Memories of What Never Was Prologue and Chapter 1

Soooooooo, I've finished polishing up my first drafts of the Prologue and Chapter 1 of my new complete rewrite of Beyond the Lost Horizon, titled Memories of What Never Was.  You can read these shiny new chapters here if you are so inclined.  And they are both shiny and new.  Neither of these chapters appeared in any form in the previous two incarnations of this story.

The prologue is a recounting of what happened to Kriss on that night seven years ago.  This is not the same prologue as was originally included in the previous two incarnations.  That prologue has been moved to be the prologue of book 2 of the trilogy now.  Because of where I broke the story to make the ending of the first book, this book needs to center around Kriss' character.  The climax is all her being awesome, and it would be pretty unsatisfying if she didn't have a back story, a characters, or develop as a person to the point where she can be that awesome.  So, naturally, we get Kriss' backstory in the prologue, and we're introduced to her again as she is in the present day in chapter one.  The Prologue kind of sets the stakes for the series, showing what the eventual goal is, and why the villains are the villains, where chapter one shows what it has done to Kriss as a person, and how she will need to progress and grow if she is to overcome what has been done to her.

Something that really bothers me in fiction, and I see it from both male and female authors alike, is that when a character is raped, severely abused, or both, it never seems to change them as a person.  They're still the same person afterward as they were before.  They move on with their lives and soon forget that anything even happened.  When in actuality, those sorts of things leave severe psychological, emotional, and physical problems in their wake that can utterly destroy a person's life, relationships, and everything for years, if not decades to come before they are finally able to deal with it, accept it, and move on with their lives.  I thought that it would make for an interesting character and for interesting character development to have a character who was the victim of rape and abuse, but instead of focusing on the acts themselves as many authors do, I would focus purely on the emotional and psychological consequences, while barely even referencing what brought them about.  Sort of a turning of the tables completely on what the norm, in fiction, seems to be, and show the character trying to struggle her way through depression, suicidal tendencies, OCD, PTSD, and RTS.  I mean, what would you think was more entertaining, a rape scene, or a character trying desperately to come to terms with it, struggling to find some sort of meaning or justification in even continuing to live, and finally overcoming and finding a way to cope with and accept what has been done to her?  Personally, I think the latter is far more intriguing, entertaining, and most importantly, realistic.  I've done quite a bit of research on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Rape Trauma Syndrome, so that I can get her character just right for this story.  That's pretty much what I've been doing for the last three months since my schedule at work cleared up.  I didn't want to start writing before I knew exactly how Kriss was going to act and react to things.


Welp, like I said, my schedule at work has gone from 80 hours a week every week, to about 30 hours a week every week, and that, finally, gives me some time to get back to work on this book.  I hope to actually start making some progress on it pretty quickly here. But, in the long run, I think that the time I spent working rather than writing ended up being a good thing for this story, because it was during that time where I came up with some of the best ideas to bring into it.  So I guess there was a silver lining to that storm cloud after all. 

Happy Easter

Happy Easter all.

I'm taking the day off from writing to watch General Conference and do family stuff, but I figured I'd give a little update on what it is I'm actually doing to Beyond the Lost Horizon/The Eternal Chain/Memories of What never Was/whatever name I think of to call it next.

When I realized that the story was, indeed, a bit too long to make the standalone novel that I wanted it to be, I also realized that the first book was going to need to be extraordinary in order to be able to sell not only it, but the other two books that finish the story.  I started looked for good places to cut the story, and found two very good ones that do divide the story into pretty neat thirds.  Each third would have a pretty decent climax IF I did a bit of reshuffling the characters, viewpoints, motivations, and other such things.  I came up with the idea that the three books of the trilogy would each center around one of the three characters dealing with their respective baggage.  So, the breaking point where I'm planning to end the first book centers around Kriss doing something awesome.  Which means that the first book really needs to be her story, who she is, why she is the way she is, and what will drive her to do this awesome thing at the end.  Which meant that she needed to have an actual character arc, rather than just sort of being there, and she needed a reason to be who she is, which meant that my awesome prologue was, unfortunately, about the wrong character.  I've decided that each of the three books would begin with a flashback to what the character that the book centers around was doing on that night seven years ago when the world basically went to hell.  And so, I moved my original prologue to be the prologue of book 2, which will be Brand's story, and wrote a completely new one detailing what happened to Kriss seven years ago.  Which meant I needed to develop a more in-depth back story for her.  The bask story I came up with didn't really fit her personality... so I did something sneaky.  I switch her personality with Brand's angry, sarcastic personality and made him a bit more upbeat and altruistic.  Now I have a great beginning for her as a character, I have a pretty good journey for her to go on in terms of character development, and I have a excellent climax where she overcomes some pretty nasty things in her past and does something completely freaking awesome that basically single-handedly saves the world from utter destruction.  Oh, and I also gave her the magical power to manipulate the emotions of others too, which was kind of the missing piece to her as a person.  I needed a reason for WHY all of this happened to her, and this ability, completely unique to her, became it.  It also ties in deeply with her character arc, her struggle and torment as a character, and her eventual ability to overcome it and become what she needs to be in order to be incredibly awesome at the end. 

Anyway, I'm still doing some work on my new prologue and rewritten beginning, but as soon as I deem the first draft ready for human consumption I'll be sure to post it on my site.  Until then, enjoy your Easter weekend all =)

It's been a while...

Welp, it's been a while since I actually had time to do anything but eat, sleep and work, but now my hours at work have finally gone back to normal, and will now stay that way.  Which means I actually have time for some writing.  So, while waiting on test reader feedback for I Am Nobody, I've gone back to my complete rewrite of Beyond the Lost Horizon.  I've come to realize in the three years since I set it aside because it was still missing something, that the story is going to need to be split.  So I've outlined a trilogy, rather than a single book.  I've also come up with a completely new magic system to use in it, which has actual rules and limitations beyond "it does whatever the characters need at any given time" and I've better solidified how this story fits into the greater story that's going on in the background of all of my other stories.  After a few years of thinking about it, and working things out, and putting real rules and applications to the magic, I think I can now write a much better story than I would have had I gone on to finish it way back when.  So now I'm basically completely rewriting the complete rewrite of Beyond the Lost Horizon.  The trilogy title will be The Eternal Chain, with the first book being titled Memories of What Never Was.  It's slow going, because The story is kind of a bit of a mindf#%k and there's a lot of little details that have to go into it perfectly or it won't work in the end.  I'm 2 chapters in, and have a long way to go before I have yet another first draft finished.  I'll start posting them on my site soon.

And now for some sad news.  The world's Science Fiction community has lost one of it's oldest, and most well recognizable members.  Leonard Nimoy died yesterday of heart failure at the age of 83.  For the last 50 years he has been a big part of shaping the entire Sci-fi genre as we know it today.  Most recognizable in his role as Spock in Star Trek, he has also been seen in numerous other Sci-fi movies, TV series, and in director/writer/producer roles in many, many others.  He spent the better part of his life doing what he could to build up the genre as something respectable, and I think that he has certainly helped to bring Science Fiction into a more serious light than it was previously seen before his contributions.  His passing has left a rather large and gaping hole in the Sci-fi community that can never be filled by anyone else.  I want to thank him for a lifetime of great entertainment, and wish him peace now that it is over.  He lived long, and prospered.  May his memory, and his legacy, do the same.

Aaaaand done... Really...

Soooo yeah, I said it would take about a week or so to finish up adding things into I Am Nobody... but it was more like a month.  Yeah, work sucks.  Oh well.  Buy, anyway, it's done.  I've reposted the individual chapters as well as the entire manuscript on my website (Full Final Final Final Draft) and you can find them at the bottom of this page if you feel so inclined.

This is as done as it is ever going to be until someone reads it and tells me it sucks and what I need to change.  I promise.  Really.

Soooooo...

So, there I was, the day after i wrote up that gigantic post about being done and I thought to myself, hey self, guess what?  And I was like, I dunno self, what?  Well, you just had this awesome idea for something to add to I Am Nobody, and it's going to take a crapton of work to get it done, and it'll probably take you about a week or so to do it.  And I was like, uhg, really self, you couldn't have told me that like six months ago?  So yeah, then I started making these awesome little changes that I had the idea to make, and I was just about done, when suddenly *dramatic pause* my computer died.  So I had to wait a week and a half for the guys at PC Laptops to fix it for me before I could get back to work and actually finish.  So yeah got a few more days worth of work to go on it, but then I'll really, really, really be done... ish... I hope.

I'm Done... Again... Sort of...

Okay, so I've finished my rewrite of I Am Nobody and have posted it on my website.  It can be found at the bottom of this page in individual chapters as well as the entire manuscript, aptly titled "Full Even More Final Draft".

What happens next?

Well, what I want to do is find a few people to read this book and give me honest feedback.  Things like, did you like it?  Did you not like it?  Why?  What did you like about it?  What did you not like about it?  What changes you would make to it?  Do you like the main character?  Does she seem to act and talk like a teenaged girl or not?  Did you find it particularly frightening?  Did I go too far with the gore, or tension?  You know, stuff like that.  I don't need a spelling, grammar and punctuation checker.  I have a freaking college degree in English.  I just need honest feedback.  If anyone actually reads this blog and would like to volunteer their services for this, please feel free to e-mail me at Sevynwarr@yahoo.com, and I'll e-mail you a copy of the manuscript.

Why do a whole rewrite at all?

Well, when I first started putting this story together about five or six years ago, I was really set on writing a young adult horror novel.  When I was a teenager, I really enjoyed horror novels, but I could never really find any that were written for people my age, and were legitimately scary.  They all seemed dumbed down, as if the authors were too afraid to just go all out and scare the crap out of kids.  As I began doing my outlining for this book, I started to fall into that mindset myself.  I wanted to write a scary book, but this story was really dark, really violent, and maybe a little too intense for someone in their mid teens to handle.  I didn't want to be the cause of some poor kid spending the rest of his or her life in therapy.  So, I did what those other writers did, and dumbed it down.  I dumbed it down to the point that it was no longer even a horror story, but more of a supernatural mystery type thing.

