Tonight the brainstorming idea that caught my attention was novels. I plan to list the novels I have written and what I learned from writing each one of them.
They Need You More than they Love YouI started writing this one at the beginning of grade eight. It was 111 pages on loose leaf paper, and I did actually finish it, which I think is a little unusual considering that it was my first attempt at writing a novel. It was a romance novel set in Australia about a love triangle. But in the end, I had portrayed both of the male leads as complete jerks who were power hungry ego maniacs - like in all those romance novels I had been reading. But when it came time to finish the story, I found that I didn't want my main girl to get with either one of them, so instead of going back and fixing someone's character, I ended the story by her running away. I think I ended it this way because I was lazy and not because of any specific urge that I have to run away from bad situations. I didn't keep this story. I have kept all my others, but this first one I soaked in lemon juice and threw directly into the trash. Why lemon juice you ask? I have no idea - I was kinda weird and morbid back then, so even I can't explain myself.
The only thing that's interesting to note about this story since I can't remember a whole lot about it (not even the character's names) is that one chapter was a songfic. I had never seen a songfic before, so I think that just shows that my interest in writing is as old as my interest in songfics. And I don't think there is anything particularly special about that.
The PersonalityThis was a romance novel set in 19th century England. If you're wondering if I had been reading a lot of period romances, like
Jane Eyre and stuff like that, then you would be right. This one was also written to completion while I was in grade eight. Was it any good? No. Of course it wasn't any good. Why would it have been any good? But I passed it around and let all my friends read it, and as I had written a fairly good kiss scene in it, it passed as good enough for my friends to read. For a long time, I thought that this book was great and it wasn't until I started editing it, cause I thought it was good enough to do over, did I re
alize how absolutely crappy it was. For starters, the thing that was the most wrong with it was that I'm not English, or Australian, so I had no bleeding idea what the freak I was talking about. So, that's what I learned from this venture. Either do a setting, like where you live, or make it up from scratch.
All WinterSo, with my new knowledge, I was ready to try again. I was writing another romance novel, but it was taking place in my country - except 90 years ago. I learned two things from this novel. Thing number one: people have to kiss on the lips in order for the audience to be satisfied. Thing number two: it didn't do me any good to write a story that took place where I lived if I didn't do the time period right. What did I know about what life was like 90 years ago? NOTHING. So, then I learned about time periods. Write your time period and where you live. But I thought that was boring.
ZeotropeSo, before I started grade nine, I started working on this beauty. It was a fantasy novel that was not predominantly a romance novel and there were other characters that were interesting that were not one of the main leads. That was something that I really had a problem with in my other stories. If the character wasn't a person who was directly related to the romance then I didn't really write them. So, when I wrote before, I had two or three main characters and the rest were stock characters. This time I improved on that greatly, even though it wasn't actually intentional. Also, the romance was underplayed and the story was stronger. Unfortunately, I was sort busy with my 'real life' right smack dab in the middle of this story. I probably should have realized that the story was lost because I waited too long before starting the next plot arch (probably four months had gone by), but I didn't want to give up on it. I kept writing it, but the story ... died. I think I rushed the ending to impress a boy. Yeah, that's what happened. I wanted a boy I liked to read it, so I rushed the ending. He read it and was honest enough to tell me that he wasn't impressed with the resolution. I don't remember being horribly embarrassed, but he was three years older than myself, so I shouldn't have given it to him to begin with. It was awhile before I got back in the saddle.
Fallen AngelThis was when writing really got fun for me. I started writing this at the beginning of grade ten. I had been reading nothing Anne Rice books and was writing a vampire knockoff. So, when I look at it I am a bit ashamed that I couldn't come up with something more original than that. So, it was all about vampire love, and man oh man, do I L-O-V-E vampire love! Seriously, it is one of my all time favourite things.
So, it was set in 19th century France. Notice how quickly I abandoned my hard-earned lessons? What did I learn? I learned to have a blast while writing. Sure, it was historically inaccurate. And sure, it was probably not a good reflection of the French (who I know virtually nothing about).
And it was probably distasteful in a hundred ways, but all the same, I had a fun time writing it.
The Darkened WaveThis is 'Dragon's Moon' in it's oldest form. I set it in a place that was familiar to me, even though I was raised in a tiny town instead of a city, but 'the city' in the story is based on a city I used to visit quite frequently as a teenager and now live in. This story was a culmination of the things I learned, but it still sucked. I started writing it during the end half of grade 11, and finished writing it during the first semester of college. But, it had it's good points. I started writing a backwards storyboard for it. Meaning that after I wrote a chapter, I would write the important things that happened in a note book for future reference. It was also the first book that I wrote mostly on the computer. Before I had always written my stories on loose leaf paper that I kept in a folder, which is really not the best way to go about such things. On my hard drive, it's named 'coil' because I started writing it in a coil notebook before I had a title for it. I've kept it separate from 'Dragon's Moon' so if anyone's interested in seeing it - there's worse language, more violence, and it's more skanky. Let me know ~_^!
