MatthewGnann.com

In an effort to spend more of my life looking at at screens, I’ve got some new projects I’m going to be blogging about.

Since finishing the tentatively titled, As Above, So Below, I have mostly been working to identify and edit some of the things I know are flawed with it. The number one thing on that list is the magic system, which was a huge mess on my part. That happened because I didn’t know what I wanted it to be, so it wound up being a lot of different things. There were also a few scenes that needed to die, as well as some that I wanted to give life to. That stuff is done now. I’m awaiting some reader feedback and then I’ll probably do a thorough rewrite and evaluate again after that. I don’t think I will stop tweaking it until I figure out how to get published, but until then I want to give priority to a few other efforts.

One is this blog. I’ve added a portal page that is dedicated to As Above, So Below and put a bunch of cool stuff there. There are maps, excerpts, and encyclopedic pages for places and characters– all stuff that deals with the first book.

Second is the novella I’ve been puttering around with. Similarly to the way I did with AASB, I’m going to start posting my thoughts on finishing that up. Third and furthest out is the second book in the AASB trilogy, and another full length, unrelated novel that I am going to start brainstorming for. I am not sure which of these I am going to begin writing first, but I will be talking about them both here.

I hope that by expanding this blog to include other things, that I won’t hit the lulls that I did trying to make it focus solely on a single project.

“The first draft of anything is shit.” – Ernest Hemingway.

I finished writing my first draft about a couple of weeks ago. Looking back at it, I would have to say I don’t completely agree with my favorite author up there–I don’t think it is all shit, but I do believe there is a lot cluttering the real story. Reading back over it can be painful at points. About 10 pages will probably disappear by just deleting unnecessary adverbs, another 20 will go when I edit out all the overly descriptive, leisurely construed, exercising-the-typing-fingers sentences with confusing structures that contain little information, and lots of commas.

Thanks go to my proofreaders for putting up with that.

The hardest part was definitely keeping up with the information that I created. Not just plot, but each character’s history, what is happening, what needs to be said, what has been said, and what needs to be hinted at but saved for later. It is hard keeping up with all of them. The easiest part for me was the dialogue. I think I successfully found each character’s voice and did a good job with conversations between them. I should write a story that is nothing but dialogue.

That makes me think of a Hemingway story right there. If you never have, you should read Hills Like White Elephants.

Another thing I think I did well was world-building. This is certainly a result of working on this project for a number of years, giving me plenty of time to create a rich history. This book only delves into a small part of the overall history and culture of the Taros/Eskra world. I do have a short outline for a second and third book that continues to reveal the rest of the world’s story, but that will come much later.

What I don’t think I did well was create a clear, interesting magic system. The magic system I have in mind is not what I communicated on the page. I tried, but it came out funky and clunky. That will be the most major source of revamping when I write the second draft of this book.

Now I need to let some people read what I have and give me some feedback. My mind has been in the Taros/Eskra world too long for me to see things clearly anymore. So I’m going to put it down. I have two other stories I want to work on. While my readers go over my first draft I am going to work on these other ideas. I’ll probably post some stuff here about those as well, shaping this blog into more of a complete writer’s blog instead of centering around one single idea.

There is still a lot of work to be done (I have no ideas for a title, I’m terrible at titles) but I feel a huge weight taken off my shoulders for finally getting the first draft written. It’s taken years, but I feel like they were years well spent. A lot of people say they want to write a book, but they never finish–if they ever start. I’m really proud of what I have done, even if it does still need a good bit of polish and shine.

I haven’t been doing a lot of blogging because I have been actually writing. Also, I have a hard time deciding what to say here. So this is a random collection of thoughts as I wrote today.

• I both love and hate describing settings. Stopping myself from trying to write a whole page describing a doorway and the room behind it is hard. Sometimes I have a heck of a time deciding what is descriptive and what is superfluous. Most of the the time when I’m reading a book, unless the author just lets me picture the scene myself, I can’t get what they are saying anyway, but for some reason when I’m writing I want to describe every single detail.