So, I started trying to sell the previous incarnation of this book, and I got some feedback from agents saying that it was a little too bland, it wasn't exciting enough to keep a teenager's attention, there was something missing, etc.  So I took a look at it, and started trying to figure out why I was getting these reactions from people.

I went to a book signing by Brandon Sanderson at the Barnes and Noble across the street from my apartment, and I laid out the problem I was having for him.  He has always been really great about giving me advice at signings.  He also has a podcast that he does with a few writing buddies of his where they offer advice to amateur writers like myself.  Anyway, he hit the nail right on the head.  He asked me, "well, if you wanted to write a horror story for teens... why didn't you write a horror story for teens?"

And so I went back to my original concept of the story.  The really dark, really violent, and really scary version that I originally planned to write before I lobotomized and neutered it all in one.  And I thought to myself.  This.  This is what this story is missing.  I should have just written it this way to begin with.  Hey idiot, remember when you were a teenager reading Stephen King because no one writing horror books for people your age could get it right, you just did what you really hated other authors doing when you were a kid.  I remember being really annoyed that authors of young adult books put on the padded gloves while writing, and never really treated me like a soon to be adult.  And so I said to myself.  Welp, lets see what I can do to change this thing.

What has changed in this version?

This version of I Am Nobody is 50% longer than the original version.  I added just under 50,000 words to it. 
I tried to give Mia, the main character, a bit more personality.
I added in far more graphic descriptions of the murders.
I added in far more graphic descriptions of Mia's reactions to them.
I added in new powers for the killer, and upped the craziness and brutality of his actions.
I added in several new subplots, including one about Mia's own amateur investigations of the murders, a moral dilemma about being able to kill another person, and a plot by the Hunters to kill Death that Mia gets herself caught up in the middle of.
I added in a bunch of new lore for the Grim Reapers and the Hunters to better flesh them out as organizations, and to flesh out their rivalry with one another.
I reevaluated my chapter breaks, moving them around, and splitting some to add tension.
I rewrote entire sections of the book from scratch to change the overall tone and atmosphere of the story to my originally intended horror.

Now, horror, I've found, is a very weird thing.  When I first started putting this story together, I asked myself, if I were a teenaged girl, what would I fear most in the entire world?  What would turn me into a jibbering, crying wreck that wanted to curl up in a ball and hide in the closet?  It took me a while to come up with an answer to that.  I actually asked a few women I happen to be acquainted with.  Yes, I know, Eric... knows women...?  Yes, hell might just have frozen over.  The answer I came up with after all of that was rape.  As a man, rape is not something that I personally find very frightening, because the chances of it happening to me are nearly 0.  However, after sitting down and thinking about it for a good long while, I began to understand why a teenaged girl would by, and how it would feel to be faced with this.  I've read many a horror novel where the things happening were not particularly scary on their own terms.  There's plenty out there that frightens me, it's just that most authors never write about that sort of thing.  But I still find some of them scary.  And I've found that if the writer can convey how terrified their character is over what they're being faced with in such a way, the reader can actually feel that fear themselves, even if its over something that they, themselves, are not particularly frightened of.  Really good horror authors can make unscary things scary by proxy through the reactions and emotions of their characters.  That's kind of what I tried to do here.  I took something that I was not very afraid of personally, and put myself in the shoes of my character and tried to describe in very vivid and horrifying detail how she felt and why she felt that way, and hopefully, I did it well enough that the fear comes through to the reader.  I tried to make the book scary through the main character's reactions and emotions, and by manipulating the atmosphere and tone of scenes to give what I feel is a very creepy vibe.  I also changed a few key scenes where Mia encounters the Hunter in such a way that he is pretty frightening all on his own merits, without even taking his actions into account.  He says and does some really disgusting, creepy, completely insane, and just plain evil things.

So, yeah, that's what I've been doing for the last year, rewriting this book into the book that I originally intended it to be.  If you would like to volunteer to be one of my test readers, again, send me an e-mail at Sevynwarr@yahoo.com.

Book Review: Skin Game by Jim Butcher

Soooo, I've posted my review of Skin Game: Book 15 of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher on Goodreads if you feel the great urge to check it out.

Yes, that's right.  I still write book reviews.  I know I haven't posted many in the last year of so on my blog here, because I've been ridiculously busy, but I still have been writing them.  If you feel the great urge, you can check out any that you might have missed here.

Anyway, the latest book in the Dresden Files is AWESOME!!!  I loved it.  Jim Butcher keeps finding ways to keep things interesting with Harry Dresden, even though this is the fifteenth book of the series.  That's a pretty rare thing as far as book series go.  There's a gigantic fangasm moment or two in this one.  One of them involving my favorite Dresden Sidekick, Michael.  So yeah, if you're a fan of the Dresden Files, definitely check this one out.  If you're not, why aren't you?  Go read the first book, Storm Front right now!!!