Less than a week until the start of Camp NaNoWriMo. I am super excited everyone. Time keeps on ticking by and I'm trying to keep myself occupied by reading books so I don't try to start writing early. Though Camp is a bit more flexible and it actually allowed to continue working on an earlier project, I'm really trying to follow basic NaNo rules this time, which means no work on Project Death: Redemption until April 1st.
I guess speaking of time, it is important to discuss continuity, especially when dealing with a series with a rotating cast of characters.
It was interesting enough for me to work on the second book in my series, because it is both prequel and sequel at the same time. The story continues right where it left off from book one, just from a different POV. But Thanos is also recounting the story of how he became Death. That was made much easier by having flashbacks, rather than just having him do extremely lengthy monologues.
What gets really fun is that when I reached the epilogue for book two, the timeline jumped forward by about two months. Thanos does a quick recap of what has happened with him and Tamesis, but there are so many other characters who have done other stuff he doesn't know about.
Remember in my prep post a few weeks ago when I talked about thinking on the beginning of Redemption and how I had tried a few different options but wasn't really liking any of them? Well, I think I figured it out. At work I mused on the idea and a possible first line came to me, which then led to me thinking about exactly how the first chapter would pan out.
The problem with my first chapter idea is that most of it takes place in Julianne's head. There is no real character interaction...unless I slightly bumped up my timeline to bring in some people. And when I thought of that, I could picture a conversation between Damir and Sitara, which led me to a continuity issue with certain events in the second book.
I guess that means that the beginning of this third book starts in the middle of the second book. In edits, I'm sure that will be a bit more interesting. I'll have to make sure that events happen in the right order and that it all sounds plausible in the timeline I have to work with.
Certainly it is doable, but boy does it make thinking about the story line a bit more convoluted.
This is what I'm thinking about now, but really, I just want to focus on getting as much of the first draft written in April as I can. Fine tuning it all can wait until afterwards. That's when I check to make sure that the character growth is gradual and as organic as possible, and that my mythology and timeline are all consistent with what has been presented before.
Project Death: Redemption is shaping out to be a fun story, and I can't wait to introduce you all to Jules and to reintroduce you to Damir.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Camp NaNo April 2015 Mythology of a Story
A lot goes into the mythology of a book, and that is especially true when working on a series. The more I write, the more I learn, and frankly, the world continues to expand the further I get into it.
So, here we are at another Camp NaNoWriMo prep post, and I know that there are a few different camps when it comes to this part of preparation...usually tied to the general writing camps as proposed by NaNoWriMo.
First are the planners, and I imagine they would have about 85% of the world-building and mythology figured out before they started writing. Planners are the people who have to know what's going to happen and know how deep the water is and how quick the current is before they jump in. I've tried to go the planner route before, and honestly, as soon as I write up such a large compendium on the characters, the plots, the settings, the mythology, all the desire to actually write the story is gone, because it feels like I already wrote the dang thing.
Then there are the pantsers. They are the people who just sit down and write, and figure things out as they go along. Now, sometimes pantsers don't fly by the seat of their pants, and have a vague 10% idea of what might happen. Again, I can't go wholly along with the pantser mentality because when I sit down to write, you can bet that I've been thinking and dreaming about the characters, the world, and the story for a while and now feel that it is time to actually put the words on the page.
So a couple years ago there was this proposal of a third camp of writing, and honestly it fits me quite well...the percolators. Much like the name implies, those belonging to this camp will consider the story and its aspects and muse/think on/percolate about the options before writing. I find that percolating has elements of planning and pantsing. It is a nice middle ground, and I do some of my best percolating while I'm at work...because there isn't much else to do with the mind while the body repeats the monotonous tasks of an assembly line.
For the most part I have basic character details scribbled down...height, hair, eyes, name meanings, etc. in case I need a quick reference at some point or another, and then I may have vague details for what might happen within a chapter. For instance, while writing on Project Death: Revelation, the second book in my Project Death series, I regularly would have a chapter number with bullet points saying stuff like "-Thanos Reaps person here" and then a couple other points to round out a chapter. That way I have a general idea what I need to do, but it isn't planned to the point that I feel like I've already written it.
As I've progressed through the series, I've realized that perhaps I should have written down more about the overall mythology of the beings within. Book two really gets into the creation of Death and highlights a bit about the purposes of the Resurrectors. Plus, Fate becomes a relatively important character in person instead of just in name. And in the third book there will be even more details about Fate, and possibly about how the Resurrectors were created in the first place.