• The two characters I am working on right now are in the biggest city they have ever set foot in. A common scene, you know it. Small town farm children find themselves swept into the greatest city in their realm and they are blown away by the vastness of it’s sprawling horizons. I feel like I’ve seen this in hundreds of movies and read it in lot’s of books, but it is a bitch for me to write. Do I describe the layout of the roads? Does Reader need to know that? Do they care? I have maps I’ve sketched out, I could show you.

• I’ve been  looking for other authors who blog about the progress of their work, but haven’t found anything I really enjoy reading. Most of it is more about their life as a writer. Maybe I don’t like people. Maybe this type of blog is not engaging.

• Siblings in the city. Cerra is getting caught up in her plot. This is a really fun part. It took me a while to figure out how to write it, but I like what is going down now. Concentrating on one character at a time is easier, write all their stuff and then sort out what goes where.

• I think I have about 50k new words left to write. Then some splicing and I should be done. End of June is looking good.

• Cerra and Alyandra chapters are fun. Theirs is probably my second favorite plot line, with Kabladan’s being first. They are also some of the easiest characters to write. One is a main character, the girl Cerra from Paxon. The other is a noble member in Taris. I’ve been really excited to have the two of them meet for a while, their personalities were made for each other.

• Have trouble writing about this sect of minor charaters that play a important background role called Sha’shin. (Means assassin, okay?) They have one of the longest histories of all the peoples in the book and drive a major plot element, but for some reason I cannot get them to pop, sizzle, smolder. The seem very flat, even though I have given them multiple devices to work with (What are those mystical tattoos? Why are their eyes yellow?) The elements are there, but the Sha’shin will be a major player in any revised drafts.

• Trying not to rush things is hard. I know there will still need to be a re-read and a final editing before I call this thing completed, but my epic first draft is almost complete and, goddamn it, I am glad.

Over the past few days I’ve been revising a section near the middle part of the book, three or four chapters in which the character’s personal goals become more wrapped up in the overarching storyline.

The setting is a small trade town that has been taken over by Kabladan’s armies in order to confiscate any trade goods that would be moving to the capital city, Taris. It is the first destination of our two main characters, the knight and the woman, the former who was beseeched by the latter to serve as a guide to get her there.

When I originally wrote this part I knew there were some scenes that did not quite flow the way I wanted them to. The town itself was kind of bland and the side characters popped in and out with no explanation as to who they were or where they came from. I’ve tightened much of that up, added some backstory that will help make these secondary characters more understandable, and interjected some color into a setting that was pretty much black and white.

Overall, I think these 3-4 chapters are  some of the most exciting and action packed sections yet written. So much begins to happen, secrets revealed, fight scenes, information about the invading armies.  My only hope now is that it isn’t too much information for the reader, but I don’t think it will be. Rather I expect these few chapters to be a crux of the book, a sort of turning point where the story begins to open up and show more of the world and it’s history.

Also, two new main characters are introduced for the first time. Which makes our company complete!

One more thing. If you look at the post so creatively entitled, The Book, which now is it’s own page, A Simulacrum, you can see a mention of the six characters I am working with. All are common archetypes found in literature; the warrior, the mysterious woman, the wanderer, etc. Intimate symbols like these are easily recognized by readers and grant them the ability to hitch a ride with a comfortable vehicle that will carry them through unfamiliar terrain.

I’m resisting the urge to turn this into a disquisition about archetypes and unconscious persona’s, so if you’re into that kind of thing and want to learn more about it, and how it relates to characters in literature, religion, myth, and legend, then I highly recommend Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Coming up, I plan to do some posts devoted to each of my main characters. I’m not sure exactly what the content will be, perhaps narrative flashbacks by each, or excerpts that show them in action. Something that will set up their identity without spoiling the story. If anyone has any ideas or opinions on what they would like to hear about, drop me a comment.

Until then, adios!