Perils of the Writer: The Horrors of the Trunked Novels

I like to remind people that getting to the point where I am, with two novels coming out next year with a major publisher, was a journey.  Before I even wrote the first draft of Thorn of Dentonhill, I wrote two other novels.  Two novels which should never see the light of day.

So let's talk about them.

The Fifty Year War was a very bad attempt to emulate something akin to Isaac Asimov's Foundation, where the key events of a multi-generational war is told through a series of novelette-length vignettes.  Because nine 10k-ish novelettes equals one novel, right? 

Except not so much.  Let alone that there isn't so much a "plot" as there is "stuff that happens".  There isn't anything for readers to hook into.  The closest to a "main" character is an officer named Benton who has a key role in three or four of the sections, and then a minor cameo later.  The only other bit of recurring involves the various generations of a soldier family who keep getting killed in key battles.  That was my way of highlighting the toll on the 'average' man in this war: killing off pikemen named Weaver. 

When it comes down to it, Fifty Year War is essentially a chunk of Druth history that I had already worked out, setting the stage for the "real" time I wanted to write in.  So in a lot of ways, it comes off as a prequel to something that didn't exist, filled with the obvious piece-setting that prequels have, but making zero sense to anyone but myself.

So I would fix those mistakes with Crown of Druthal.  There I had a set cast of characters, so the readers would have main people to grab onto.  And I would have them... do... plot-like things? 

Yeah, not quite.

First problem with Crown comes down to the same challenge a lot of fantasy-worldbuilders face: I've made this whole world, and now I'm going to show it ALL TO YOU.  ALL OF IT.  It was literally a travelogue with absolutely no McGuffin to chase from country to country.  The characters were the crew of a diplomatic ship more or less assigned to go on a world tour.  They were to go to each country so I could show you each country.  I totally had a whole multi-book series planned, and by "planned" that meant I knew which countries they would go to.  Which was a huge part of the problem, especially with Crown, the book I actually wrote.  I had to jam a series of events from "stuff that happens in country A" and "stuff that happens in country B" into something that looked like a plot for a single book.  But since I was far more interested in just touring both countries, the plot takes a good long while to get going.

The other problem is the story is loaded with characters who are essentially there to be set decoration.  I had a ship full of people, with different specialties and jobs, and most of them served absolutely no purpose in the story.  I did some logistical contortions to give most of them a toehold in the climax-- so a combination of telepathy, magic and celestial navigation is used to determine where my main character was being held captive, so then the guys with swords could mount a rescue. 

There are bits in Crown that I'm fond of, but it's mired in long sections where characters are more or less hanging out, taking at least half the book before the plot proper actually gets going.  And the plot itself?  Kind of a long way to drive to get a gallon of milk.

But in the process of writing these two trunked novels, I learned plenty about how to write a novel, how to structure character arcs and plots.  So: they're bad, they'll stay in the archives for all time, but they were vital to the process of eventually writing Thorn of Dentonhill and A Murder of Mages. 

Path to Publication, Part VI: Structure and Plan

It's taken this long to get past the "flailing around and talking about writing something and actually writing" phase of things.  But even though I had gotten through the darkest part of this journey (so far), I was far from out of the woods.

As I was finishing Crown, I started to come up with the core ideas that would eventually evolve into Thorn of Dentonhill and Murder of Mages  (as well as Holver Alley Crew and Way of the Shield).  Now, these were especially rough core ideas.  A sense of the characters, and what kind of stories they would be.  I had now figured out that I needed an outline to break a story down before I got started with really writing it.  So my next step was figuring out how to properly outline a whole novel.

Frankly, a lot of advice out there on the subject is not a big help.  I've railed on the flaw in "three act structure" before, and will do so again, but core of it is "Act Two" is usually left to "rising action", which tends to boil down to "more stuff happens" and it's not particularly helpful. 

So I got to work, instead of looking for advice on outlines or analysis of stories*, analyzing stories myself and figuring out how they were structured, and applying that to developing a structure for myself.  I used novels, of course, but also TV series and comic books.  These two were actually quite useful in thinking about how to keep hooks in an audience, how to use episodic events in service of a greater story. 

And with that, I designed my Twelve-Part Outline Structure**. And from that, I was able to put together a rough draft of Thorn of Dentonhill. 



IF I HAD SELF-PUBLISHED AT THIS POINT: I had a "cleaned up" version of Crown by now, and still hadn't given up on it.  It would have been a better thing to self publish than the one from a year before, but still not good.  And the version of Thorn that I had at that point was a long way off from the version that was sold.  For one, it was easily a third shorter, as the "novel length" target I was going for was just too short.

BUT DID I LEARN ANYTHING BY NOW?:  Plot structure, finally.  Thorn wasn't ready, but it actually was a story, as opposed to "hanging out with some characters while stuff happens."  And I had used that knowledge, that structure, to plan out Murder, Holver Alley and Way of the Shield as well.


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*- Here's the problem I've found with using story analysis-- like the Hero's Journey, for example-- as an outline structure: they tend to skip the step of converting the tools of analysis into a tool of structure building.  As a simile: it's as if an architect, instead of studying other buildings as a process of learning how to draw blueprints, decides that simply using photographs of buildings is an acceptable substitute for blueprints.  The tools for analysis are not the tools for construction.
**- Structure.  NOT "FORMULA".  Crucial distinction.

