First Word, First Line, First Draft

It's definitely about time for another one of these I think!

Even though I've not blogged for a while, I've actually being doing a lot of work on this, and I'm feeling much more optimistic than I have in a long time. Re-reading my prologue made me feel a bit disheartened - I could see that it wasn't great. But I know that it was never going to be perfect on the first try, and I think that realising that it was a bit terrible has been an important step.

I've been able to approach it from a completely clean slate, and I think I've identified some of the things that I needed to change, and, most importantly, ways to improve it.

The start was a bit dull. I started with trying to fill in the background, and provide context, but looking back over some of my favourite books, they all start with the story. The background and context you can fill in later, but if you haven't got the reader interested in the first few sentences, then they're not going to be bothered enough to read on, and the context is going to go to waste anyway.

So, I've identified the key point of interest in my prologue, and that's the new start to it. It opens with this big point of conflict, change and shock, and then the background gets filled in afterwards. This is potentially the biggest change I've made, and (hopefully) should have a massive impact.

I've also realised that in my prologue I'm a bit pompous. I spend a bit too much time on the description, and I've realised that I'm trying to show off what I can do, rather than worrying about the reader, and whether its going to appeal. Having spoken to a few people, I've realised that I'm far from the only would-be-writer whose made this mistake, and I think I'm lucky that I've caught it quite early on.

So my plan is to make my new prologue half the length of my first attempt, which should mean I'll cut out the needless, self-indulgent description, and just be left with a quick, driving prologue that doesn't waste any of the reader's attention.

So, the exciting news (well... I think it's exciting, and a few of the people I've mentioned this too have agreed - though how much of it was sarcasm I don't know...) is that I'm hoping, with my next blog post, around the end of my Easter Break, I'm going to upload my entire prologue (when I say entire, it's only probably going to be 7/8 A5 pages haha). It won't be the finished draft (that'll be years away yet) but it should be something similar to how it'll end up. So, look forward to that guys!

For now, I thought I'd let everyone know what I think the first line of my book will be. This'll change a few times I'm sure, but for now, I feel like this is a good start. The first line of my book will be... (drum roll please!)...

"Veyrun had no idea where the flames had come from." 

I know. Exciting isn't it.

Cultural Considerations

This week I've started thinking about the society and culture of Aenoria. As part of my History degree I've been studying social history quite a lot recently, and I've been looking at things as intricate as undergarments and the moral and religious reasons for it, and its made me realise that the key to a good book is a detailed, rich culture, and so over the next few weeks I'm going to be starting to fill out the culture and society of my world.

I also think that it's better to have some idea of the details of my world before I start writing, just because the story can be a lot more naturally shaped and influenced by the culture, rather than the culture fitting to the story. I feel like it'll be a lot more natural, readable and realistic (in terms of how natural the society seems, rather than how realistic it's going to be. I have a feeling a fantasy book probably won't be TOO realistic...).

So, for example, I've decided on two forms of transport in Aenoria, both animal based. One is a bear-type creature that can be ridden in two different ways (with a rather ingenious saddle idea that I'm hoping to upload some kind of diagram of soon... all depending on my artistic skills of course, so that could take a while...) and one is a wildcat creature similar to a Cheetah, but with an extra pair of legs. 

I'm also aware that I want to pay homage to some of the fantasy genre stalwarts. I feel like a fantasy book without some mention of Dragons would be a bit of a crime, but I'm also aware that a lot of fantasy books rely quite heavily on Dragons (the Inheritance Trilogy, for example) and I don't want mine to be like that. I'm going to have them ingrained in culture somehow. 

I think it would be interesting to have dragons occupy a similar mythological role to that which they occupy in real life. So to have them mentioned in art and literature, but not actually existent as beings in the world. 

I'm going to think about this more over the next few weeks, and start to consider things like the religion and political structure of Aenoria, as well as what it would be like to live in Aenoria as a normal person. What would the recreational activities be? How would people interact? Is there to be a class system? 

I know there's a lot of big questions that relate to society and culture, and so I'm not expecting to have a fully shaped society after just a few weeks, but I know that starting to consider it can only help me in my writing.

