Posts Tagged ‘novel writing’

Fantasy in an Australiana Setting

Posted: December 2, 2009 in fantasy, writing update
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This is something I have touched on before, that most fantasy stories are set in a medieval European setting – or at least what American writers think is a medieval European setting. Sometimes it can venture into an Asian setting, but you don’t see much beyond that. The world of Mist and Shadows does have elements of that, but it also has other elements, with a wide variety of cultures and time frames and landscapes.

As an Australian I have snuck in some Australian feel to parts of it – animals, landscape, a bit of language, that kind of thing. Nothing too major. But recently a new idea (yes, another) has been playing around in my head.

I guess it all started when reacquainting myself with the Dark Sun setting, ready for the 4E version of it. As part of that – as you do – I checked out its TV Tropes page. One of the pages there was of Death Worlds, which listed Australia as a real world example. Hardly surprising given the sheer amount of vicious, venomous and downright deadly wildlife we have, not to mention the tracks of inhospitable terrain. (Warning, clicking on a TV Tropes link could see you trapped there for hours.)

Another item read at about the same time was the Badass of the Week entry on Australia. This one contains very strong language, but is a hilariously over the top view of Australia.

All this got me thinking – people enjoy the over the top renditions of Australia and the characters of the like of Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee. Why not stick it all in a fantasy setting – the death world nature of its wildlife and terrain, the monstrous prehistoric animals, the mythical animals, the characters and slang. It’d be something rather different.

Then I stumbled upon a couple of post on the Giant in the Pen forums of people adapting elements such as that for RPGs.

And so the idea came about of a story (or group of stories) playing well and truly up to the ocker, death world nature of Australia. I have the plot and am starting work on it, and so far its been fun.

Of course playing Fallout and Borderlands probably is also a reason behind all this.

November Update

Posted: December 1, 2009 in writing update
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And here we are in December already.

Apparently we just had November, though in terms of writing I barely noticed it and I’m not sure why. I went from my best month in October to my worst month in November in which I got almost nothing done. It was a little depressing. Only highlight was the fact that towards the end I did start getting a few god ideas and at least started thinking of writing again.

Lets hope December is an improvement.

A Scrap of Poetry

Posted: November 20, 2009 in writing update
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Its been a long time since I last wrote poetry – back in school, and that was many a year ago. So its somewhat odd that a bit of poetry came to me recently – either that or I’m channelling something I once read. The first line popped into my head yesterday and while driving my brother to the airport this morning a few more flowed on from it.

Its a touch melancholy, but I think that is to be expected for poetry.

And here beneath the scattered gloom
Where all is naught but withered bloom
Whilst all that should and can not be
Has come between both you and me.

The question is what to do with it. Thanks to Tolkien, as a fantasy writer its almost expected to have some poetry floating around in stories. I may have to use this – either expanded upon or with some character trotting out a few lines as is.

Restarting the Month

Posted: November 18, 2009 in writing update
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I think I need to reset the month. Or reload an earlier save point. There is actually a race in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series that can do that – the Yetis. Their species has gone extinct three times, but they have the ability to reload their lives to an earlier save point – and retain the knowledge of what caused their deaths so they can avoid it next time around. I could really use that.

Last month was a great month for writing – I made some real progress and started this month full of optimism. So far it has turned out abysmally. There is still time to turn it around, but it is getting harder to do so.

I should be writing – I want to be writing. When I’m not, I always have ideas and plots and characters and stories burning a hole in my mind pretty much every single second of the day. I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I can remember. The problem is that when I sit down the words just don’t flow. All those scenes in my head, the words I set down just don’t match it. There appears to be a blockage between the head and the keyboard. It isn’t writer’s block as I am never short of ideas – in fact I have a lifetimes worth of ideas for novels and short stories crammed up in my head just waiting to get out. A large part of it I think has to do with self-doubt, a worry that, despite the images in the head, the stories won’t quite be good enough. Subconscious sabotage in effect. Trying to force the words hasn’t really worked, nor bribery or coercion.

What I think I need is someone to do all that writing for me – I’ll do all the brainstorming and plotting and creation of ideas and scenes and characters and the like and let someone else come up with the words to express it properly.

Its a nice idea, but not really likely, so its back to the grind I must go.

September Report

Posted: November 1, 2009 in writing update
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Two months of the year to go – November here we come.

September was quite a good month writing wise. I managed to get some writing done every single day. Admittedly a few days not much was written but at least something was. Overall the word count was just shy of 63K – half of that did come in a 7 day stretch of writing madness so I know I can do more if everything clicks.

It was also interesting for the fact it threw me completely out of what had been planned – a new story idea sparked and now sits at 44K on the first draft and still going. I had planned to take part in NaNoWriMo this year but I’ve done too much on this to start something else new.

The short stories seem to have taken a back seat just for the moment – only two Cahuac ones were written. I do have a few more lurking around that need writing but just don’t seem to get around to them.

Plans for this month are to finish off this rough draft I’m working on – not sure how long it’ll turn out to be but already its about the longest rough first draft I’ve written. It’ll need a lot of work once the rewriting starts as it had no plot initially and quite a few things have changed from how it started out.