Path to Publication, Part V: Crash and Epiphany

By 2007, I had attended the ArmadilloCon Writers' Workshop twice.   I have my "finished" novel The Fifty Year War, and a handful of fits and starts, including Crown of Druthal, which had been moving forward with a snail-like pace.

Because I wasn't working with diligence.  Hell, there were many days in which even the act of opening the Word document was more than I could manage.

I was miserable.

I won't go so far as to say I was clinically or chemically depressed.  I don't think I was, in any sort of official diagnosis.  But I was unhappy, mostly with the fact that I was working a job that felt utterly pointless, and couldn't muster up the energy to do something more pointy with myself.

I had to make a change.

I made some investigations about changing jobs, but I began to realize that was really just trying to put a band-aid over a gaping chest wound.  Something more radical needed to be done, and I had to really interrogate myself of what I wanted and what I was going to do to make it happen. 

So I quit the job.

Radical.  And fortunately I have a wife who, after her initial shock, was very supportive of working out a new plan. You know how most acknowledgements in books thank their spouses?  Truth to the infinite power in my case. She backed me then and continues to back me out of a faith that this was something I really could do. But part of that meant I had to stop being a dilettante about the idea of writing and treat it like real work that I was striving to be better at. 

This involved really starting to investigate how I wrote.  I realized I couldn't just sit and jot out whatever came to mind and see where it went.  That might work for some writers, and if it does for you, great, but it definitely does not work for me.  So I sat down and really worked out the outline of where Crown of Druthal was supposed to go. 

My last day of work at that job was August 2nd, 2007.  The rough draft of Crown was finished by the end of that month. 

And it was a hot mess, of course, but I was fired up now.  I was going to clean it up and sell this, no matter what.

You notice how my announced sale is not for Crown of Druthal?  And how that was almost seven years ago?  Yeah, this is a story of patience, persistence and self-awareness.

Crown of Druthal has some really good bits to it.  It shows a certain degree of burgeoning talent that, in the John-Campbell-at-Astounding era of SF writing, might have found a mentor figure to shepherd it-- or me as a writer-- to the next level. 

I did do my research on agents and publishers, and despite it not being ready (which I didn't realize at the time), I started querying Crown.  My query letter was probably as not-ready, as I didn't get a single response.

But I was fired up, and not about to stop.  Because already at this point, I had realized I needed to think long game.  I needed to think with breadth.

IF I HAD SELF-PUBLISHED AT THIS POINT:  I would have put Crown directly to market.  I was even tempted, looking at services like Lulu or Xlibris.  And given that the responses of both my query attempts at the beta-readers I sought were so tepid, it's best that I did nothing of the sort.  Crown has some good bits, but it's mostly a plotless meander, a travelogue novel where what happens is dictated by where I wanted to take the characters on their tour of the worldbuilding work I did.  A self-published Crown of Druthal would have been a disaster, and I'm glad I trusted those voices (internal and external) that told me not to do it.

BUT DID I LEARN ANYTHING BY NOW?: I was finally getting a handle on how I wrote.  I had dropped any romantic notions of "just sit and write and see where it takes me."  It took me nowhere.  I learned that I needed to come up with an outline, and more than that, started to get the idea that a novel structure with a plot was crucial to writing something dynamic.

Path to Publication, Part IV: Further Flailing And False Starts

All right, so, NaNo 2003 proved one thing: I can finish a novel, right?  So I'm all set and can just charge forth with this novel-writing thing.  Right?

Yeah, not so much.  The next few years were dire.

I attempted to throw a lot of stuff at the wall, and have a handful of failed manuscript beginnings based on that. A big manuscript graveyard. There was, for example, Long Night of the Pieman, a non-genre attempt to turn my experiences as a late-night pizza delivery guy into a kind of shaggy-dog novel.  Because, I mean, I have stories from those nights, and that would totally work as a novel.  Right?

Never quite came together. Attempting that as a NaNo was a failure as well.

So I also decided to really move forward with the fantasy stuff.  I had Fifty Year War after all, right?  So I kept editing that, and then reworked that diplomatic-outpost idea to a traveling ship.   Some of the same characters, but I was so pleased with myself because I was making them active, having them go places instead of having stuff happen in their orbit.  This was the real start of Crown of Druthal. 

But yet it wasn't coming together.

So I tried to force myself, this time with my Space Opera idea.  I set up a website (that doesn't exist anymore, and was so off-road in terms of traffic, I doubt it was even archived), with the idea that every week I would post up 3,000-5,000 words worth of a serialized USS Banshee.  After all, if I'm doing that, and there's an audience expecting it, I can't let them down, can I?

Of course, the audience never came, and that was a hot mess of a story.  Those two things are likely connected.

Then in 2005 I went to the ArmadilloCon Writers' Workshop, using the first chapter of Crown as my submission.

Friends, I was so damn cocky about that first chapter.  I honestly felt I would go in and get solid notes, but essentially praise, thumbs up, and pats on the back.  That is not what happened.  AT ALL.

