Alex Woolf's Blog, page 5

Chronosphere

The second book in my series, Chronosphere, is due to publish on 1 September, which is just 10 days away (if my maths is right!). Chronosphere is a science fiction series aimed at young adults. The first book, called Time out of Time, sets the scene for the story. It's set in the future, in the year 2189, in a world where time has become a commodity that can be bought and sold just like soap or baked beans. The young hero of my story, Raffi, buys a year, in order to put off the inevitable moment when he must do his vocational training. He enters the Chronosphere, a seemingly utopian world where he can enjoy the entire 12 months without losing more than a minute of his actual life. It seems like paradise at first, but certain little things start to bother him about the place. I won't give any more away, but hope you think it's worth a read. The second book is called Malfunction, and it continues the adventure. A third and probably final book, Ex Tempora, will be released next year. To mark the publication of the second volume, the publishers have created a website dedicated to the series, which is well worth a visit. You can find it at http://www.salariya.com/chronosphere

Chronosphere

The second book in my series, Chronosphere, is due to publish on 1 September, which is just 13 days away (if my maths is right!). Chronosphere is a science fiction series aimed at young adults. The first book, called Time out of Time, sets the scene for the story. It's set in the future, in the year 2189, in a world where time has become a commodity that can be bought and sold just like soap or baked beans. The young hero of my story, Raffi, buys a year, in order to put off the inevitable moment when he must do his vocational training. He enters the Chronosphere, a seemingly utopian world where he can enjoy the entire 12 months without losing more than a minute of his actual life. It seems like paradise at first, but certain little things start to bother him about the place. I won't give any more away, but hope you think it's worth a read. The second book is called Malfunction, and it continues the adventure. A third and probably final book, Ex Tempora, will be released next year. To mark the publication of the second volume, the publishers have created a website dedicated to the series, which is well worth a visit. You can find it at http://www.salariya.com/chronosphere

Short Story published!

My short story, The Steel Kiss, has been selected for publication in the Austin & Macaulay 2011 anthology. I wrote it 11 years ago, around the time of the Millennium. I'm pleased because it's nothing like my other work. It's all about transitions – from one date to another, from one state of mind to another. I'm very glad A&M didn't see it as dated; I guess it's become a period piece.

Soul Shadows: Farewell

This week, I shall write the 11th and final chapter of Soul Shadows, the interactive e-novel I'm writing for Fiction Express. It's been a gruelling 10-week slog through ever-varying terrain – a writer's Tour de France – writing to deadline whether or not the muse strikes, sometimes still tinkering scarily close to publication hour, often surprised by reader votes, never feeling comfortable, like I'm piloting a vehicle on the brink of going out of control – and yet these are exactly the reasons why I've found it so exhilarating, and easily the most enjoyable experience of my career so far. I shall miss it!

How do you end a story?

How do you wrap things up? Does it have to be tidy and elegant, with no bits of extraneous sellotape and all the plot strands tied up neatly in a nice little bow? Or can we be a little messy, like life? Happy endings? Sad endings? Deliberately poignant endings? Or endings that are true to your characters? Shock-twist endings? Endings that allow for a sequel? Where do you want to leave your readers emotionally at the end of a book? Decisions. Decisions.

Naming characters

Some characters name themselves. Sandor and Estelle from Soul Shadows, for example. Likewise Raffi and Dario from Chronosphere. Others take a bit more work: Jethro (from Soul Shadows), Lastara Blue (from Chronosphere), Aldo Moon (eponymous hero of that forthcoming book) all cost me enormous amounts of thinking time.

Some names are just perfect the moment you hear them: Molly the Mall Girl, and the genius of 'Art Boy' (I hope we never find out his real name!) from Luisa Plaja's Diary of a Mall Girl. Similarly, Stewart Ross has riffed brilliantly on Turkic and Central Asian names in Soterion Mission, lending his book an instantly epic quality. And when you first hear the names Miko and Drina, you are immediately swept into Rebecca Morton's fantastical sci-fi world of The Last Symbol.

For my villains in Soul Shadows, I deliberately opted for very normal-sounding names: Derek Atkins, Barbara Wallace. Somehow giving them such ordinary monickers made them seem even more monstrous – at least to me. Hannah Arendt called it 'the banality of evil'.

When I run out of inspiration, I sometimes turn to my family. Carl Henrison (Soul Shadows) came from my older brother's first two names (Carl Henry). Or else I'll try and find something subtly appropriate – Paskey and Kaplan, the blackshirts in Ch10 of Soul Shadows, were the names of two redshirts in the original Star Trek series – cannon fodder, in other words!

There's no formula to naming characters. It either works or it doesn't. I sort of know when it's worked. If I don't inwardly cringe each time I type the name, then it's usually okay!

Soul Shadows: halfway thoughts

Chapter 6 of Soul Shadows is complete and due to publish this afternoon. I've been encouraged by the positive reviews from young bloggers for the first five chapters, and I'm fairly pleased with this one, which introduces some much needed light relief into the proceedings, as well as the usual smattering of thrills and tension. On the other hand, because the plot's overall direction is largely out of my hands, I'm now nowhere near where I thought I'd be when I began this story. It really has taken on a bizarre kind of life of its own, like some sort of mutant climbing plant infected by gamma rays. I'm trying to coax it towards the top of trellis as originally intended, but instead it's been entwining itself around the hanging baskets, the birdhouse, the garden furniture and is even now sending inquisitive tendrils towards the gazebo. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It might actually look quite attractive draped around the gazebo, it's just not what I expected, and for a tidy-minded gardener-author like me, this can be quite disconcerting. The other point is that, attractive or not, the gazebo almost certainly isn't a satisfactory destination for my plant – or story. So how do I get it back on track? How do I get from the gazebo back to the trellis? The answer is I have no idea. I'm as clueless as the next person. And that is the terrifying and wonderful thing about Fiction Express. All I know is that it's got to happen. It's my job to bring this baby home. To return to metaphor of the river mentioned in my previous post, the story has become a bit of a white-water ride, and I have to say I'm loving every minute of it.

Fame at last!

Fame at last! My appearance on page 6 of today's Enfield Gazette.

 

Soul Shadows: casting it out there

Today Chapter 3 of Soul Shadows was published. I'm enjoying writing this story, but it feels quite weird this relinquishing of control of plot. I suppose it makes storytelling a bit more like life. The twists and turns of our own personal narratives do not depend on the whims of a single, all-knowing author, after all. Now, with Soul Shadows, I'm casting it out there, to be directed by the whims of a few hundred authors (or a few dozen, I don't actually know how many people are reading it), who will send it any which way they like.

The story's going okay so far, but I'm constantly worried that I'm landing myself with hostages to fortune or that I'm going to end up in some impossible cul de sac from which the only escape is to make the whole of the previous chapter a dream – a la Bobby Ewing. Usually when I write, I'm constantly going back over previous chapters and tweaking bits and pieces to make it all consistent. This isn't possible with FEx. I hope readers will make allowances, as the odd slip-up is almost inevitable.

At the start, I was told to imagine it as a river snaking its way through a valley. We can control the valley, but we can't control the precise direction of the river. The result won't necessarily be pretty or elegant, but it should be a fascinating journey. The river will meander in some odd directions. But maybe that'll make it more interesting. I certainly won't be able to take all the credit for it – this is genuinely a team performance, and I'm counting on readers to help me reach an interesting and unexpected destination.