Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Hi, My Name Is...

Captain Dreadnaught (that's what it is on a different blog I write on, so that would make sense; I'm not trying to usurp power by using that name, I promise).

Anyway. I got started in writing because I thought I’d make money. Naive to the core! Now, I do it because I like it. Writing, I mean, not losing money.

My parents don’t know that I’m writing – and I’d like to keep it that way. It’s nothing bad, really! I’m writing a novel, as well as a short story, and I want to give them my written works for Christmas gifts. Whether they’ll be done in time is a different story (pun intended).

I’m currently working a fantasy novel, tentative title Journey. I call it fantasy because it's set in an imaginary world, but there isn't much in the line of magic or dragons or that sort of thing. To give you an idea of what it's about, here is the query letter. (A query is what you send to an agent to hopefully get them interested in your book.) Without further ado, here it is:

Sixteen-year-old Tasri Oberens barely breathed as she listened. The man continued speaking to the crowd.
               
“Come to me, all you who are burdened, and I will give you rest.”
               
The man turned, and Tasri couldn’t hear what else he said. She pushed through the crowd toward the man. She had to hear more.

                A hand grabbed her hair. A man’s voice rasped, “Tasri Oberens! I told you not to be around this man any longer! You have a choice: kill him or be killed!”

                [In a regular query letter, you’d put the word count of the book and your contact info down here.]

                The main problem I’m having is making it long enough. Right now it’s almost 14K words. I have a bunch more stuff to add, but the length will still be an issue. Another problem is the pacing. It was way too fast, but with the additional stuff, I think it will be better.
              
                I’m also working on a short story (fantasy, same world as Journey), but that one's pretty much on the back burner.
                                                                 
              My goal for tomorrow (not today; it's late, my time) is to write another scene for Journey, however long it takes.

                I write fantasy, I have about notes for about 20 plots on my computer in several different genres. What genre do you write?

3 comments:

  1. Welcome to the Blog!

    I write sci-fi, or at least, all kinds of stories set in my little sci-fi universe. I try fantasy every now and again, but it never works out for me. I have at least two dozen beginnings of stories sitting in my computer.

    I know how it is with the story-is-too-short problem. I'd suggest splitting it into chapters, if you haven't already (I never write in chapters to begin with) and going chapter by chapter adding little scenes and extra description. Then leave it for a few weeks, and do the same again. I brought one of my stories from 14K to 29K doing that. I think the trick is to focus on extra character development, not extra action or plot.

    I hope this is helpful!

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  2. I split it into chapters as I write, but I always want to split it on a cliffhanger. That means that some chapters are only a page or so long. I think I do need to focus on character development! Thanks!

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  3. Hullo, and welcome to the blog :-)

    I'm a bit weird with genres at the moment. I'm going through this phase in which I jump randomly from one genre to the other, just sort of trying things out that I hadn't before, I guess.

    The main novel I'm working at the moment is some weird postmodern...thing... sort of set within a book within a book, or, a thought within a mind, and what an acquaintance on Inkpop described as "Bookception".
    Verse novel 1 is set in the near future, verse novel 2 is contemporary. Shiny New Novel is contemporary, as are most of my short stories.

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