And it totally deserved that.  Because it was a mess.  My writing was a mess, flat out.  I needed to get it together.

IF I HAD SELF-PUBLISHED AT THIS POINT:  Well, in a way, I kind of did try with the USS Banshee project.  I mean, I just put it out there, no gatekeepers, and let the people find it, with word of mouth and stuff?  Right?  Yeah, except it was a mess.  No one found it, or if they did, they certainly didn't talk about it.  And why would they?  The most charitable thing you could say about it was that it was a charming hang-out story with a handful of lower-deck characters on a starship, and the only thing that separate it from being mediocre Star Trek fanfiction was that it wasn't actually set in the Trek universe.  So there you have it: mediocre fanfiction of a setting no one else knew but me.  Yeah. 

BUT DID I LEARN ANYTHING BY NOW?:  Yes.  Characters at the center.  For better or worse, with both Banshee and Crown, I had gotten the core idea of coming up with having characters to anchor the story, and writing unique voices for those characters.  I still hadn't come up with things for them to do, or refrained from pointless worldbuilding or historical tangents.  For real, that first chapter I brought to the workshop?  In less than 5,000 words, I not only had extraneous paragraphs about wine or mustard, there is a nearly 2,000 word side-story about how and why the main character's uncle was elected to Parliament.  An Uncle who, I should point out, wasn't going to appear in the story beyond that first chapter of putting the main character on the ship.  So, with the workshop, I was starting to get the idea that not every bit of backstory needed to be told.

Path to Publication, Part II: Early Days Of Writing Garbage

So, way back in 2000, I was talking a certain amount of talk about the idea of writing novels, and had a number of little snippets of stories.  Fits and starts.  I also had the starts of worldbuilding-- more broad brushstrokes stuff than real details.  A world with a handful of nations that could mostly be described with a couple of sentences.  But I certainly didn't have anything concrete that I could consider real writing work, or even anything that was properly on its way to being real something acceptably novel-like.

And then came the strange offer.

Through a friend-of-a-friend, I was brought into a project involving a fledgling gaming company.  They were gearing up to release a new RPG system, and a series of rulebooks to go along with it.  The game was supposed to be a sort of universal-system, usable in any fantasy setting, but they wanted there to be a "house setting" that they could present, and the worldbuilding I had done was the setting they wanted.  And they wanted some tie-in novels to support the setting.

I really was not ready for this.

For one, I needed to get the worldbuilding to a level that was sufficiently organized and comprehensible to someone who wasn't me.  For another, I needed to have something that could at least be a start to these tie-in novels that they wanted.

Except, of course, part of the problem was they weren't really sure what they wanted.  I'm not in any way going to say that I was writing great stuff that they ought to have run with... but they were never able to articulate what it was they were looking for.  I never even quite got a straight answer of whether they really wanted novels or something else. 

What I did know is that they had 100 ISBNs.  I'm not sure if anything ever came about.  The project didn't so much fall apart as peter out.  I don't even know what happened to the people behind it.   Communication just stopped after a certain point, and nothing more came of it.


As part of the process of this, I ended up with the beginning of something, a beginning that was for all intents a travelogue-in-discussion.  Really.  While things happened, what happened was more or less a thing excuse for the main characters to be able to discuss each nation in the world in broad brushstrokes.  While it was very rough, a lot of what was in this bit were the beginning seeds of what would eventually become the (deservedly trunked) Crown of Druthal.  But that was a long way off.

The only other thing I had done of substance was about six chapters of a thing I was calling A Convergence of Angels on the I-35, which was more or less a sort-of-urban-fantasy-by-way-of-Tom-Robbins. 

IF I HAD SELF-PUBLISHED AT THIS POINT:  The big question behind that would have been what, exactly?  Now, it wasn't so much an option in the way it is now... but if it had been, I might have convinced myself that the travelogueish start was the first entry in something to be serialized.  But really it was an amateurish mess with snippets of amusing dialogue.  It would have, deservedly, gone nowhere.

BUT DID I LEARN ANYTHING BY NOW?: I might argue that I was starting to get an idea of dialogue, and differentiating characters with that.  I was starting to get an idea of what the scope of writing a novel might entail, much like a guy who ran a little track in high school would start to understand there was more to running a marathon than "keep running until it's 26 miles". 

Perils of the Writer: Fanfic of Yourself

I was thinking about one of my trunked projects, Crown of Druthal, as well as the process of novel midwifery that has brought Banshee to the point where it is now (i.e., a rough draft in progress that I feel relatively good about). 

And I came to realize that the problems with Crown and the earlier versions of Banshee (which bear almost no resemblance to the current project) was that neither one was really a story.  Sure, they had characters, they had setting, they had events happening... but neither one added up to a cohesive whole.

I was essentially writing a fun time hanging out with characters I liked in a setting I liked, and not doing much but enjoying doing that.

And that, dear readers, is essentially what fanfic is.

Mind you, I'm not saying fanfic is bad-- if you enjoy doing it, have at it.  But you are quite limited in what you can do with it once you've written it.  You can, essentially, share it with the fan community, and the degree that it can be enjoyed is based on the size of that fandom.  No one who isn't already a fan is going to care in the slightest.

