A New Adventure

With my “finished” novel now working its way through the United States and (soon) the Far North, the question arises naturally about what I will do with my now copious amounts of free time.

That was a joke.  It’s okay to laugh.

The question arose while shopping with my kids yesterday and Natasha nearly exploded with delight when she suggested, “King’s Quest VI!”

I bought this from our library for $1, some months back, and all my family has been through it but me.  It enabled a significant amount of my work to get done while Jay helped the kids with it, and I feel no need anymore to do it myself.

“Or I could start my second novel,” I responded with equal enthusiasm.  “No,” she said.  “That wouldn’t be as interesting.”

But I did anyway, last night after seeing part of Stranger than Fiction and the pilot of Castle with Jay.

I *love* pilots.  I think the best storytelling happens there.

And this novel is going to be an entirely different experience.

~ ~ ~

If there is one thing about my first novel I’m not sure how to “fix,” it’s that the story seems more event-driven than character-driven.

Being based based on an established story can do that– one has a sort of check-list to get through.

This next story, Perfection Wasted, gets to be the opposite.  This story takes the premise “Every person is the main character in his/her own story,” and looks at a different story that is happening at the same time as part of Linnea’s Journey.

Yes, I know that’s a bland title, but just now, it’s the closest to applicable I’ve come up with.

This one has gets to be character-driven because, other than the events of the first novel it bumps into by proximity, there is no checklist for this story.  Only characters.

So far here’s my set of new main characters:

  • A princess raised to be a pawn, secretly afraid she’s too smart for her own safety
  • A prince raised to be king, hiding that he’s a coward
  • The prince’s best friend and body guard, with divided loyalties
  • Two evil women– one powerful in magic, the other in influence– and I have yet to see which one will prove worse.

They all exist in Linnea’s Journey, but I carefully avoided giving them POV, and I’m going to seat-of-the pants this one until I can decide if I really want to deal with a war (because that would be the ultimate question: can these people avert/fight/or win a war).

I don’t feel secure discussing politics, even in a novel, so I’ll have to get over that or find a different climax.

I am slightly ashamed to say that Linnea’s Journey does feel a bit like a novel lying in wait for a sequel, but it really was too big to get everything in there at once.

And I really like having a familiar cast to return to and play with.

7 thoughts on “A New Adventure

  1. This story has a kick-start from L’sJ of about 13,000 words– stuff I wasn’t ready to throw out but didn’t fit in the first story I was telling.

    My first work is going through what I have and seeing how much stays and what holes I have to fill in.

  2. I remember you discussing at different points that you might want two books for this. I’m glad you’ve started number 2. I think it will be a huge learning experience for you to do something so completely different that LJ. Very cool.

  3. What did you think of the Castle pilot? Not all the episodes have been up to the level of the pilot, but last week’s was (Home is Where the Heart Stops). It’s hard for me to distance myself from my predisposition to love elements of it to be objective about the show’s actual quality. A. We love Nathan Fillion B. It’s about a writer

    Though you can’t be objective about the “it’s about a writer” thing, I’m curious to know what you think about it; I’m pretty sure you’re not going into it as a dyed-in-the-wool “Browncoat.”

    Yet.

    I’ll have to get you hooked on Firefly one of these days.

  4. @Purple Moose: I have two very ingrained habits with writing– one is inefficiency and the other is persistence. I describe writing as a sort of mental shower– if I don’t do it fairly regularly I start to feel a little “off.”

  5. @ Becky: Sorry I never said, but Yes: Love Castle (most band of brothers/interaction of equals I can remember seeing between a male and female lead and crew). No, you’ll never make me a Browncoat.

    I fell in love with a premise and a few lines on IMDb and got a disk from the library. My primary antipathy (that God-help-me I will create a name for someday) played across that screen, and I decided to let it go.

    I hope you’ll forgive me and we can still be friends.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *