I turned in The Blessed and the Damned to my editor on Friday. There wasn't a day in the past five months that I wasn't working on the book, from brainstorming to first draft to rewrites. I'd hoped to finish in four months as I would like to write three different novels this year, but I'm not sure I can manage.
Having said that, the February writing challenge is going well. I started from nothing (well, to be fair, from notes) on January 31 and now I have 25,000 words of first draft material. If I can keep up this pace I can finish the first draft by the middle of March. I will then be on track to deliver the book by the end of May.
Showing posts with label The Righteous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Righteous. Show all posts
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Respect Your Characters
I made a decision when I started writing The Righteous that I would take my religious characters seriously. That meant they weren't deluded fools or brainwashed or any of the other tropes that you frequently see in writing about religion (as opposed to religious writing, which has its own issues). That meant that even my evil characters must have clear justification, that they had to frame their actions in terms of their religious background. These people did not consider themselves mustache-twirling (beard-twisting?) villains, they were serving God's purpose. Never mind that other characters thought they were serving God's purpose or looked at these people as clear villains. In their own mind, they were the heroes of the story.
This last line bears repeating. Every person considers himself the hero of the story. There's a great line in Shakespeare in Love where Shakespeare has turned the nasty financial backer into a true patron by giving him a minor part in the play. Someone asks this guy what Romeo and Juliet is about and he says, "There's this apothecary..."
Remember, too, that no person is merely part of a group. She isn't Chinese, or a paraplegic, or a doctor, or, in my Righteous series, a polygamist. These things may shape her view of the world, but she is smart or stupid, kind or cruel, thoughtful or careless, or anything else largely independent of her surroundings. In fact, I sometimes find it interesting to write characters in direct opposition to what they should be. A thoughtful, but patriotic German living under the Nazi regime is much more interesting than yet another cruel Gestapo agent. Now pit him against a cruel Gestapo agent, but work like hell to justify that agent's behavior. What is the story our antagonist tells himself? How does he frame the narrative to make him the hero of the story? There are numerous ways, all of them more interesting than the guy who says "Ve have vays of making you talk..."
If you take every character seriously, you can write about all sorts of people without making them sound either like stereotypes or--almost as bad--politically correct reversals of stereotype. I love writing from the POV of people very different than myself. My four favorite characters are the aforementioned patriotic German (The Red Rooster), the favorite son of a cult leader and his bright, believing younger sister (The Righteous), and a guy whose only means of communicating with the outside world is a single, blinking eye (The Devil's Deep). Of these four, Jacob from The Righteous resembles me quite a bit, assuming I were smarter, better looking, and more charismatic, but the other three are very different from me.
I guess you could say that I ignore the advice to write what you know, but that's another post entirely.
This last line bears repeating. Every person considers himself the hero of the story. There's a great line in Shakespeare in Love where Shakespeare has turned the nasty financial backer into a true patron by giving him a minor part in the play. Someone asks this guy what Romeo and Juliet is about and he says, "There's this apothecary..."
Remember, too, that no person is merely part of a group. She isn't Chinese, or a paraplegic, or a doctor, or, in my Righteous series, a polygamist. These things may shape her view of the world, but she is smart or stupid, kind or cruel, thoughtful or careless, or anything else largely independent of her surroundings. In fact, I sometimes find it interesting to write characters in direct opposition to what they should be. A thoughtful, but patriotic German living under the Nazi regime is much more interesting than yet another cruel Gestapo agent. Now pit him against a cruel Gestapo agent, but work like hell to justify that agent's behavior. What is the story our antagonist tells himself? How does he frame the narrative to make him the hero of the story? There are numerous ways, all of them more interesting than the guy who says "Ve have vays of making you talk..."
If you take every character seriously, you can write about all sorts of people without making them sound either like stereotypes or--almost as bad--politically correct reversals of stereotype. I love writing from the POV of people very different than myself. My four favorite characters are the aforementioned patriotic German (The Red Rooster), the favorite son of a cult leader and his bright, believing younger sister (The Righteous), and a guy whose only means of communicating with the outside world is a single, blinking eye (The Devil's Deep). Of these four, Jacob from The Righteous resembles me quite a bit, assuming I were smarter, better looking, and more charismatic, but the other three are very different from me.
I guess you could say that I ignore the advice to write what you know, but that's another post entirely.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Work on the Righteous Revisions
I had a nice conversation with my new editor from Thomas & Mercer on Friday. I've known there were a few things I wanted to do with the second book, Mighty and Strong, to hook it in better with the other two books and the overall arc of the series, but he had a few other suggestions. They were spot on, but it is kind of strange to turn my attention back to a book that I haven't worked on for a couple of years.
The schedule is aggressive. I only have a couple of months to finish the revisions for the three existing books and then I have to turn in the other two books by March 15 and June 15 respectively. Yikes.
The last few weeks have passed at a leisurely pace. Since I released The Devil's Peak on August 1, I've kicked around with agency stuff, some desultory brainstorming on book #4 of The Righteous series, and then recording and editing the audio for The Devil's Deep. I've uploaded the last two episodes of the podiocasts, just waiting for final release, so there are no more excuses on that score.
Interestingly, both my agent and my editor like The Wicked the best of the three. There is no question that by the time I'd written that third book, I had greater command of the craft than when I began. The Righteous was the sixth book I'd written, and I'd also written over 100 short stories, so I wasn't exactly a beginner, but it was the first time that I felt a sense of mastery over some elements. By the time I wrote The Wicked, I'd also written Devil's Deep, State of Siege, Mighty & Strong, Implant, and The Red Rooster. Having said that, the first two books had a discovery of character that the third book doesn't enjoy. I would think that it would be less satisfying for that reason, if nothing else.
Also, I wrote the book at lightening speed, working harder than I'd ever worked, and progressed from first words to final draft in three months. This gives credence to my believe that fast does not necessarily equal bad.
The schedule is aggressive. I only have a couple of months to finish the revisions for the three existing books and then I have to turn in the other two books by March 15 and June 15 respectively. Yikes.
The last few weeks have passed at a leisurely pace. Since I released The Devil's Peak on August 1, I've kicked around with agency stuff, some desultory brainstorming on book #4 of The Righteous series, and then recording and editing the audio for The Devil's Deep. I've uploaded the last two episodes of the podiocasts, just waiting for final release, so there are no more excuses on that score.
Interestingly, both my agent and my editor like The Wicked the best of the three. There is no question that by the time I'd written that third book, I had greater command of the craft than when I began. The Righteous was the sixth book I'd written, and I'd also written over 100 short stories, so I wasn't exactly a beginner, but it was the first time that I felt a sense of mastery over some elements. By the time I wrote The Wicked, I'd also written Devil's Deep, State of Siege, Mighty & Strong, Implant, and The Red Rooster. Having said that, the first two books had a discovery of character that the third book doesn't enjoy. I would think that it would be less satisfying for that reason, if nothing else.
Also, I wrote the book at lightening speed, working harder than I'd ever worked, and progressed from first words to final draft in three months. This gives credence to my believe that fast does not necessarily equal bad.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Conference Call
I had a conference call with my new publishers yesterday, Thomas and Mercer Amazon). They will be assigning me a dedicated publicist to deal with the release, and I had a chance to hear some of their other thoughts about marketing. More and more I'm glad I went with Amazon, as I can really see how they give me the best chance of casting the widest net for new readers.
I don't yet have a development editor, but hopefully soon. I have some rewrites to do on those first three books and want to tackle that before I dig into the first draft of book #4. Book 4 is due in March and Book 5 in June. Ten months to write two novels. I can do it, but it will require some dedicated time when I'm not worrying about other stuff.
In other news, The Righteous got a mention in The Huffington Post yesterday. That was fun.
I don't yet have a development editor, but hopefully soon. I have some rewrites to do on those first three books and want to tackle that before I dig into the first draft of book #4. Book 4 is due in March and Book 5 in June. Ten months to write two novels. I can do it, but it will require some dedicated time when I'm not worrying about other stuff.
In other news, The Righteous got a mention in The Huffington Post yesterday. That was fun.
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