So if you're writing fanfic of a thing that only exists in your head, how many fans are out there?

Just you.

So, if you find yourself caught in that rut, how do you break out of it? 

For me, it was a process of figuring out an actual story, tied to a central character (or characters).  The central character came first, of course, but then figuring out what their story was brought in secondary characters as needed. 

And that was a key place where I had gone wrong with Crown and early versions of Banshee.  In both cases, I had come up with a wide, sprawling cast.  Both involved ships (one at sea, one in space), so I had worked out who ALL the key people on the ship were, what their jobs were, how they all related to each other... but that had nothing to with any specific story.  They were just there, giving me a deep bench of characters to pull from in any given situation, without any organic reason to have them all. 

And in the long run, that won't give you a compelling story that will hook anyone who isn't you.

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A small plug for fellow agency-brother.  Glynn Stewart's Starship Mage series has launched on e-books.  The first one just came out, and the next one is due in March of 2014.  Go check it out!

Worldbuilding/Perils of the Writer: One-Story Worlds vs. Many-Story Worlds

There are pretty much two ways a sf/fantasy writer can go about writing and worldbuilding: come up with a story, and build a world for it to be in; or build a world, and come up with stories to put in it.

One way to think of this is the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek.  The Star Wars universe is really only about telling one story: the rise and fall of the Empire, and the concurrent fall and rise of the Jedi.  I would argue that part of the problem with the Star Wars prequels is all they do-- all they really can do-- is set up the board for the story the universe has been built to tell. Star Trek, on the other hand built its universe out of telling many different stories, and has the ability to telling many, many different kinds of stories.  Of course, with the Star Trek universe, you've got a lot of patchwork worldbuilding, held together by spackle, baling wire and wishful thinking. 

There's no right or wrong in this, mind you.  Like plotting/pantsing, whichever method works best for your own particular style is the right way to go.  However, both methods have their challenges.

Personally, I'm a Method Two guy: I start with crafting and detailing the world, and the process of doing that opens up the avenues for stories.  The challenge behind that is narrowing things down to figure out what, actually, you need to write in that world.  With a whole wide world of grand and epic scope, you want to treat the whole thing like an enormous brood of children.  No one gets neglected.  So a world that has the potential for many, many stories might not yield any stories, because no singular story you write can be as grand and far-reaching as the worldbuilding work you've done. 

This was exactly my problem with my trunked project Crown of Druthal.  It was nothing but a travelogue, going from place to place with no through-plot and little purpose.  And why was that?  Because I had made EVERYWHERE and therefore I had to go EVERYWHERE.  It wasn't until after realizing the flaws with that mindset that I was able to narrow my focus to one city, and let the rest of the world only brush up to it, as the rest of the world would in a cosmopolitan city.  I had a similar problem in the space opera setting for Banshee-- I had defined so much, I had to force myself to narrow the focus of what the story actually was going to be. 

So why not do it the other way, and build the world to suit your story?  Of course you can, like I said, nothing wrong with that.   The challenge there comes from when you need or want to do more beyond that story.  I've mentioned this before with David Eddings.  Everything in The Belgariad was set up to tell that story, as the ultimate, saving-the-world, fulfill-the-prophecy, make-everything-right story.  And then a sequel series was asked for.  So they had to undercut The Belgariad by essentially saying, "Yeah, that was the dress rehearsal.  Here's the REAL event." Of course, building the world to fit the story you've come up with doesn't have to have this problem.  Sometimes doing it that way can open all sorts of avenues to new stories that you hadn't imagined to begin with.

Perils of the Writer: The Importance of the Trunk Novel, and Recognizing it for What It Is.

I know a lot of people, if the reviews on Amazon are to be taken as a valuable sample, found David Eddings's The Rivan Codex a waste of time, but for me it was a vital and rare look under the hood of a writer's process.  One thing he said stands out:

"Write one million words.  Then throw it away.  Now you're ready to start actually writing."*

That one million words, almost without fail, boils down to a trunk novel or two. Or more.  So what is a trunk novel?

It's a novel you write that's never going to see the light of day.

This isn't an easy thing to do.  Writing a novel is a heart-and-soul exercise.  No one writes a novel with the intention of sticking it in a drawer and not selling it.  Why would anyone do that? 

Of course, you never write a trunk novel as a trunk novel.  When I wrote Fifty Year War, I had every intention, every belief that this was going to be the real deal.  Which it wasn't.  And then when I wrote Crown of Druthal-- spend YEARS on Crown, to be honest-- THEN I really thought THAT was going to be it.

Both works were messes in their own way, and it took me a while to see that.  But at what point do you say, "You know, this isn't working, this isn't going to work, and I need to move on."

When do you decide that you aren't going to fight the good fight anymore, because that fight isn't the "good fight"? 

For me, it was the realization that I wasn't really writing a proper novel.  Both were, essentially, worldbulding exercises in novel-like form (history and travelogue, respectively).  They weren't stories at all, so much as excuses for me to say, "This is the world I made, let me share it with you."