P.s. if anyone is interested, undergarments were worn because any contact between outer layers of clothing and the skin (which was understood to expel unwanted, and often unpleasant, things from the body, such as sweat) was not socially acceptable. This links to the idea that outward appearance was very important, and cleanliness and appearance were expected to reflect your position in society. So if a member of the upper classes had any evidence of secretion, sweat, dirt etc. from the skin on his outgarments, then it was seen as very shameful.

Letting The Hierarch Out Of The Bag

For a few posts now I've been teasing the reveal of the general outline of the story of my book. And after insistent nagging from one of my housemates, I've decided it's finally time to let everyone know roughly what the idea of my story is. 

The current plan is for my book to be the first in a trilogy, and I’ve roughly mapped out the story across the whole trilogy, but I’ll just mention the general story of the first book here. I don’t really want to set anything too concretely in stone, because I think it’s good to let the story write itself at some points, rather than to force it where I have planned it to go. (Yes I realise how pretentious that sounds, but I didn’t really know how else to write it!)

So… here it is: outline of the first book.

“The relationship between the kingdom of Aenoria and the Mages of the Realm had always been conflicted, but in the years since the last Mages War, a fragile peace has emerged. The mages seem content with being confined to the isle of Venud, but the segregation is taking its toll, and tensions are rising. Families are struggling to cope with being torn apart at the first sign of magical ability and many are fearing that frustrated mages could turn their powers against the kingdom.

When Thayrin, a young hunter, stumbles upon the murder of one of the kingdom’s chief ministers, he unveils a plot to assassinate the Hierarch, the kingdom’s leader. But in the face of this new threat, the demons of Thayrin’s past rise up to haunt him. Can he overcome his past, and protect his kingdom, or will he fall victim to himself, and let his kingdom be changed forever?”

Wow. In writing that I realised that it’s a lot more difficult to fit the story into a short little blurb like that! I’m not perfectly happy with that description but I can’t figure out how to change it for now…  I’ll probably revise it slightly over the next few posts, but the basic ideas are all there, and I feel that most of the important points are mentioned (though obviously I’d like to keep some secrets!)

I’ve re-read the prologue this week, and it’s far too clunky as I thought, so this week (after getting some pressing uni work out of the way over the next few days) is to re-write my prologue, which should be interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing how much my style has changed since I’ve been at uni and writing a lot more generally. I can imagine the difference will be quite significant, and I just hope it’s for the better.

On a side note, I could probably do with someone to proof-read/give me some feedback on my work as I’m writing it, so if anyone fancies doing me a favour (and getting some sneak previews… exciting prospect, I know), then feel free to either comment, or drop me an e-mail on joe_thomas25@hotmail.co.uk. It’d be very appreciated!

New Year Updates

I was hoping that this blog would work out a lot more regular than it is! But I thought that after the Christmas/New Year rush (and as some sneaky procrastination from revision for January exams) I'd post an update!

I've not been particularly focused on this over Christmas - I've tried to give myself a nice break from everything, and so this has taken a little of a backseat to sleeping, but I'm starting to get back into it now!

I've used Christmas as an opportunity to equip myself with anything that I think will help with motivating myself, and producing something half-decent, so as well as the obligatory posh notebooks and pens, I've had a few books that I'm hoping will get some creative juices flowing.

One that has been especially useful as nice little breaks from revision has been "The Five-Minute Writer", which does pretty much what it says on the tin. It's a book full of prompts and exercises, designed to last five-minutes, to try and get me writing. It's worked out well so far - I've had a few brainwaves while I've been doing some of the exercises - and I've not had to feel too guilty for taking 5 minutes out of work!

Another one, which is a bit more time-intensive, but is helping my actual writing technique more, is "101 Writing Prompts for Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers" which gives similar prompts but more extensive writing tasks. I've used one of the prompts and am about midway through writing a piece that I think is working out quite nicely. I'm hoping to publish the completed thing on here once I've finished - most likely in about 2 weeks (When I can finally forget about exams)!

