or third) book.

So, the problem is to present enough of that background–and only as it becomes relevant to the story–without slowing the main story down to a crawl or overwhelming it with extraneous details. It’s a very fine line. And frankly, one that I’ve never managed to walk on a first draft.

It’s a very real challenge. To me, this is a place where it’s vital to have beta readers. In particular, two groups of beta readers: some who’ve read the first book and can complain if you slow the story down with too many details about what happened before, and some who haven’t read the first book and can tell you when they get confused because something that was explained in the first book was just assumed in the second.

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Progress Report

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, I’ve made good progress so far with my significant plot changes to MAGIC’S FOOL. I’m up to chapter seven. The changes involve bringing one character in much earlier (the beginning of the book instead of the very end) and making her older than she was before by about eight years. Towards the end of the book, one plot element will have to change, too.

I like this change. I think it will read better for the age group. (That’s mostly the change that will come at the end.) Plus it’s going to be a big help moving forward. MAGIC’S FOOL is intended to be the first of a series of (probably) four books. (Tentatively titled MAGIC’S FOOL, MAGIC’S APPRENTICE, MAGIC’S JOURNEYMAN, and MAGIC’S MASTER.)

This character (the main character’s little sister, Kiara) will now be in a much better position to take her intended role in the later books. She was going to be a little young for it, otherwise. Plus, now I get a (very) little conflict with the older boy not wanting his baby sister tagging along all the time. But, hey, every little bit of conflict helps.

Yesterday, I made the most major revisions so far to give Kiara a much bigger role in one chapter, so she can be seen as something other than just the pesky kid sister. She’ll have a bigger role as the series goes on. In fact, I have an unpublished short story about her that I may have to do something with in conjunction with this series. Maybe a free ebook or maybe I’ll just put it up on this blog. Or both. It’s called “Becoming Lioness”, which might give you a hint as to Kiara’s character.

Of course, after I finish this revision, it’s going to need at least one more read through before it’s ready for readers in March. But, this is my third straight time through. I think I’ll give it a bit of a rest before I go through it one last time before the Pied Pipers get it.

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Sequels and Series

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on November 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I’m sure I’ve blogged about this before, but it bears repeating. Sequels and series are hard. And since I’m working on BLOOD IS THICKER, which is the first sequel to BLOOD WILL TELL, it’s on my mind right now.

You’d think they’d be easier. You’ve already got the world built. You know the characters inside and out. And that’s exactly the problem.

You know all that stuff. And so do readers of the first book. But a reader who picks up the second or third book cold won’t. I’ve stated before that I have a very strong preference for the books in a series to be able to stand alone. Okay, it might be a better reading experience if you read them in order, but each should be able to stand on its own. I can’t stand series (which shall be nameless) that go on and on and on and . . .  Well, you get the point. If it takes more than three books to get to a resolution, you’d better resolve something in between or you’ll lose me. So, I won’t write that kind of series.

Perhaps more so because I’m not counting on readers to have read the previous book(s), there’s a very delicate balancing act of trying to put in enough world building, at the right time, without boring someone who’s read the first book and already knows all of this. The tried and true learn-as-you-go method of showing the world is a little trickier the second time around.

This is where critiques from readers who haven’t read the first book can be invaluable. Precisely the places where they ask questions or say “Wait. What?” are the places where you need a little more world building. Either right there or even better a little earlier so when they get to that place, they understand what’s going on.

Then there are the characters. In the first book, you can start with one or two and build your cast of characters gradually. In the second book, all these characters have already been established. Once again, you have the balancing act of describing who these characters are to one another without bringing the story to a complete stop.

How difficult this is depends in part on how many characters you have to introduce in the early chapters. In the first sequel I ever wrote (now shelved), I think I had in the neighborhood of a dozen established characters in the same location as my main character when the story started. Way too many to introduce all at once. I won’t make that mistake again (I hope). Of course, that story had too many characters to begin with. BLOOD IS THICKER starts off with just two, fortunately.

At the same time, of course, you don’t want to load the first chapter with so much back story that you drag this story down. That’s what makes it a balancing act. I don’t expect to get it right on the first draft, of course. But it does help to have some readers point out the places where I’ll need to beef up the background in the next go round.

Added to that, I have a theory about sequels, series, and especially about trilogies. (BLOOD WILL TELL, BLOOD IS THICKER, and the as-yet-unamed third sequel will form a series, but not a trilogy. There will be overlapping settings and characters, but not an overarching conflict that ties them together as a unit.)

My theory is this: The second book is almost always the worst. In the first book, you have the joy of discovering this world and these characters. In fantasy, especially, hopefully also a sense of wonder. In the third book, you have the big bang of the trilogy climax. The middle book is, well, the middle. I can think of very few trilogies that avoided the pitfall of the second book.

Yet, that’s what I’m writing now. The second book in a series (not a trilogy).  Wish me luck.

