The story that I have been working on over at wattpad for some time is now complete.
Stormraven comes in at around 65,000 words, a bit longer than I expected than when I started.
It can be read here.
At some stage I will have to clean it up and turn it inot an e-book – and work on the follow up stories.
When it comes to writing, there are two main ways of doing it – pantsing vs plotting. Each is a perfectly viable method, depending on the person involved. What works for one doesn’t work for another.
Pantsing (or seat-of-your-pants writing) is when a writer has little to no idea of the plot of the story and just sits down and writes, seeing where the story and characters takes them. At the other end of the scale is plotting, where often detailed notes are made before the story has even started, mapping every aspect of it out. You can even do a bit of both, to varying degrees.
For examples of plotting there are these two images.
That is the plotting done for Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.
That one is for The Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowlings.
I’ve tried out both styles. Tears of the Mountain was done by plotting – I still have all the noted pinned to a corkboard. The rest have mostly come by pantsing, with some elements of plotting. I may make a few rough notes, but in general, the story goes where it will.
Back in 1978, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg sat down to brainstorm out the script for Raiders of the Lost Ark. The whole process was taped, and those taped have now been transcribed into a PDF. At 90 pages long, it isn’t a short read, but its is an intriguing look into how to the movie script came about, and escpecially for those of us who are writers.
The whole PDF can be viewed here.
The first annoucement that is coming out of the changes previously announced is a new blog – Of Dust and Gold. This is a collaborative project between my fiance and I, based on a steampunk setting we are planning to write in.
The website is still in the very early stages of construction, but will be regularly update, wtih a serialised story starting to appear soon, we hope.
Of Dust and Gold centres around an old tramp freighter airship, Aria, and her eccletic crew, as they travel a region modelled on the Colonial Australia gold-rushes, with a steampunk flavour to it. Hence why I found the old gold rush photos so interesting, and relevant.
We hope to give it a really Australian feel, which is somewhat different to most current steampunk.
From my earliest days, I have always been fascinated with exploration. While that does include physical exploration, it is not the whole of it. I am as much intrigued by the concept of it, the history of it, the future of it.
Lets put this in perspective. There has been talk about the prospects of a manned trip to or colony on Mars. For the later, it is pretty much a one way trip. Chances are you will be there for a minimum of many years. If asked I wouldn’t hesitate to say yes – though my fiancée may have words to me about that.
The prospect of being the first to step anywhere that no one has been before, to boldly go, to explore new worlds and lands, that appeals to me. Whether it be the sailing the seas during the Age of Exploration, or colonising an alien planet, I would have loved to have been there and done it. Sadly it seems I live in a period of time where there isn’t much left to explore – yet. We’ve explored most of Earth and haven’t quite managed to make it to the next step.
It does also influence my gaming choices – I prefer games where exploration and building are at the heart of it, going out into new lands, finding new things nad places. Games like Civisilation, Master of Orion, The Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect (mostly the first one though), Age of Empires, Total War and ones of a similar ilk.
And it does heavily influence my writing as well. That is largely why I write – so that I can explore strange new worlds, to go places that haven’t been visited before, except in my mind, and to share them with other people. That is what exploration is all about, going new places and sharing what you have discovered. And fantasy and sci-fi are two of the best genres to do that in.
And maybe, someday when I’m old and they have found a way to visit alien planets, I may even get to step foot on somewhere new and see sights no one has seen before me.
The story that I started working on for NaNoWriMo, Stormraven, I am now starting to release as a serial over on wattpad.
For those who do not know about wattpad, it is a site where writers and readers come together to share stories. I have a number of my free stories available there. For me it is another way of trying to raise awareness of my stories.
The plan is to release a new chapter each week, and once it is concluded, to release the whole story via the normal means.
Stormraven can be read here. Feel free to vote and comment. 🙂
This year I had a real crack at doing NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. The aim of it is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. I fell a bit short, making 42,000 words. Still, not a bad effort given the last couple of weeks were spent on doing the final major project for the course I am doing, so it understandably took priority. The story I am calling Stormraven, and is the introductory story to a fantasy series in the work. It was always meant to be a novella length story rather than a full novel, so it fitted in well with NaNoWriMo. Hopefully it wont take too long to finish off.
‘I have been successful probably because I have always realised that I knew nothing about writing and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly.’
– Edgar Rice Burroughs
This is repost of article I wrote a couple of years back but I thought was worth brining back again due to the Olympics being on.
The grand final of Australian Rules Football (better known as aussie rules or footy down here in Australia) is on this weekend and it got me thinking about sport in fantasy worlds and stories. Man has played sports as long as they have been around – the Greeks and Romans had their Games and the origins of a number of modern sports such as soccer, rugby and cricket are centuries old. I was delighted to see in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World the sailors playing a version of cricket when they were on the Galapogas islands.
Many fantasy worlds and authors seem to glaze over sports – I guess that when you are busy saving the world there is little time to kick a ball around. Gladiator style games seem the most prominent, though other types of sports do crop up. Raymond E. Fiest has a soccer style game develop though a number of books, which is a nice touch, while other authors make up their own bizarre and often highly dangerous types of games.
In an effort to make a believable world I realised I had to include some form of sports to it. Of course, being Australian, this will be flavoured by what we play here, notably cricket and aussie rules (though most likely not exactly as they are currently played). Other sports will have to be played in different nations, so there is amble opportunity for other styles of sports and games to make appearances.
Speaking of aussie rules – I highly recommend people check it out of they can. It is a truly spectacular sport which is happily slowly gaining followings in other countries. Initially this was spread by the Aussie Diaspora but it is being taken up in numerous nations and now has proper amateur leagues in such places as New Zealand, USA, Canada, the UK, Denmark, South Africa, Samoa, PNG, Nauru, Ireland, Germany and others. It’d be great to see it become a major world sport – a dream I have if I ever became a successful author would be to actively support such moves.
Sir Richard Hammerman, gentleman-adventurer, his most excellent companion Doctor Hamilton Gooding and his loyal manservant Obadiah Crabb, have plans to explore an ancient pygmy temple in the depths of Africus, though things take a turn for the unexpected in this alternate Earth steampunk fantasy adventure.
I was digging through some files and came across this completed 10,000 word story I’d written some time back. It was my first attempt at having a go at a steampunk style story, but, as is normally the case, I added other elements in that I felt would be fun to the setting. I had planned to write a collection of novelettes, all stand-alone but with an over-arcing plot, though they haven’t materialised yet, so until they do I felt I’d release this one into the wild as a free book to get some reactions.
The setting is an alternate Earth, where a number of fantastical elements mingle alongside historical events and people. Alchemy exists, and science is a mix of it and steampower. Mermaids and other sea monsters play in the seas, there are djinns in the desert and pygmies who ride pterodactyls in the heart of the Dark Continent. Normally any type of historical accuracy annoys me, especially Hollywood histories which play really fast and loose with the truth. This gives me the chance to go wild and really mix things up. For example, the Empire of Albion is ruled over by the Immortal Queen Elizabeth the First, though true power lies with the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. George Washington, Duke of New England, is a Hero of the Realm for defeating separatist rebels. Other historical personages, such as the Duke of Wellington, Charles Babbage and Sir Joseph Banks are also all mixed in together.
Mist and Shadows 