2d • General discussion
Hi Everyone
I am an emerging author who just joined this week. My original (still unpublished) novel, "Muffin's Story", took on a life of its own and got away on me, turning into a 3 volume series with the first volume over 500 pages long. Probably need to do more developmental editing on that one, LOL.
In the Muffin series, Vols 1 & 2 are drafted and have undergone several rounds of editing, Vol 3 is in progress. The length of vols 2 & 3 is under better control, and I may have to cycle back to split vol 1 somehow and turn it into a 4 vol series. So far, the set is close over 1,000 pages.
My goal was never to finish the entire set before publishing any of it, I started out with a single novel that had to be split into two when I realized it was getting too long, and now I'm chopping each half up again as the story fleshes out. Once I get a better grip on vol 1, I'll publish it ahead of the others.
My writing approach is best described as bicycling. As a new author, every time I learn something new, I cycle back through my written work to apply it, and the writing gets better. Slower than taking a car, but better for the health of my writing. However, with a work this size, it takes "forever" and I was feeling like the goal posts kept receding into the distance faster than I was finishing the work.
So I decided to get some experience in publishing a smaller novel first. I also started to use AI assistance in devising the storyline, finding the process valuable as the AI was quick to pick up on what I was going for, which in turn helped clarify my thoughts faster.
I also found it helpful in getting cultural nuances nailed down--although I always double-check because AIs are prone to too narrow a view. AI was also useful in getting through writer's block occasionally, but I had to rewrite most of the narrative it suggested. At the end of the day, I'm accountable for the quality of my writing--not the tools I use to write with.
The resulting smaller novel, "When Silk and Iron Lie", is 98% completed (nearly finished final editing) and is a more reasonable 360 pages. I expect to be distributing ARCs of it this summer to generate some reviews in time for when I launch (hopefully before Labour Day).
While investigating a marketing plan for it, I stumbled on several authors who are using novella's to build readership, so I'm also starting to work on a short story idea. It's experimental in that I want to try to write it entirely in the first person, which is not my usual POV. In the novella, I'm also planning on making the lead character a total jerk who gets a comeuppance, an approach that is perhaps difficult to pull off in a longer work, but hopefully easier in 40 pages. I'll poke at the novella more after I launch Silk & Iron, in parallel with plugging along on the Muffin series.
Since I write romance novels, I normally write in 3rd person omniscient and toggle between scenes that illuminate what the heroine and her love interest are thinking/feeling. I find that this POV makes it easier to do a deeper dive into their different perspectives on the shared romantic relationship.
My stories so far feature a strong heroine who usually has to come to terms with herself before she can fully experience love, or before fully accepting that the male lead character is worthy of her time and energy. The male character inevitably helps her discover herself, not by leading her but by affirming her journey, which provides the basis for the bond in their relationship.
In both Muffin and Silk & Iron, I use gender role reversal as a mechanism in the story's premise, casting the female character the more powerful Alpha and the male a fragile Beta in their relationship. This has unlocked exploring feminist thinking from different angles.
For example, Silk & Iron is set in a very patriarchal 7th century pre-Islamic Arabia to accentuate the impact and ramifications of gender role reversal. And even though the romantic relationship is straight, the role reversal forces the protagonists to keep the true nature of their relationship secret to maintain acceptance from society--a parallel to many gay relationships which also endure a similar dynamic.
While I'm not deliberately trying to write political/feminist perspectives into my novels, I am trying to be provocative in stimulating reader thinking and discussion. Perhaps this is a mistake for readers who prefer not to think, and the gender mechanics I toy with may cause some of the intimate scenes to be too explicit--which is why I wanted to write a shorter novel to test the waters with.
If I learn that Silk & Iron is too nerdy, too feminist, too uncomfortable, or too whatever, I can apply that learning into making the larger Muffin's Story more palatable. On the flip side, if readers love it, full steam ahead.
At any rate, I'm looking forward to learning from the black belt writers in this guild, who I'm sure have many insights I can benefit from.
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Hi Everyone
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