Writing Corner: Every Chapter A New Beast

Writing corner is the little corner of my blog where I talk about writing.  If you're interested in the rest of the corner, click here.

Currently I've been working on The Queen's Ransom (or TQR) which I've talked about before.  Normally when I sit down to write I have an idea of what's going to happen and if something huge changes in my head I just start over because when it's something that changes the "roots" of the story I have a hard time continuing writing.

Well, that's a bit different this time around and I don't actually know why.  I began with a really basic plot and a really basic outline but knew where I wanted to go with the story.  While writing each chapter though, I tend to stumble upon an idea that betters the story and absolutely changes the "roots" of it.  But, instead of going back and starting over, I just roll with it and let it play out as it's playing out just with these new changes.

For example, at the end of the first chapter I realized that one of the two MCs had to have a different motivation.  His motivation is a major plot point in the story (understandably) and changes a lot of what his character means.  As I go through, too, I keep streamlining why he does what he does and his character has done a near 180 since he was first spawned into my head.

The quest itself- the driving force of the whole novel- has changed quite a bit as well.  It went from being a rather solitary thing to being something where a whole bunch of outsiders can take part of.  This was the hardest change to enact because I will have to rewrite most of the first chapter and the prologue but it's also the best change for the story so far.

Smaller things have changed as well.  Things I didn't realize I was missing or were weak are now there and are strong.

Every chapter is a new beast when I sit down to write it because right now it feels like each chapter belongs to a different story.  I'm looking forward to editing it when it's done because then I get to straighten all the lines out and finally wrangle it into one definitive story.

Writing Corner: Returning to Wheel and Cog

Writing corner is the little corner on my blog where I talk about my works in progress.  To find the rest of the content, click here.

Last week I talked about shelving Sand and Storm for the time being and mentioned that I've been working on another project in a pre-writing phase.  I wanted to talk about that projected a bit because it's been a story idea I've had for a while and returning to this world has been one of the best possible decisions I could have ever made.

It's a steampunk trilogy featuring a very large group of characters, though it has a very tight story (in which I mean that everything ties up and is connected and means something- I try to make nothing extraneous).  Ever since I had the idea, I knew the series would be called The Wheel and Cog Chronicles.  Don't ask why, but it came with the original cast of characters and it works so absolutely well.  Thus, the first in the trilogy has been dubbed Wheel and Cog (or, affectionately, WAC).

The idea hit me in junior year math class.  I didn't want to pay attention because I hated my teacher and I sat in the back so I sketched out the original eight characters and how they were all connected then and there.  I didn't even know what the story would be, just what the first scene was, and the names.  Rarely does this sort of story ever work out for me, but it all just slotted in so perfectly that I was left with eight well rounded characters.  That was several years ago, and the majority of them have kept the same names and all of them have kept the same connections between them (though I added a few new relationships to tie things together better the old ones all remained).

I worked on the idea a little and had a rough idea of the plot of the series, but didn't pursue it too much until that summer when I was in Europe.  One day, in Paris, we were walking and it just hit me that there could be a scene from the book in Paris.  That scene has now been scrapped for good since it was completely unnecessary, but after I figured out that scene I latched onto one particular character and followed him through his journey (which isn't set in Paris- none of the book is set in Paris at this point, actually).  I got from the beginning to the end, and since he interacted with every other character, I got to visit major points in their stories as well.  And suddenly, after a whole day of being completely lost in my head daydreaming, I had a trilogy laid out in front of me, nearly perfect.

And so I tried to write it.  But the time wasn't right.  I got a little into it, but I knew I just couldn't give the story what it needed at the time.  I was a senior in high school and as much as I loved writing I can honestly say I wasn't as mature as I am now in it.  I hadn't read as many "good" books and hadn't really studied craft at all.  The books I was reading at the time didn't really align to the sort of story I wanted to tell.  So I set it aside.  I've always known I would come back to it.  And I have.

As I am writing The Queen's Ransom I've decided I shouldn't just focus on that project.  It's going really well, but sticking to one story almost makes me hate that story.  So pre-writing Wheel and Cog has been a relief.  I think, now, I can finally give this series the heart it needs.  I hope to finish the pre-writing in a month or so, but I'm not going to rush it.  I'm taking my time to finish perfecting it (to the best of my ability) and then I'm going to dive in and seriously get to writing.  It's time.

Writing Corner: Shelving Sand and Storm (For Now)

Welcome to writing corner- the corner of the blog where I talk about my works in progress!  Follow this link if you want to find out more about my writing.

One of the two projects that have really claimed my time lately is Sand and Storm, a wild-west fantasy novel about a sharpshooting girl, exiled tribesman, adventurous widow, and powerless god as the work to save their world from the Storm.  It features sand based magic and I created a rather extensive mythology for the world.  I've been working on it for about a year and a half now, but I think it's time to shelve this for a bit.

I didn't get anywhere with it.  I kept trying but things kept getting in the way and I found myself restarting it either because I was unhappy with the direction or because I lost all the files.  I was starting to really get to know the characters and the early chapters, but I never got as far as I would have liked.

It's not as unique as it once was and I need to regroup.  This isn't really a bad thing, since it means people are interested in it, but I was seeing things I wanted to do, big plot points in fact, in other books and I need to step back and consider if those things can be changed or whether it will look the same.  For example, the sand magic in my story is pretty similar to the sand magic in Brandon Sanderson's newly released White Sand.  And the world shares a bit with the world in Rebel of the Sands.  Both are fantastic books that I would thoroughly recommend, but they share a little too much with my novel.