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Work In Process

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on September 6, 2011| 13 Comments »

Blogging a bit early this week. (Usually updates are on Wednesdays and Sundays.)

Since this is (near) the beginning of the Platform-Building Campaign and new people will be popping in to look at the blog, I thought I’d blog about my various projects today.

BLOOD WILL TELL

I’m actively querying this one. (Actually, this week I’m researching agents.) I have one full request out. Fingers crossed.

Being a half-blood is inconvenient on a good day, especially when the half you got from your mother is werewolf.  Valeriah can’t take wolf form, but the full moon still fills her with manic energy.  Running helps; a tired werewolf is a good werewolf.

Living perennially caught between two worlds–human and werewolf, magic and non-magic–doesn’t leave much room for love. That suits Valeriah just fine. She’s never had any luck with that anyway.

Until her cousin’s life is threatened, that is, and out of necessity she accepts the help of a mysterious young man to protect Cristel. Rolf is everything that makes Valeriah’s pulse speed up in spite of herself. Now, with Cristel’s life in the balance, is the worst possible time for that kind of complication.

But Rolf’s secrets could destroy her trust and that might cost her life.

BLOOD WILL TELL is a 97,000-word paranormal romance and potentially the first of a series.

MAGE STORM

I have queried this one, but a response from one agent who requested a full prompted some revisions which I’m still tinkering with.

Rell doesn’t want magic. He doesn’t dream of being a hero out of old legends or a mage. Certainly not a mage, after they all incinerated each other at the end of the Great Mage War. He’d just like not to be in his big brother’s shadow for a change. Someone should have reminded him to be careful what he wished for.

All he knows of magic are the violent, frighteningly aware mage storms formed of the ashes of those dead wizards. Mage storms seek out people on whom to vent their fury. When the ashes fall like rain, red cinders explode, white burn flesh like acid, orange ashes taint what they touch, and yellow cause withering death.

Caught in a mage storm, Rell is struck by a strange blue cinder that infects him with magic and protects him and his family from the storm. Rell starts to think that maybe magic’s not so bad after all, but he finds it only complicates his life. His father expects him to bring back the benefits of magic from before the war, but Rell doesn’t know how. Meanwhile, others who only remember the terrors of the war fear Rell and his new abilities. Frustration and anger only bring out one of the most dangerous aspects of his magic: fire.

Rell soon learns that whether he intends it or not, his magic will leak out, uncontrolled, whenever his emotions are too strong. If he can find some way to learn to use this “gift”, he may be able to reduce the threat of the storms. If not, he’ll probably end up adding his ashes to the mage storms.

MAGE STORM is a 56,000-word middle grade fantasy and potentially the first of a series.

SEVEN STARS

I’ve recently completed the third draft of this Young Adult Fantasy. The pitch is correspondingly very rough, still.

Because of her berserker blood, Casora has been raised as a warrior. Now that she has activated the Curse and allowed the berserker to rule her, she can never go home. She leads her band of exiled warriors turned mercenaries in the battle against the invaders who overran her homeland.

Tiaran is the youngest and least of princes, the one who will never be a warrior. He’s so desperate to get into the fighting when his country is threatened that his gullibilty leads him to run away–and straight into a suicide mission.

It’s up to Casora’s mercenaries to rescue the prince. Cut off from the commanders who are now besieged in the capital, Casora has to mold Tiaran into a warrior and together they have to find a way to defeat their common enemy.

MAGIC’S FOOL

I’ve really just started this one (half-way through chapter three). It’s a complete re-imagining of my first novel (well, if you don’t count the thing under the bed that we don’t talk about). This time as middle grade, which it probably always should have been. As such, the original 100 K word story will have to be broken up into two or even three separate novels, each with it’s own (related) arc. I confess, I’m just a bit nervous about that. I think I’ve got it figured out, but the only way I’m going to find out if it works is to try it.

So, that’s what I’m working on these days.

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Serialization

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on August 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

It’s a topic in e-publishing right now, in a couple of different contexts.

I know a couple of writers who are either serializing stories for e-publication or thinking about it. Actually it’s a very attractive concept.

You take a 100,000-word novel and break it down into, say, five pieces. Hopefully, of course, each installment ends with some sort of hook that will make the reader want to purchase the next installment. Then you release installments a week to a month or so apart.

It’s something that e-publishing is very well suited for and something that wasn’t even remotely possible with traditional paper publishing. That is, unless you count the endless series that extend to a dozen or more books. But in those cases, readers had to wait years between installments. This is much less painful.

Another interesting thought that I read about earlier this week is the idea of e-publishing segments of your work in process. Not for free, but on some sort of arrangement where readers pay for the finished work, but get to read the story as it progresses. This potentially allows the writer to get feedback from a much wider audience than a writers’ group and lets the readers see some of their ideas or comments incorporated into the story.