I think it'll be useful to publish some of my writing online, and hopefully I can get some feedback on what I've written and I'm hoping that the whole process will just make me a better writer - and (hopefully) some positive feedback will be a good motivation as well!

Over the next month or so I'm also going to reveal a little bit about the plot. I've got the general idea sorted, but I'm just finalising how it's going to work at the minute, so as soon as it's pretty much decided I'll give a bit of an idea.

Another thing that I am going to consider over the next few months is about how I can make my book unique. My Dad mentioned this to me on Christmas Day, and it is something that I'd not necessarily thought about, but that could make a huge difference. I've got a few ideas about how it could work, and I'm gonna give it some more thought and discussion, but I'll write up a few of my ideas probably within the next week - just to test the water and see what people think!

I know this has been a bit of a mundane post, but my next few are definitely going to be a lot more interesting and forward-thinking - there's going to be some actual creative stuff going on!

(Belated) update...

So this is a little bit later that expected!

University deadlines and early Christmas dinners have slightly interfered with my plans, but I decided it was time to get going again.

In my earlier post I set myself a few goals, including character development ideas, and I have managed to sort this out. I've got my main character, and two of the key supporting characters all planned out, and on top of that I've got a lot of the story of several other characters thought out as well. I've also had a general thought about the general story of my novel and that's all looking good (in my opinion anyway) so hopefully I can continue to refine that over the Christmas period.

My other goal for myself was to determine the names of my main characters. I'm hesitant to reveal too much about my characters at this point, so I'm only going to reveal names and maybe a little bit of information about them and the role that they will play in the story, but I'm going to try and keep as much as possible quite secretive now (I've got to find some way to get people to carry on reading my blog!). I am planning in the next few days to post an update on the general idea of my story, including the genre etc.

So, here they are:

• Thayrin - Main Character
• Gudwyn (sort of the 'wise-old man' with a twist) - very important character
• Jorr (Hardened middle aged companion) 
• Aemilia (bit of a wimpy woman, but not quite that simple...)
• Korill (young, new to situation that's he's in) - serves as important introduction to the society within the novel
• Draklan (very important character) - very little will be revealed about him
• There is one more important character, but the name isn't going to be revealed because its gonna be big point in the story.

In other news, I've started reading the follow up to one of my favourite books of all time: The Passage by Justin Cronin. His sequel, The Twelve, has been sat on my shelf for a few weeks and I've been itching to start it for a while, but I've had to keep putting it off. I just couldn't hold off any longer last night though, and I'm glad I finally started reading it.

I'm only 20ish pages in and I was already struggling to put it down. Cronin's books are inspiration for me, so I'm hoping reading that alongside this process will help my writing and ideas as well!

Over the next few weeks I'm going to think about my plot, and start to formalise what's going to happen when. I've got a wonderful OneNote database going with different links for each chapter and a little bit about what's going to happen in each one, so I want to try and really flesh that out with the important bits, then I can start actually writing. I'm not sure whether that's exciting or terrifying!

Plan of Action

Ok, so I'm hoping that if I set myself some goals for this week, then I'll be able to push for them and and make some progress!

I've got quite a lot of University work for the next couple of weeks so its nothing monumental for this week but still!

Goal 1:
I'm hoping to go through my 3/4 main characters and plot their development throughout my novel.

I've managed to plan the basic outline of my plot, so I can sort of begin to think about how its going to change my main characters throughout the book. I'm hoping this'll mean that there's a logical progression for the characters and its not disjointed.

Also, this should ease me into the writing process, without me having to straight away start the actual book.

Goal 2:
This one sounds like it should be easier, but I've got a feeling this'll potentially be the hardest bit to finalise.

I want to try and come up with the names for my main characters.

I've got a few ideas, but I keep finding that all the names I've decided on are stolen from somewhere else. I think I'm going to be quite fussy in making sure its perfect, so this could be something that changes a lot over the process!

If anyone actually reads this and has any tips about coming up with names then that'd be great!!

So these goals aren't too extreme for the next week, but they're gonna be important foundations so I want to make sure I get them right!!

I'll hopefully post again mid-week to update how its going!