I'd rather work on other projects.  I'm hard at work on a small novel called The Queen's Ransom that is going so well, I don't want to have such a massive world like the one in Sand and Storm sitting over my head.  I like keeping it in the back of my mind to tweak with but I don't want to give it all my attention.  I've also been pre-planning for another series, one that has been around much longer than Sand and Storm and returning to it, just to sketch out characters, is like getting in a warm bath after a very long day.  I missed it, and I like how well things are going.

So, for now, Sand and Storm is being pushed to the side.  I made this decision rather unconsciously a few months ago, and already I can tell it's sort of healing the fissures that were in the book.  If I take time away from it and let it figure itself out things will turn out much better.  I have every intention on going back to it (maybe sooner than I originally thought) because the story is important to me.

Writing Corner: When The Story Fixes Itself

You may remember the last Writing Corner post I did where I talked about one of my current WIPs.  Today I'm actually going to talk about another one that I've been working on.  Quick summary:

It's an original fairy tale based that came from the thought process "What is Pokemon existed in real life?" and the story of a dying girl.  It follows Jocelyn and Wylan, who are both plagued by curses cast on them (or their families) by a witch.  They must fulfill the quest of the Kings Ransom in order to finally break their curses.

I call it an original fairy tale because it plays on fairy tale tropes and is set in a world where these things are possible and taken to be fact.  It's a shorter novel, perhaps even a novella, and I'm trying to make it as tight as possible.  As I was writing the first chapter, I stumbled across a little gem of an idea that I didn't even know I was missing.  It was only a line of dialogue, but I realized as I was writing, that it fixed the major problem in the plot.  Not only does it give the King motive to have this quest in the first place, but it makes the ending practically perfect.

I love when this happens naturally as I write.  I'm somewhere between a planner and a pantser, normally sketching out the big ideas and then expanding on them as I go and stumbling into new things.  It's not so rare that characters will change on the page (for the better) but I don't always have this spontaneity with the plot.  When it does happen, it's never been as drastic as this.  But I'm rather pleased with how this changes and betters the story!

For all you writers reading this; has this ever happened to you?

Writing Corner: My WIP

This is a new monthly post I'm going to try out.  It'll be a way for me to check in, tell people about how and what I've been writing, and also hold me somewhat accountable to keep writing.

I've wanted to be a published author since I was much younger, but I've always had trouble finishing stories that I've started.  My friend and I did finish writing a novel one time (though we both agree it's best to leave that one locked away since it's not very good) but on my own it's hard to keep up the momentum.

The project I've been working on, which I've named Sand and Storm (SaS for short), is one that I've been working on for eight months (I originally had the idea in August of 2015).  It's gone through several iterations in its time.  Sand and Storm is a fantasy western where it hasn't rained in hundreds of years (they get their water from oasis'- sources provided by the gods).  The main characters, Will (short for Willow) and Short (a translation of his name), accidentally awaken the goddess of the storm, who has some revenge in mind for the world.  With her they also awake the trickster god, Coyote, who must play an integral part of taking her down.

Here's how I got the idea:

I was lying in bed thinking about how there aren't enough western's in YA literature and decided I should write one.  I quickly realized the amount of research (by that I mean watching and reading westerns, a genre I'm not too fond of) was overwhelming and would take away from the fun experience of actually writing the novel, so I couldn't actually write a western.  It then came to mind that it could be a fantasy world set, pretty clearly, with roots in the stereotypical version of the Old West, with the major differences being the magic system and the pantheon of gods.

I started writing it shortly after this idea came to be and was keeping it on a flash drive.  It was coming along well, though I had the novel starting around where chapter three is located now.  Which was fine, but a little rushed now that I think about it.  Then, my flash drive wiped itself.  All my work was lost.  Forever.

The next day I decided to start over, completely, rather then let it get to me.  But instead of writing, I planned out the first couple of chapters in rather large depth.  And in this planning I decided that it wasn't going to be a YA trilogy anymore, but an adult duet (possibly trilogy).  So I started writing it as if all the plot I had for the first three novels would be built into one.  I also started the novel several chapters ahead of where I start it now with scenes that don't exist anymore (and won't exist, ever again).  I realized quickly that the story was becoming something I didn't want to tell and that I wasn't connecting with the characters at all.  So I scrapped that and started again, with my original plan.

Which was going fine for several chapters, but around chapter ten the plot completely stopped, the motivation was strange, and I was still having a bunch of trouble connecting to one of the main characters.  It was a struggle to write and I had no idea where anything was leading, so I stopped for a month and made a big decision.  I would give the novel one more go before I put in a drawer and worked on another project for some time.

I tried starting chapter one a couple more times, once or twice on my computer, where I quickly realized it just wasn't flowing, and then again handwritten.  This was working for a while, but I was writing during class when I should have been paying attention, and both the novel and the grades were suffering for it.  So, deciding none of these were my official "last go at the novel" I bought myself a writing pad, decided I should give myself two or three days per chapter, and began writing again.

This version, which will be my last Rough Draft before I take a break to focus on something else that might actually flow a bit better (I've never given myself so much dedication to one work before; normally if a problem arises I try to fix it once and if that doesn't work, I go on to something else), is very similar to my original ideas, but has the bonus of all the internal development I've created for the novel from the point of the first version to this one.  I've already written two chapters and a prologue, which amounts to around 12 pages handwritten (or 3k words, which is shorter than I originally wanted, but when I transcribe it to my computer I'm fairly certain it will get much longer).

I hope to keep you guys updated.  Maybe I'll write my next post when I get through about half of the novel.

Thanks for reading!