Both are intriguing thoughts that I’m going to have to research more. I even know where I can find an online course on the subject.

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Long Series

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on July 20, 2011| 1 Comment »

This subject comes up as I struggle to get a foothold in my new WIP. MAGIC’S FOOL (working title) is a rewrite/re-imagining of my very first novel. It starts considerably earlier. Also, since this time around it’s Middle Grade, the original plot has to be broken down into discreet segments, each with its own goal and completed conflict. I think I can do that, but I confess that I’m a little nervous about it.

However, there’s another point. My first novel, TSC (let’s just stick to the initials), was originally intended to be the first of a trilogy, later expanded to possibly four books. Now, some of what was in those stories, particularly the middle two books, will simply be deleted. But still, if I break the remaining story down, that could easily come to six or eight books in the series.

Other successful series (Flanagan’s THE RANGER’S APPRENTICE comes to mind) suggest that that’s not too many.

The other thing that brings this topic to mind is that a favorite author of mine is about to wind up a series of five books. But then she’s going to start two more series in the same world, following different characters. That worries me.

The thing is, I can think of several series or conglomerations of series using the same world that lost me part way through. I can name at least three series in which I devoured the first three or four books and was hungry for more. I kept reading, but perhaps a little less avidly after that. My interest usually puttered out somewhere between books six and nine.

One of these series continued to use the same world, but followed a different cast of characters for three or four books and then switched again to another set of characters. That one kept my interest the longest–to about fourteen books.

But in every case, eventually, I just got tired of visiting that world and those characters. It wasn’t fresh anymore. I wanted something new.

Of course with some of them there were other reasons that they lost my interest. Some went on too long without any resolution. (I don’t think I need to name that series to any student of the fantasy genre.) Some just seemed to me to be the same story told over and over again. But sometimes it just was that I was tired of visiting that particular world. It had become so familiar that it almost didn’t feel fantastic anymore.

So, maybe it’s not a good thing to write too many stories in the same world.

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New Ideas from Old

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on June 5, 2011| 4 Comments »

My first two books (not counting the thing under the bed that we don’t talk about) have been on the shelf for a while, now. I’ve known that they needed a complete rewrite, especially the first. The problems are too numerous even to list here. It should have been young adult all along, but I didn’t realize that. The pacing is way off. There are far too many characters. It got over-edited. Well, let’s face it, those are the books on which I made most of my beginner mistakes.

But I haven’t given up on them. The world I created for that series (which was originally supposed to be four books) is very complex. You can get a glimpse of it in most of the entries under Worlds on this blog. I like the premise. I like the theme that developed out of the stories (not the other way around). And I think I have something to say in those stories.

For a while, now, I’ve been trying not to think too much about those stories so that when I come back to them for a rewrite I can start fresh. Occasionally, an idea will bubble up from my subconscious and I’ll jot it down for later use. Some of them were interesting, but none of them quite worked. Well, yesterday an idea came up that I think is the one.

It’ll start the story much earlier and transform at least the first books into middle grade. I think that actually works well for this story. In doing that, it’ll also break the story into more pieces. That part, I still have to work out. One thing I won’t compromise is my preference that each book, even in a series, be able to stand on its own. That’s okay, it’s just a matter of properly defining the central conflict.

I’ve even got a tentative new title. (This was one of the ones that I alwas hated the title for.)

I’m really getting excited about this idea. Now, I’m not sure whether July will see me starting this one or THE BARD’S GIFT. Maybe this one while I continue to research THE BARD’S GIFT.

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Backstory and Characters

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on August 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This is what I’m wrestling with right now.  THE IGNORED PROPHECY is intended to be the second in a series (of four, hopefully).  However, I very much want it (and all of them) to stand on its own.  That requires a very delicate balance.  I need to give the reader enough background to understand how the characters got where they are now, how they know each other and relate to each other, and establish the milieu all over again.  All without sounding like an info dump or slowing the story down too much.  Piece of cake, right?

It was easier in THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.  I had a handful of characters, basically a nuclear family, with only one or two exceptions, to start.  All the other characters got introduced as my point-of-view character met them.  Simple.  Now, I’ve got all these characters–and I mentioned in an earlier post that there are quite a few–and I have to reintroduce them with enough information for the reader to go on with, but not so much that I stop everything every time a “new” character turns up.

Last pass, I clearly had way too many characters introduced in the first chapter.  Some of that was unnecessary.  Just because I know they’re there doesn’t mean they have to make and appearance.  I’ve cut that back.

I’ve added a little reflection by the main character to hopefully give the reader some understanding of how he got where he is now.  I’ve tried not to make it too long or an info dump, but only a reader will be able to tell me that for sure.

Now, I’ve still got to work in how the main character is related to various groups in the story and show a little more depth of the world-building.   Oh, and there are still several characters I need to do a better job introducing. 

This is nowhere near as easy as it sounds–and it never sounded easy.

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