I suck at titles
Seriously, I do. Took me months to figure out the names to the first book, "Drangar Book One" just didn't cut it. "Drangar and the Magic Mutt" didn't do so much for me either.
Some will rightfully say that the title should be the last of my concerns, and to all of you I say, you are damn right! And it was my bloody last concern. I had written the novel once pre 2000 under the not-so-great title "Drangar - Awakening." It was a story pretty much like the stuff I read at the time, hence the pretentious title. It promised... well pretty much nothing really. Then again, at that time, I didn't know what the hells I was doing anyway. Read D&D novels and you write D&D novels. But it wasn't really that either.
Needless to say, that version never made it past the "I wrote something, some people read it, liked it, but I don't know" stage. Turns out I was neither happy with it or myself.
Fast forward seven years or so. Still not happy with my life, and yes, I had that book, that idea, but like everything else in my life, it felt worth- and useless. I had no idea who I was, what I was, and why the hell I kept on going. Cue in the melodramatic music. At that point of my life, a kick by an idiot was all it took to have me utterly unravel.
It took the persistence of a dear friend, who pushed me from fetal into a somewhat sitting position to get my ass in gear and look for a therapist. She nudged and nudged and didn't give up on me. Until I found one. Behavior therapy it was, it had to be because in essence I knew what was wrong with me, problem was I couldn't find a way out. Those suffering from depression know what I mean.
One of the first things we determined was that I had to be serious about writing, that I needed a ritual, and keep that ritual. The next step was to set myself benchmarks, points in the narrative I had to reach by a certain date. It worked, in less than four months, the first draft of what is now Shattered Dreams was finished. A 160.000 words monstrosity. Only it was still called Drangar - Awakening. I printed it out and waited a week or so.
I played some computer games, watched a bunch of movies, tried to focus on anything but the book. Distance is the key to editing, to rewriting a draft. So, with some distance between me and my creation (by that time I could already hear my voice in my mind, whispering "It's alive, it's alive.") I printed the bugger out, and over the time of five cappuccino and cigarette fueled days I read the book, made notes, vigorously crossed out words, the usual stuff writers do. (I didn't consider myself a writer then, mind you.) Back to the computer it was. In between my writing sessions, I dutifully continued my therapy.
Now came the tougher part. My story had gushed upon the page, so to speak, and now whilst correcting and deleting stuff, I began to structure it. Don't get me wrong, I already had chapters and such, and while I also had some coherence in the various narration strands, it wasn't what I wanted it to be.
See, I was inspired by what GRRM does in A Song of Ice and Fire, from the narrative standpoint. What I didn't want, however, was to eventually wind the narrative clock back a few days just because a previous chapter had told one character's story over the course of a few weeks. I wanted a faster pace. Not necessarily more action, but less inaction.
I re-read "The DaVinci Code," a novel whose breakneck speed, to this day, still impresses me. I noted how short the chapters were, too short to my liking, but still exemplary of the pacing I wanted. There was no Council of Elrond, no, in my opinion, useless blabla. That was also the time when I read Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, noting the economy of the language. I have to re-read these stories, just to once more bask in its glory.
So, I wanted multiple in-depth third person narrators in a fast paced tale that took place in something like two weeks. Multiple viewpoint characters, with the reader stitching the tapestry themselves, never having more information than whatever character. The various sections, I refuse to say volumes because they are not, should be tied together by dates... sometimes there would only be one chapter on a given date, other times there could be up to 10 chapters or more on a day.
Easy, for a novice writer, right?
(told you I suck at titles)
tbc
Some will rightfully say that the title should be the last of my concerns, and to all of you I say, you are damn right! And it was my bloody last concern. I had written the novel once pre 2000 under the not-so-great title "Drangar - Awakening." It was a story pretty much like the stuff I read at the time, hence the pretentious title. It promised... well pretty much nothing really. Then again, at that time, I didn't know what the hells I was doing anyway. Read D&D novels and you write D&D novels. But it wasn't really that either.
Needless to say, that version never made it past the "I wrote something, some people read it, liked it, but I don't know" stage. Turns out I was neither happy with it or myself.
Fast forward seven years or so. Still not happy with my life, and yes, I had that book, that idea, but like everything else in my life, it felt worth- and useless. I had no idea who I was, what I was, and why the hell I kept on going. Cue in the melodramatic music. At that point of my life, a kick by an idiot was all it took to have me utterly unravel.
It took the persistence of a dear friend, who pushed me from fetal into a somewhat sitting position to get my ass in gear and look for a therapist. She nudged and nudged and didn't give up on me. Until I found one. Behavior therapy it was, it had to be because in essence I knew what was wrong with me, problem was I couldn't find a way out. Those suffering from depression know what I mean.
One of the first things we determined was that I had to be serious about writing, that I needed a ritual, and keep that ritual. The next step was to set myself benchmarks, points in the narrative I had to reach by a certain date. It worked, in less than four months, the first draft of what is now Shattered Dreams was finished. A 160.000 words monstrosity. Only it was still called Drangar - Awakening. I printed it out and waited a week or so.
I played some computer games, watched a bunch of movies, tried to focus on anything but the book. Distance is the key to editing, to rewriting a draft. So, with some distance between me and my creation (by that time I could already hear my voice in my mind, whispering "It's alive, it's alive.") I printed the bugger out, and over the time of five cappuccino and cigarette fueled days I read the book, made notes, vigorously crossed out words, the usual stuff writers do. (I didn't consider myself a writer then, mind you.) Back to the computer it was. In between my writing sessions, I dutifully continued my therapy.
Now came the tougher part. My story had gushed upon the page, so to speak, and now whilst correcting and deleting stuff, I began to structure it. Don't get me wrong, I already had chapters and such, and while I also had some coherence in the various narration strands, it wasn't what I wanted it to be.
See, I was inspired by what GRRM does in A Song of Ice and Fire, from the narrative standpoint. What I didn't want, however, was to eventually wind the narrative clock back a few days just because a previous chapter had told one character's story over the course of a few weeks. I wanted a faster pace. Not necessarily more action, but less inaction.
I re-read "The DaVinci Code," a novel whose breakneck speed, to this day, still impresses me. I noted how short the chapters were, too short to my liking, but still exemplary of the pacing I wanted. There was no Council of Elrond, no, in my opinion, useless blabla. That was also the time when I read Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, noting the economy of the language. I have to re-read these stories, just to once more bask in its glory.
So, I wanted multiple in-depth third person narrators in a fast paced tale that took place in something like two weeks. Multiple viewpoint characters, with the reader stitching the tapestry themselves, never having more information than whatever character. The various sections, I refuse to say volumes because they are not, should be tied together by dates... sometimes there would only be one chapter on a given date, other times there could be up to 10 chapters or more on a day.
Easy, for a novice writer, right?
(told you I suck at titles)
tbc
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