Though I never really wrote it down or anything, I had been thinking about how the whole system worked for quite some time. I actually have drawn from several different areas of mythology and from some areas of spirituality to create this world. When Resurrectors heal, they place their hands on two of the chakras of the body. Fate obviously hints towards a possible link to mythos found in many systems of mythology, and I would say specifically which one, but you'll learn that sometime in the Project Death series...probably soon. I do have a novella planned that is focused on Fate.
What's really exciting is that though I've utilized Fate, Death, and the Angel of Death in my own way, and then created the Resurrectors, I'm not quite done introducing "mythical beings" just yet. Just as Tam helped to create the Reapers and bring them into the world, another new classification will be introduced in Project Death: Redemption.
My Project Death universe keeps expanding and it adds so much more realism and depth to the world overall. I can't wait to see what happens next, and I hope you all enjoy the world as much as I do.
Next week will be the last Camp NaNoWriMo prep post...but I still haven't quite decided on a topic yet. I'll figure something out by then...I hope.
So, here we are at another Camp NaNoWriMo prep post, and I know that there are a few different camps when it comes to this part of preparation...usually tied to the general writing camps as proposed by NaNoWriMo.
First are the planners, and I imagine they would have about 85% of the world-building and mythology figured out before they started writing. Planners are the people who have to know what's going to happen and know how deep the water is and how quick the current is before they jump in. I've tried to go the planner route before, and honestly, as soon as I write up such a large compendium on the characters, the plots, the settings, the mythology, all the desire to actually write the story is gone, because it feels like I already wrote the dang thing.
Then there are the pantsers. They are the people who just sit down and write, and figure things out as they go along. Now, sometimes pantsers don't fly by the seat of their pants, and have a vague 10% idea of what might happen. Again, I can't go wholly along with the pantser mentality because when I sit down to write, you can bet that I've been thinking and dreaming about the characters, the world, and the story for a while and now feel that it is time to actually put the words on the page.
So a couple years ago there was this proposal of a third camp of writing, and honestly it fits me quite well...the percolators. Much like the name implies, those belonging to this camp will consider the story and its aspects and muse/think on/percolate about the options before writing. I find that percolating has elements of planning and pantsing. It is a nice middle ground, and I do some of my best percolating while I'm at work...because there isn't much else to do with the mind while the body repeats the monotonous tasks of an assembly line.
For the most part I have basic character details scribbled down...height, hair, eyes, name meanings, etc. in case I need a quick reference at some point or another, and then I may have vague details for what might happen within a chapter. For instance, while writing on Project Death: Revelation, the second book in my Project Death series, I regularly would have a chapter number with bullet points saying stuff like "-Thanos Reaps person here" and then a couple other points to round out a chapter. That way I have a general idea what I need to do, but it isn't planned to the point that I feel like I've already written it.
As I've progressed through the series, I've realized that perhaps I should have written down more about the overall mythology of the beings within. Book two really gets into the creation of Death and highlights a bit about the purposes of the Resurrectors. Plus, Fate becomes a relatively important character in person instead of just in name. And in the third book there will be even more details about Fate, and possibly about how the Resurrectors were created in the first place.
Though I never really wrote it down or anything, I had been thinking about how the whole system worked for quite some time. I actually have drawn from several different areas of mythology and from some areas of spirituality to create this world. When Resurrectors heal, they place their hands on two of the chakras of the body. Fate obviously hints towards a possible link to mythos found in many systems of mythology, and I would say specifically which one, but you'll learn that sometime in the Project Death series...probably soon. I do have a novella planned that is focused on Fate.
What's really exciting is that though I've utilized Fate, Death, and the Angel of Death in my own way, and then created the Resurrectors, I'm not quite done introducing "mythical beings" just yet. Just as Tam helped to create the Reapers and bring them into the world, another new classification will be introduced in Project Death: Redemption.
My Project Death universe keeps expanding and it adds so much more realism and depth to the world overall. I can't wait to see what happens next, and I hope you all enjoy the world as much as I do.
Next week will be the last Camp NaNoWriMo prep post...but I still haven't quite decided on a topic yet. I'll figure something out by then...I hope.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Camp NaNo April 2015 Character Development
All right...here we go with another Camp NaNoWriMo prep post. There are only a few more weeks until the insanity is upon us once more. As usual I am attempting to write 50,000 words in 30 days, though with Camp, it is easy to change the word count goal lower or higher, depending on the project you are working on.