Once I realized that these works were inherently unpublishable, that they were fatally flawed at the core... I knew it was time to put them in the trunk.  I'm glad I wrote them, I don't consider the time invested in that as "wasted".  But it is work that isn't going anywhere besides my archives.  And that's really a good thing.  For everyone.



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*- This is not an exact quote because my copy is high up on one of my shelves and I'm 

The Long Journey of the Writer

My thirties are coming to a close, officially this Sunday.  So, needless to say, I'm getting a little introspective.  But when I think about what my thirties were to me, in the big picture, it was about the process of becoming a novelist.

I mean, I had been writing before that, of course.  In my twenties I had written a few plays, and made several false starts on novels, done a lot of worldbuilding work... but it was all still just dabbling.

So, we come to 2003.  Oddly enough, what flipped the switch in 2003 was NaNoWriMo.  Now, as I've said before, NaNoWriMo is a great way to learn how to write a novel, but it's not a good way to get a novel written.  NaNoWriMo, is, in essence, your Trunk Novel Workshop.  And for me, in 2003, it was Fifty Year War.  Of course, I didn't realize that at the time.  One never realizes they're writing a trunk novel when they're writing it. 

I "finished" Fifty Year War by the end of 2003, if you can call a 57,000 word plotless meander with no protagonist a finished novel.  I kept working on drafts of it, trying to send it out, somewhat clueless to its pointlessness.  Then in 2004 I tried another novel- a non-genre one called Long Night of the Pieman.  This didn't really come together at all. 

In 2005 I tried my first (failed) attempt at USS Banshee, which was a mess.  Mostly because this attempt to write it was semi-public, in that I was posting 3-5K chunks online every week, like it was a serial.  While that worked nicely on a motivational level, it again was a failure in terms of actually writing something good.  Over the years, I've kept coming back to that space-opera verse, trying to find the story... and I think I finally have.  But, along the way, everything except the main character and, tangentially, the name of the ship has been scuttled.  It's a completely different story than the first one I was doing.  And that's good, because again: plotless meander.

Also in 2005 I took my first shot at Crown of Druthal, which was, I was convinced at the time, going to be the Real Deal.    I even took the fist chapter of Crown to the ArmadilloCon Writers Workshop, my first time attending it.  It was shredded.  At the time, I was all, "What do these people know?", thinking they were fools.  In retrospect, they were right on the money, but I wasn't in a place to hear that at the time.

2006 didn't see much progress in any of these projects-- all of them, as well as a few other vague ideas, didn't ever coalesce into anything.  Frankly, it was a terrible year for me as a writer.  Nothing was coming together.  Not coincidentally, my day job at the time utterly depressed me, and my health and weight were probably at the worst in my life.

In 2007, I turned that around: I left that job, dropped 35 pounds, and put my nose to the grindstone, finishing the draft of Crown.  I also came up with the initial ideas that would evolve into Thorn of Dentonhill, Holver Alley Crew, Maradaine Constabulary and Way of the Shield. 

In 2008, I worked on a new draft of Crown, and started attending SlugTribe meetings, bringing chapters of Crown with me.  I also wrote the first draft of Thorn, the first chapter of which I brought to ArmadilloCon.  This was the year when things started coming together.

In '09, I rewrote Thorn and wrote the first draft of Holver Alley.  I also started shopping Thorn to agents.  Now, one thing to note: this draft of Thorn was 70,000 words long.  I didn't think this was a problem, though most of my queries were getting form rejected or ignored.

But then there was one, at the end of the year-- an agent who said, in essence: I love this, but I can't sell it at this length.  Rewrite it to 90K and get back to me.

So 2010 was, in no small part, about adding 20,000 words to a novel that was already pretty tight, as well as cleaning up Holver Alley to a respectable draft.  I also wrote My Name Is Avenger Girl, which I sold to Paige Ewing's The Protectors, as well as selling my piece to the Hint Fiction anthology.  I also started the rough draft of Maradaine Constabulary.

In 2011, that same agent who advised me on Thorn loved the re-write, and agreed to represent me.  I then sent him Holver Alley as well, while getting the rough draft of Constabulary finished. I also started being on the Teacher's side of the ArmadilloCon Writers' Workshop.

Bringing us to last year.  Finished Constabulary and send it to the agent.  Started the rough draft of Way of the Shield.  Did another round of re-writes on Thorn, Holver Alley and Constabulary by my agent's request, which also helped me strengthen the worldbuilding ties between them all.  Wrote and sold Jump the Black to Rayguns Over Texas.  OK, technically, the Rayguns sale came in on January 1st.  Making a great start to 2013.

So where will 2013-- and with it my forties-- take me?  With three novels out there shopping, and a fourth one (and fifth, really) in process... I hopeful that this year will be a Big Year for me as a writer. 

Cross your fingers.

Holiday Special Worldbuilding: Religious Texts

Given that it's Christmas eve, I'm not devoting a lot of time to today's blog.  I'm sure you understand.  But I was thinking about religious texts, and how they inform the world one builds.   Now, "inform" is a key thing.  They are a great supplement to what you write.  It's probably not a great idea to actually include it in one's work.

