I did most of the pre-plotting on Dollmaker today. And get this - I actually got something from asking my characters questions and having them answer in first-person for the FIRST TIME EVER, which was very exciting. I quite like this villain - he's much better developed and more sympathetic than any other villain I've ever written or thought about writing, while still being... well, y'know, evil. This is rather nice.
Since I said I'd talk more about this project... here goes: The Dollmaker is shaping up to be a 40,000 word dark fantasy short novel. The idea originated months ago, but when I found out that Holly Lisle, one of my favorite writers of books about writing (though I've never read any of her actual novels beyond samples), was going to start an e-zine... well, I wanted to submit something, and I had this idea that wasn't quite complex enough to make a full novel, but a short novel? Well. Everyone needs a summer project, right?
Eheh.
So, here's my summary sentence of this project:
"An adolescent orphan boy becomes apprentice to his city's Dollmaker, unknowing of his master's specialty: making human dolls."
I've done all the pre-plotting. Generating scenes and outlining comes tomorrow.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
And so it begins...
Hey, you know that "dark fantasy with almost horror-ish undertones"?
I'm writing it. It's tentatively titled "The Dollmaker," and I'm 3318 words in - and that's before I've done any real plotting on the thing (which I hope to work on over the weekend). Up until now I've just been typing out scenes as they occurred to me and playing around a bit with character ideas and motivations.
Seriously, though, I've been getting some good stuff. And, despite having a horrible, disgusting sinus infection plaguing my respiratory system, I was really quite productive today. I had a net gain of around two thousand words on Dollmaker, and I went through a two-hour long character workshop in which I got some really excellent character sketches for another story.
I also did some "story spirals" last night and got a lot of okay bits mixed with some truly excellent material, including a fleshed out, thoughtful, and somewhat whimsical idea for a novel - maybe a children's novel, maybe something more adult. And that's all I think I'm going to say for now. I should explain what a "story spiral" is in a later post sometime; I think it's something I'll be using when I'm low on ideas (...which, lately, is never, but you never know).
Expect more info on the Dollmaker project later. For now, sleep.
I'm writing it. It's tentatively titled "The Dollmaker," and I'm 3318 words in - and that's before I've done any real plotting on the thing (which I hope to work on over the weekend). Up until now I've just been typing out scenes as they occurred to me and playing around a bit with character ideas and motivations.
Seriously, though, I've been getting some good stuff. And, despite having a horrible, disgusting sinus infection plaguing my respiratory system, I was really quite productive today. I had a net gain of around two thousand words on Dollmaker, and I went through a two-hour long character workshop in which I got some really excellent character sketches for another story.
I also did some "story spirals" last night and got a lot of okay bits mixed with some truly excellent material, including a fleshed out, thoughtful, and somewhat whimsical idea for a novel - maybe a children's novel, maybe something more adult. And that's all I think I'm going to say for now. I should explain what a "story spiral" is in a later post sometime; I think it's something I'll be using when I'm low on ideas (...which, lately, is never, but you never know).
Expect more info on the Dollmaker project later. For now, sleep.
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