Shadow Magic - Zelgadis and AmeliaMy 'real life' kept me from writing for about a year and a half after that, possibly more. When I started writing again, I wasn't writing novels. I wrote a couple short stories and a few poems, but I mostly wrote magazine articles to try to reawaken my passion for writing and stop me from going crazy. Then I got into writing Slayers fanfiction, and this was the first novella I wrote. The concept was mixed with a novel I started writing when I was 15 called 'Singing Magic', which was the story of an elfen princess who is forced to marry this dark elf she doesn't love. So, she gets sent to his older brother's castle to learn magic from him (he's a sorcerer of the highest order) and falls madly in love with him, and at the end of the story it turns out that there are no brothers, but that both her husband and his older brother are the same person - making everything perfect. This story - I wrote it three times. The first time, I made the main girl sound like a cheating whore. The second time, the dark elf that was her husband was too good and there was no reason for her to be unsatisfied with him. The third time - I wrote it Slayers style, which was a major improvement, because I kept writing myself into a corner. This was my first time writing a story board, so the story isn't as consistant as my later work. I was experimenting. This is also a story that has four or five songfics as chapters. They were an excellent crutch to get me moving.
Shadow Magic - Xellos and FiliaThis is the one I wrote where Xellos has a multiple personality disorder and he thinks he's a guy named Lex half the time. I wrote most of it in one week and thought that it was pretty polly wolly crappy. I was trying to write something as good as SMAZ, but it wasn't as good. At least, I didn't think it was as good. However, I got fanmail for it before I started releasing it on ff.net. It was only on my website, and my website doesn't get a lot of traffic - at least it didn't back then. So, I released chapters 1-8 on ff.net and it did better than any other Slayers story I ever released. So, then I was compelled to rewrite chapter nine and finish the story properly, but I didn't want to. I mean, I really really didn't want to. I used songfics in this one too, but I wasn't interested. I don't like Xellos and Filia as a couple and writing a fic for them was stupid. No passion existed at all during it. I don't even know why I started writing it to begin with.
Shadow Magic - Zelgadis and LinaNow this was something I could really sink my teeth into. I actually really like this story, however, when I read it, I know I could have done it better. There are a couple killer chapters though and when I look back I see that the thing I'm missing the most is description. If I had been willing to drop another 20,000 words into it - it would have been GREAT! However, even though it's better than SMAZ and SMXF, it still didn't rake in many fans.
Shadow Magic - Xellos and LinaThis story was my PRIDE and JOY. Seriously. I worked my can off on it, and it was so incredible that it made my heart melt. But, no one read it. So, I took it down from ff.net and worked on it again. Then when I was ready I released it again under the title 'Shadow Magic: Pictures of You' and still - no one read it. I couldn't figure out what was wrong when it was SO perfect. I had it beta read by three people, and still no one read it.
Finally, I decided that the Slayers audience likes comedy the best and this story is not comedy - it's drama. It's not even very romantic. It's serious and tense and hardcore and ... wonderful. At least, I think so. Anyway, this story isn't up on ff.net and it never will be.
The Dance of the Twelfth MoonThis is a stupid regency style romance I wrote while I was sick to try to take my mind off of how miserable I was. The last chapter has never been written and I'm not sure if I care. But still, it worked very well to get all those romance urges out of my system. I don't want to write romance solely, so this probably cured me of the tendancy. At least, let's hope so, because, according to my readers on ff.net - I suck at writing romance.
Mystic Wings'Mystic Wings' is the best thing I've ever written to completion. It really is. The revamped version of 'The Darkened Wave' into 'Dragon's Moon' is quite good, but I didn't enjoy writing it as much. I really enjoyed writing 'Mystic Wings'. Like I said before, I nearly called it 'Missing Wings' and right now - I wish I had. I know that my writing is still sort of crude, but I have great hopes for myself. I'm proud of the length and depth of this book. I love it. It thrills me.
'Mark of a Goddess' is the book that comes after and I hope that I do a better job on it.
Okay, so that takes me up to date. Please bear in mind that I wrote lots of other novels that I didn't finish. These are just the ones that I feel I completed. Wow. I wrote a lot.