I hadn't actually written out any significant religious texts for Druthal.  The Druth Bible, as it were (The Books of Saints and their Deeds) is mostly a collection of saintly stories, fables and parables, collected from all over Druthal.  In some ways, it has as much in common with the works of the Brothers Grimm as the Christian Bible.

Now, the Acserians, to the south of Druthal, are a lot more codified and rigorous in their religious texts.  Their bible, the Acseram, is a more classical religious text.  Back when Crown of Druthal was a thing I was working on, I wrote this bit from the Acseram: The Book of Nalesta, Chapters 1-6:
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1               Here is the life, as I have come to understand it, of the Great Prophet of God. I have known the man, his words, his thoughts, the touch of his hand, for I am Nalesta, born in Heniza to Traalen and Yienna, and I served at his arm as a disciple to his teachings. I know not how the Great Prophet knew God, but I knew God through him, and his light and his word and his greatness will shine on the world like the sun through me.

2               The Great Prophet was born by the name of Acser, which he humbly kept through his days, in the city of Poriteiza, to a family that had been privileged with the favor of the Kierans. His father was Icseien, who was the son of Telees. Acser grew knowing little but comfort, no worries of hunger, no worries of poverty, no worries of violence, no worries of ignorance. He was friendly with Kieran and Futralian, and greeted all with an open hand of warmth.

3               One day in his sixteenth year, the Great Prophet took his boat onto the lake, since he did love little more than to take his day fishing. This day he did so without friend or manservant. This day his line was pulled by a fish stronger and mightier than he had ever known. This day, he was pulled from his boat under the water. His man on the shore saw him go under the water, and swam to save him. He was pulled to shore, but he breathed not, and his head was bloodied. The servant wailed and cried at the death of his master.

4               A beautiful hawk flew down from the sky, and landed on the chest of The Great Prophet, and in moments he again drew breath. He was confused, but joyous. He had died and seen the face of God. He had heard His words in his heart. He kissed his man, telling him he would return, and walked to the east, to the high mountains. The bird stayed on his shoulder.

5               Five years later, he came back down. He returned to the city of his birth, now a man. At his arm was his first disciple, the dark traveler who had wandered from the far east, far beyond Mahabassa, far beyond the seas, who was known as Hiedrovik. On his shoulder was the bird, proud and noble. The Great Prophet first went to the Kieran Stronghold, and demanded to be let into the prison there. It was in a cell, chained to a wall, that his old servant was found, imprisoned for all believed he had drowned his master years before. “Walk free, good friend,” The Great Prophet told him, “And serve no man, for you are now given to God, and He declares that your suffering must now end. And so did this servant, Zanik, find himself free and at The Great Prophet’s arm as his second disciple.

6               He spoke in the streets of the Word of God. “We are all His Spirit. Our Souls are the very essence of God. They are pure fragments of his will, poured into our flesh, gifts of his love for us.” In the streets, he was asked, “Is this all men, and all women, be they Futran or Kieran or Mahaban or Kindric?” And the Great Prophet said that God touches us all, every man and woman. In the streets, he was asked, “If we are all the essence of God, then why are some men wicked?” “The flesh of the body is of the earth, and like the clay we built with, it sometimes can crack, it sometimes can break,” said The Great Prophet, “God did pour our souls in our flawed bodies, for it was no test of our goodness were there not the possibility of temptation, unless we can fail. He knows of this, that we can be wicked, so it is all the more great when we are holy and pure.”

---

Happy holidays, one and all.  

The Plotless Meander

"Celeste And Jesse’s script... is shapeless and witless, aiming for an offhandedness in the interactions that instead comes off as contrived, or sometimes just bland" - AV Club review of Celeste And Jesse

 I'm not specifically going to knock on Celeste and Jesse-- I haven't seen it, and I really have no opinion on it.  But the above quote does hit right on the sweet spot of my major complaint with a lot of "independent" film, as well as some of the slush novels and plays I've had the displeasure of reading. 

Namely, the tendency to eschew plot structure in favor of a characterization heavy, plotless meander.  Three Acts are replaced with Zero Acts.  In a novel, this sort of writing is downright excruciating, at least to me.
 

Now, this can work a bit better on stage or screen, or in short story format.  But, frankly, that relies on the character coming through as being so compelling that you don't really care that nothing much actually happens.  Frankly, on stage or screen, you have a charismatic actor doing the heavy lifting.  In prose of any length, it would rely on the writer's skills... and if they aren't doing plot work, then their character and mood work might not be all that strong either.

Not that I'm not guilty of it myself. Lord knows that the (mercifully trunked) Crown of Druthal was more about characters that I thought were fun to hang around with, and therefore it was worth sailing around on a ship and going to places and having them talk about history and language and NO PLOT REALLY HAPPENS.  Well, a plot happens, but it takes a SERIOUS back seat to character and worldbuilding meander.  Frankly, I decided first the route I wanted the characters to travel, and then threaded a weak plot to match that route.  Not compelling writing.   My several failed attempts at space opera (namely, USS Banshee) suffers from the same problem.

