Scoreboard
I've brought three novels to various stages of near-completion in my writing life, and being in the so-close-yet-so-far-away stage of revisions on NIGHT LIFE compelled me to see where, exactly, things broke down before.
Novel #1:
Genre: SF
Plot: A Star Wars tie-in novel, because I was 13 and didn't realize you needed a contract in hand to write such things. This was before I discovered fanfiction. I think the plot still stands up in the context of the genre: two heroes discover that the essence of dead Dark Jedi doesn't disappear into the universe, and instead goes on to feed an evil energy-based entity that now wants to swallow the galaxy. Much space fighting and lightsaber dueling ensue. I think there was also a sub-plot involving droids that could use the Force.
Word Count: 10,000, making it a novella, not a novel. I didn't know any better.
Ultimate Fate: Sitting on my hard drive as a reminder of a time when I was young and foolish.
Novel #2:
Genre: Dark fantasy
Plot: Lucius Bleakwind, leader of a pseudo-pagan rebel army that pillages a pseudo-Christian kingdom, learns he is the avatar of Choronzon, the death god. To fulfill his fate, he must die and be reborn. Not really wanting to endure a torturous death and resurrection as the scion of ultimate evil, Lucius finds a necromancer named Tranna and forces her to help him avoid his prophesized demise. I think they fell in love, too. First in a planned trilogy (don't we all have one of those laying around?)
Word Count: 30,000. We're moving up in the world.
Ultimate Fate: sitting in hard copy/electronic format with many encouraging notes from a college writing professor, but no real desire to be finished.
Novel #3:
Genre: Paranormal fantasy/romance
Plot: Luna Wilder is a homicide detective in fictional Nocturne City, USA. Luna is also a werewolf, member of an outcast caste known as the Insoli. Tracking a serial killer who brutalizes werewolf prostitutes, Luna discovers that he's actually a daemon (race of evil-ish beings that were cast out of the human world long ago) who is trying to breach the veil between worlds and find his lost human love. To prevent the EOEAWKI (end of existence as we known it) Luna must stop the daemon's final ritual with the help of sexy werewolf guy Dmitri Sandovsky. Along the way she finds love, shops for shoes, and does a bunch of cool werewolf stunts. I set out to write Novel #3 in the vein of the Kim Harrisson/Laurell Hamilton/Jim Butcher deliberately, because I actually want to sell this one.
Word Count: 73,000. Something of publishable length! How exciting!
Ultimate Fate: Revision hell. To be pitched at Writer's Weekend 2006.
Novel #1 had the obvious problem of taking place in a licensed universe, and being really really short, and written when I was 13. Plus, Episode I came out and ruined large chunks of continuity so that it didn't even make sense any more. Novel #2 also had continuity issues (I have no less than 5 version of Page 1, and those are just the ones I kept.) I fell in love with the concept, but not the story. I started writing and got incredibly bored, to the point that trying to grind out a page gave me a tension headache. With Novel #3, it was the exact opposite--I loved Luna, loved Dmitri, loved the world I had created, and yet whenever I tried to explain the plot to anyone it came out sounding lame. I might as well have thrown on some leather pants and screamed out "I'm a desperate Anita Blake clone! Somebody bring me a vampire lord to have hot steamy sex with!" But that's what Revision Hell is for--to chop away crap and find a good story. Or more crap. But hopefully saleable crap.
I'll let you know.
Novel #1:
Genre: SF
Plot: A Star Wars tie-in novel, because I was 13 and didn't realize you needed a contract in hand to write such things. This was before I discovered fanfiction. I think the plot still stands up in the context of the genre: two heroes discover that the essence of dead Dark Jedi doesn't disappear into the universe, and instead goes on to feed an evil energy-based entity that now wants to swallow the galaxy. Much space fighting and lightsaber dueling ensue. I think there was also a sub-plot involving droids that could use the Force.
Word Count: 10,000, making it a novella, not a novel. I didn't know any better.
Ultimate Fate: Sitting on my hard drive as a reminder of a time when I was young and foolish.
Novel #2:
Genre: Dark fantasy
Plot: Lucius Bleakwind, leader of a pseudo-pagan rebel army that pillages a pseudo-Christian kingdom, learns he is the avatar of Choronzon, the death god. To fulfill his fate, he must die and be reborn. Not really wanting to endure a torturous death and resurrection as the scion of ultimate evil, Lucius finds a necromancer named Tranna and forces her to help him avoid his prophesized demise. I think they fell in love, too. First in a planned trilogy (don't we all have one of those laying around?)
Word Count: 30,000. We're moving up in the world.
Ultimate Fate: sitting in hard copy/electronic format with many encouraging notes from a college writing professor, but no real desire to be finished.
Novel #3:
Genre: Paranormal fantasy/romance
Plot: Luna Wilder is a homicide detective in fictional Nocturne City, USA. Luna is also a werewolf, member of an outcast caste known as the Insoli. Tracking a serial killer who brutalizes werewolf prostitutes, Luna discovers that he's actually a daemon (race of evil-ish beings that were cast out of the human world long ago) who is trying to breach the veil between worlds and find his lost human love. To prevent the EOEAWKI (end of existence as we known it) Luna must stop the daemon's final ritual with the help of sexy werewolf guy Dmitri Sandovsky. Along the way she finds love, shops for shoes, and does a bunch of cool werewolf stunts. I set out to write Novel #3 in the vein of the Kim Harrisson/Laurell Hamilton/Jim Butcher deliberately, because I actually want to sell this one.
Word Count: 73,000. Something of publishable length! How exciting!
Ultimate Fate: Revision hell. To be pitched at Writer's Weekend 2006.
Novel #1 had the obvious problem of taking place in a licensed universe, and being really really short, and written when I was 13. Plus, Episode I came out and ruined large chunks of continuity so that it didn't even make sense any more. Novel #2 also had continuity issues (I have no less than 5 version of Page 1, and those are just the ones I kept.) I fell in love with the concept, but not the story. I started writing and got incredibly bored, to the point that trying to grind out a page gave me a tension headache. With Novel #3, it was the exact opposite--I loved Luna, loved Dmitri, loved the world I had created, and yet whenever I tried to explain the plot to anyone it came out sounding lame. I might as well have thrown on some leather pants and screamed out "I'm a desperate Anita Blake clone! Somebody bring me a vampire lord to have hot steamy sex with!" But that's what Revision Hell is for--to chop away crap and find a good story. Or more crap. But hopefully saleable crap.
I'll let you know.