I already mentioned that I'll be continuing work on my Project Death series. I can certainly admit that progress has been a little bit slower than I have wanted the past year, but I am trying to make up for that by sitting down and writing, even if it's only a paragraph or two a day. This series will be written and published, but I have to balance that desire to free the story into the world with the need to write the story properly. Rushing will only make the book a disappointment, to both myself and to the readers.
Anyway, that's not what I really want to discuss today. In this post, I want to talk a bit about what sort of character development I am working on in regards to Project Death: Redemption, the third book in the series.
In particular I want to discuss the big new character being introduced, a minor character from the first book who will playing a much larger role, and a fairly important character from both previous books who we learn a lot more about this time around. Each of their developments has been a bit different.
First we have the brand new character, who also happens to be the narrator for this third book. If you've paid attention to my talk about this series, you know that a different character takes the lead in each book. The first book was told by Tamesis, and the second by Thanos. This time around we are introduced to Julianne Mason, who commonly goes by the nickname Jules.
I think it will be quite refreshing to return to a female POV. Thanos was incredibly difficult, which somewhat explained pushing back his release date a few times. But the difficult part comes from Jules actually being a bit more removed from the whole situation with Resurrectors and Death. See, Jules is a human who has died, without being saved by a Resurrector or collected by a Reaper or the Angel of Death. This leaves her soul/spirit wandering the Earth. Perhaps luckily, Julianne does know of the existence of the Resurrectors, due to the stories she was told as a child. Unfortunately she quickly learns that she maybe should have paid more attention to those stories, because she doesn't remember much.
This means I kinda get to look at this world with new eyes. On the downside, I've been living in this world almost constantly for the past three years or so and that makes it a bit difficult to back away and give it that freshness. I'm hoping when I start writing that it will sort of flow.
Character-wise, Jules has changed quite a bit from when I first imagined her about eight years ago. Originally she was going to be a keep to yourself bookish type, but I realized that characterization would actually make her wandering period not as difficult because she would be used to being alone. Also, that would once again give me a character who is separated from her peers in some way. The challenge now becomes that Jules has evolved into sort of a popular self-centered girl. So as the story unfolds, she is going to have to redeem herself, and I think she will.
After all, dying and trying to survive when seemingly nobody can see or hear you might just give her some perspective.
Okay, next is the minor character who will be making a reappearance. I knew when I was starting to halfway plot this book in my mind that I wanted to have a Resurrector Jules could connect with. Originally it was going to be another new character, but as I re-read Project Death: Resurrection I realized that there was a character in there who I wanted to see redeem himself, and that was Damir. I wanted to see if he could become better, and develop. More than that, I wanted to see what else I could learn from him, because he only had a few scenes in the first book.
Who knows...maybe while writing, I'll start to have a book crush on Damir, much like I already do on Thanos.
Finally, the important character who we get to learn more about is Addie. When she jumped onto the page in the first book, I knew she had secrets and that she was totally manipulating Tamesis, but she refused to tell me why. Sometimes characters withhold information for so long that I wonder if the truth will ever come out. The second book revealed more about her role in the whole war between Resurrectors and Death, but I wondered if I would learn more about her personally. It turns out that the answer is yes, and what comes out in this third book should actually humanize her a bit.
Addie is seriously one of my favorite characters and getting to learn about her over the course of a few books is actually really cool for me. It shows what a complicated character she is, and actually makes it more of an interesting story.
So..while this wasn't as in-depth on character development as I originally thought, I think it gives you just an idea of the character chaos swarming around in my mind. Hopefully I'll have a lot more teasers and snippets ready after April.
See you next week, when I will discuss my Camp NaNoWriMo preparation in regards to the mythology of the Project Death universe.
I already mentioned that I'll be continuing work on my Project Death series. I can certainly admit that progress has been a little bit slower than I have wanted the past year, but I am trying to make up for that by sitting down and writing, even if it's only a paragraph or two a day. This series will be written and published, but I have to balance that desire to free the story into the world with the need to write the story properly. Rushing will only make the book a disappointment, to both myself and to the readers.
Anyway, that's not what I really want to discuss today. In this post, I want to talk a bit about what sort of character development I am working on in regards to Project Death: Redemption, the third book in the series.
In particular I want to discuss the big new character being introduced, a minor character from the first book who will playing a much larger role, and a fairly important character from both previous books who we learn a lot more about this time around. Each of their developments has been a bit different.