So I have to ask, what is the compulsion to write this sort of thing?  Is it that we come up with characters and settings that, frankly, we geek out about (again, going back to the "fandom of one" problem) so much that the fact we don't really have a story to tell doesn't dissuade us?

Digging through the archives

I'm trying to figure out, going through my old files, exactly what happened on September 18th, 2005.

I say this because it appears to be a significant date, as of my old worldbuilding files and notes, MANY of them were last modified on September 18th, 2005.  So why was that the last time I touched them?  Near as I can gather and recall, that was around the time I got rid of my old desktop, so I probably transferred/saved a bunch of stuff onto my flashdrive.  And while I've kept and shuffled those files around between computers since, I've not really touched them. 

Most of this stuff is worldbuilding files of various other nations and cultures in the same world as Druthal.  I wrote up a lot of those documents (using a "National Document" format, the origins of which lost to memory) with my old worldbuilding/writing partner (who I still consult & confer with, even though he doesn't do any fiction writing anymore), mostly between 2000 and 2003.  Some of them are incomplete.  And most haven't been touched since Sept. 18th, 2005.

The truth is, they would all need massive levels of overhaul.  For one, I'm not particularly fond of the "National Document" format, and I would need to come up with a new template that's more to my liking.  Second, much of the actual writing-- on a craft and sentence structure level-- I find somewhat embarrassing.  Third, and most important, there's a lot of stuff in all that I don't necessarily agree with anymore. 

Some of it is due to being more knowledgeable now. I've done a lot of reading and research since writing those, and knowing that I have stuff in there that's just plain wrong.  Other parts I just don't like, too simplistic, or the broad brushstrokes are a little too broad.  (I'm looking at one right now that I really don't remember a lot of it, but I don't care for it.)

But the only nation in which I've done modern, up-to-date work on is Druthal.  Two other nations (Acseria and Imachan) I had some more recent work (dated in 2007)-- but that was because I was working on Crown of Druthal in 2007 (that was when I finished the rough draft), and it's set primarily in those two nations. 

Since then, I narrowed my focus to Druthal, and specifically the city of Maradaine, which was a major factor in improving what I was writing.  I was trying, since I had done an entire world's worth of building to showcase THE ENTIRE WORLD.  I mean, that was the underlying concept of the Crown of Druthal series-- they would travel around the world and stop in every country.  Because I made it so I MUST SHOW IT ALL.

I've gotten that out of my system since then. 


At some point, I would like to go back through it all.  Especially since I've made far more specific maps since then.  But that's not a project I'm going to get to any time soon.

It's Thursday already?

Since 2011 is almost over, time for an update on State of the Writer.

From my last update:

• Thorn of Dentonhill (Book 1 of Veranix series): Shopping.  I know it's at a few publishing houses right now. 
  
• Holver Alley Crew (Book 1 of Holver Alley Crew series): A new finished, polished draft, based on notes from the agent.  I'll be sending that to him, plus synopses for potential second and third, in the near future.  
• Maradaine Constabulary (Book 1 of Maradaine Constabulary series): Working hard on the second draft, which includes a significant change in one of the two main character's living/family situation.  I've decided if Minox comes from a long line of Constabulary men, then he needs a sizable amount of family who are either in or somehow adjacent to the city constabulary.  That includes tweaking an existing character to now being his cousin.
• From Star to Star (Book 1 of Banshee series): As said before, I scrapped my old "USS Banshee" concept to something a bit stranger, and I like it, but I'm still in the plotting/outlining/worldbuilding phase of things.
• The Way of the Shield (Book 1 of Vanguard series): I still have a full outline, and I've done some more detail work, and some initial writing.  I've hashed out the problems with the main character that were eluding me, so once I finish the aforementioned Maradaine Constabulary rewrites (mid-January, allergies willing), I'll be off to the races there.

Now, what else is there? All the previously mentioned scraps and ideas are still out there (Starstruck, Zodiac 13, Untitled YA Project), plus another high-fantasy big-picture idea that I'm only beginning the worldbuilding on, and the Untitled Steampunk/Spaceopera/Can'tDecide Project.  And, of course, Crown of Druthal is in the trunk.  Don't think it'll ever come out.

Worldbuilding: Constructed languages

I have to be honest, this is an area of Worldbuilding that I don't have the patience for.  I mean that on a personal level; I don't have the patience to do it.  I think it's really cool when done well.  But that's not going to be me, unfortunately. 

I say unfortunately, because on some level, I wish I did have that kind of patience.  I think, when it is done correctly, it adds an incredible amount of flavor and character to one's world.  I have some sense of linguistics and the rules one should follow to make a new language. My main character in Crown of Druthal (now trunked) was a linguist. And, after all, I am married to a polyglot. But even though I can totally get lost in mapmaking or history writing, trying to crack the spine of a new language can't keep my attention. 

 I do try and at least work out the broad brushstrokes of a culture's language, though.  If they use alphabetic characters or pictographs.  How sentences are structured.  Words that represent unique or key cultural ideas. 

(And I remain a big believer that one should never make up words when a perfectly good word already exists.)