Of Progress and Names

Posted: October 17, 2009 in fantasy, writing update
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This last week has been wild.

Seven straight days of hitting the 4K+ mark of words. 30,403 words written in total. All new. That is almost as much as I managed for the whole of last month.

I had hopped after the first couple of days I could keep the progress up and have been both pleased and surprised when I was able to. It was a bit tiring at times and I wasn’t certain I’d do it, but I got there in the end. As much as anything it has proved to me that I can do it, I can write consistent output.

The one thing that has failed so far is the names – normally I have no problem with names, but for whatever reason so far it has failed me. Apart from a couple of them, none are going to last – what are being used so far are place holders. Unless I can think up some of my own, I may have to ask for ideas..

On Fire

Posted: October 14, 2009 in fantasy, writing update
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As I mentioned on Monday, I had started working on something new, something with no plot and no clue to where it was leading.

As of today it has continued to explode into life. From 5pm Saturday to 5pm today (Wednesday), I have managed 4k+ a day and in those 96 hours have written 20,000 words – and I’ve got a couple more hours of writing left in me today. I have been trying to have this kind of progress all year, so am mystified why it has happened all of a sudden now – and on a project I have no idea where is going.

I am also stoked, to say the least, by the progress. In an odd way – with no plot to follow, no characters planned, no guidelines – it has been oddly liberating. I can smash up things as I see fit with no thought to consequences, kill off who I want when I want and generally go to town. The other stories I couldn’t really do that with – too much planning about events that transpire later on that prevents such total disregard for everything.

I guess a little about what it is about – it is turning out to be Big Epic Fantasy, much like the Wheel of Time or Malazan Book of the Fallen, at least in scale. The vast power magic has, the larger than life characters – and plenty of them – death, destruction and mayhem. The first 20K words has a city completely destroyed and a fleet smashed by powerful elemental creatures that escape the control of their summoners and two fairly major deaths – with at least two more I know of whom I plan to kill – a few plot points have developed as I surge on, but not many. There are knights and wizards, kings and princesses and monsters.

Currently one thing I am not happy with is the names – most aren’t going to survive and are just placeholders until I get a chance to sit down and figure out something better Which won’t be hard. Most are awful.

Hopefully I can keep this pace up – if I can, then be the end of the month I’ll be pushing 90K done and hopefully be finished with the first run through. I may even have a sit down and read through it then – I’m dreading to discover just how bad it is and how much polishing it will require.

And because it requires a name, it has very, very tentatively been given the code name He Stands Between

A Strange Turn Of Events

Posted: October 12, 2009 in fantasy, writing update
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The last couple of days have been unusual to say the least.

Saturday morning started fairly normally. I scratched out around 1000 words of the rewrite of Tears of the Mountain, but I was, as normal, not putting a lot of effort into it. Come afternoon I was trawling the ‘net wasting time. Along the way I was reading through various pages on TvTropes and also some World of Warcraft forums, including a debate on most powerful characters in lore.

All of a sudden I get the briefest hint of an idea, normally not enough of one to do anything much with yet, not without more barnstorming at least.

Yet I sat down at 5pm and started writing, and by the time I was done for the night I had cranked out 3000 words.

Sunday, despite half the day being taken out with other things, saw another 4500 words written.

Somehow, in less than two days, I’d written 7500 words. What made it more unusual is that when I started I had no plot to work on, no characters, nothing. Yet somehow I’d managed to write all that, and am likely to hit the 10K mark today easily.

Its turning out to be looking like one of those big epic fantasy’s, completely unlike the world of Sharael. We’ll have to see where it ends up and how long it turns out to be.

Puttering Along

Posted: October 5, 2009 in fantasy, Tears of the Mountain, writing update
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Making progress on the writing, which is good. The rewrite of Tears of the Mountain is at about 20,000 words now. Around a quarter of what I’m aiming for. Hopefully by the end of the month I’ll be close to completing the rewrite.

Still also mucking about with ideas for the plot of Shadow Watch in preparation for NaNoWriMo. Some more ideas clicked and I rearranged the plot a bit as well to fit them in. As I was working on ideas, some of the background details of the nature of the universe took on more of a final shape – including some to do with the mist and shadows of the name of the blog. Of course details won’t be forthcoming until the story is written.

September Report

Posted: October 1, 2009 in Tears of the Mountain, writing update
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And that is September done – just three more months left of the year.

All up for the month managed only around 35,000 words, which was a bit of a let down.

Only managed to add one more story to the collection, Cara’s Choice Part Four, though did start on a couple more Cahuac stories, which I really need to get back and finish off.

Most of the word was done on Tears of the Mountain. Finished off the rough draft/synopsis and commenced work on the rewrite, which to date is up to 13,600 words and slowly making progress.

I also started writing up notes for the idea that came to me recently, temporarily titled Shadow Watch. Done about 3,000 words of notes for it.

Plan for October is to try and finish off the rewrite of Tears of the Mountain and also get enough notes together for Shadow Watch to make it my NaNoWriMo project.

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