First we have the brand new character, who also happens to be the narrator for this third book. If you've paid attention to my talk about this series, you know that a different character takes the lead in each book. The first book was told by Tamesis, and the second by Thanos. This time around we are introduced to Julianne Mason, who commonly goes by the nickname Jules.
I think it will be quite refreshing to return to a female POV. Thanos was incredibly difficult, which somewhat explained pushing back his release date a few times. But the difficult part comes from Jules actually being a bit more removed from the whole situation with Resurrectors and Death. See, Jules is a human who has died, without being saved by a Resurrector or collected by a Reaper or the Angel of Death. This leaves her soul/spirit wandering the Earth. Perhaps luckily, Julianne does know of the existence of the Resurrectors, due to the stories she was told as a child. Unfortunately she quickly learns that she maybe should have paid more attention to those stories, because she doesn't remember much.
This means I kinda get to look at this world with new eyes. On the downside, I've been living in this world almost constantly for the past three years or so and that makes it a bit difficult to back away and give it that freshness. I'm hoping when I start writing that it will sort of flow.
Character-wise, Jules has changed quite a bit from when I first imagined her about eight years ago. Originally she was going to be a keep to yourself bookish type, but I realized that characterization would actually make her wandering period not as difficult because she would be used to being alone. Also, that would once again give me a character who is separated from her peers in some way. The challenge now becomes that Jules has evolved into sort of a popular self-centered girl. So as the story unfolds, she is going to have to redeem herself, and I think she will.
After all, dying and trying to survive when seemingly nobody can see or hear you might just give her some perspective.
Okay, next is the minor character who will be making a reappearance. I knew when I was starting to halfway plot this book in my mind that I wanted to have a Resurrector Jules could connect with. Originally it was going to be another new character, but as I re-read Project Death: Resurrection I realized that there was a character in there who I wanted to see redeem himself, and that was Damir. I wanted to see if he could become better, and develop. More than that, I wanted to see what else I could learn from him, because he only had a few scenes in the first book.
Who knows...maybe while writing, I'll start to have a book crush on Damir, much like I already do on Thanos.
Finally, the important character who we get to learn more about is Addie. When she jumped onto the page in the first book, I knew she had secrets and that she was totally manipulating Tamesis, but she refused to tell me why. Sometimes characters withhold information for so long that I wonder if the truth will ever come out. The second book revealed more about her role in the whole war between Resurrectors and Death, but I wondered if I would learn more about her personally. It turns out that the answer is yes, and what comes out in this third book should actually humanize her a bit.
Addie is seriously one of my favorite characters and getting to learn about her over the course of a few books is actually really cool for me. It shows what a complicated character she is, and actually makes it more of an interesting story.
So..while this wasn't as in-depth on character development as I originally thought, I think it gives you just an idea of the character chaos swarming around in my mind. Hopefully I'll have a lot more teasers and snippets ready after April.
See you next week, when I will discuss my Camp NaNoWriMo preparation in regards to the mythology of the Project Death universe.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Camp NaNo April 2015 Beginning Prep
It's no secret that I love NaNoWriMo. I have participated in every event since 2006.
Now, for those who do not know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. It takes place every November and participants attempt to write 50,000 wprds in only 30 days. The success of NaNo led to expansions, first with ScriptFrenzy (now defunct) and Camp NaNoWriMo.
Camp NaNo has a few basic differences from NaNo. First, the word count goal is adjustable, which is nice for people who either can't hit the 50K goal or for those who need the challenge of a higher goal. Second, instead of having forums divided by geographical locations,Camp has cabins whoch house up to 12 campers.
I have enjoyed Camp just as much as NaNo and so I look forward to April and July almost as much as November.
This year for the April session I am hoping to write most of the third book in my Project Death series.
So that brings me to the main point of this blog post...the beginning. Books one and two both started in similar manners and it works. The first book is told by Tamesis, a Resurrector who becomes the Angel of Death, and the second book is told by Thanos, also known as Death.
The third book is told by Julianne, who is not like my other two narrators. She is a human and she is being caught in the middle of the growing war between the Resurrectors and Death's forces. For this reason the book needs to have a different beginning.
I have tried to start the book a few different times, but it is not quite working. The trick is going to be in introducing the characters and the world in a way that doesn't feel stale to those who have read the first two books but can also bring new readers up to speed.
So that is what I am focusing on in this next week as I prepare for the start of Camp NaNoWriMo in April 2015.
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