I do like coming up with cultural quirks that are expressed through language and grammar. I came up with all sorts of craziness for the Poasian language.  Verb conjugation diesn't just have first, second and third person, singular and plural.  Second person is split into three different categories, dependent upon the relative social rank of the speaker and the person being spoken to.  Third person is also split the same way, with an additional split depending on if the person is present or not.  (Which creates a marvelous way for a high-ranked Poasian to dress down an underling-- instead of speaking to him using second-person-inferior, they could use third-person-inferior-absent.  In essence saying, "I think so little of you I will pretend you aren't even in the room." just by using a different conjugation of the verb.)

But the actual nuts and bolts of vocabulary?  Can't do it.  I have tons of respect for those who can do it.  
Anyone out there know any good constructed languages work?  I'd love to check it out.

State of the Writing

Back in September I listed where I was with each of the six first-in-a-potential series, and I think it's high time to take another look at it.
Here's what I wrote at the time, followed by updates on each project.

• Crown of Druthal (Book 1 of Crown of Druthal series):Finished third draft, though aspects of it need rewriting. (APRIL UPDATE: Still on Third Draft, I haven't really made any changes on this book.  However, I am now more aware that the whole thing needs serious rewriting.  As of right now, it's a little too light on plot, and too much meandering. Also, I think there's a lot more going on in my head then ends up on the page, as it were.  Part of the problem is the plot is determined by the geography, making the whole thing far too much of a travelogue.  Stuff happens to the characters, instead of them taking action.  At least for a lot of it.  But I have to admit, reworking this one is not my priority right now.)
• Thorn of Dentonhill (Book 1 of Veranix series): Finished third draft. Currently shopping to agents. (APRIL UPDATE: Now I have a fourth draft, which is currently in an specific agent's hands exclusively.  If that agent passes, then I'll start a blitz of querying with this draft, which has a significantly different word count from the third draft.)    
• The Fire Gig (Book 1 of Holver Alley Crew series): Rough draft 95% done. Anticipate finishing by next week. (APRIL UPDATE: First draft done, working on second draft.  I've outlined points of expansion and plot-points that need cleaning up, most notably a big POV cheat that needs to be fixed.  I've figured out how to fix that and make the whole conclusion work smoother, I just haven't gotten it written yet.)
• From Star to Star (Book 1 of USS Banshee series): Awful, unoutlined, half-finished draft tossed. New outline written. (APRIL UPDATE: Started a new draft, which I like a lot better, but aspects still aren't coming together.  Done more worldbuilding in an effort to figure things out, and it's coming clearer.  Plus I'm talking with someone about making this project into a more collaborative effort-- an idea I've always thought about for this "universe".)
• Between Them and Harm (Book 1 of Vanguard series):Full outline written.  (APRIL UPDATE: I've hashed out a bit more of outline details, but no major change on this one.)
• The Mage Murders (Book 1 of Maradaine Constabulary series): Full outline written. (APRIL UPDATE: Rough draft about 40-50% done.  I'm generally pleased with how it's going.  Hope to push the momentum and finish the rough draft by the end of May.)

So that's where I am right now. Plus I'm working on a short story for an anthology.  That and Mage Murders are the two things taking the brunt of my focus currently.  Once I get those out of my system (hopefully end of May), then I'll finish the 2nd Draft of Holver Alley Crew.  

The next step...

Now I have my rough draft of Holver Alley Crew done, the question is What Next?

Of course, I will keep shopping Thorn of Dentonhill, and putting Crown of Druthal through the workshop process...

But the big thing is to start work on one of the three rough drafts of new projects: Maradaine Constublary, Vanguard and USS Banshee. Have to decide which is going next.

Laying out the plans

One thing I’m not lacking for is ideas. As I’ve mentioned before, I am an outliner. That doesn’t just apply to a single book, it also applies to the Big Picture. I’ve sketched out a rough outline of what I want to write, what I want to accomplish, of all the ideas I’ve got a solid plan for.

It’s a lot.

If I reached the prolific speed of a novel every three months (a goal which I do think is achievable, I should say), then I would be finished writing them all by… Autumn of 2031.

Wow, that’s sobering to write out that way.

While long-term goals are important, I need to work the short-term goals far more. And, fortunately, the short-term goals line up with the long-term goals.

The long-term goals involve, essentially, six potential series (there’s that scary word again.) The short-term goals involve writing those first standalone books of each series. And with those first books, kick my foot into the door with every ounce of persistence I can muster until I have an agent and have a book in print.

Here’s where I currently stand on each book*:

• Crown of Druthal (Book 1 of Crown of Druthal series): Finished third draft, though aspects of it need rewriting.
• Thorn of Dentonhill (Book 1 of Veranix series): Finished third draft. Currently shopping to agents.
• The Fire Gig (Book 1 of Holver Alley Crew series): Rough draft 95% done. Anticipate finishing by next week.
• From Star to Star (Book 1 of USS Banshee series): Awful, unoutlined, half-finished draft tossed. New outline written.
• Between Them and Harm (Book 1 of Vanguard series): Full outline written.
• The Mage Murders (Book 1 of Maradaine Constabulary series): Full outline written.

*- Of course, the title of each respective book is a work-in-progress placeholder. I keep changing said titles all the time.