Darklight: The Sequel

I've been fumbling around with thoughts in my head about a possible sequel to Darklight. Today as I mowed the lawn, a time I often find myself reflecting on things, I had more succinct, concrete ideas float into my mind.

So I started to write them down. At first I drafted a page inside my blog (my trick for storing thoughts in "the cloud"). Later I created a subfolder in Dropbox right next to "darklight" titled "darklight_sequel" and began turning this into something real.

What I've learned so far

Much of my thinking process has involved me reviewing some of my favorite works. I have read three of the Dune chronicles. The way Frank Herbert embeds the key brand of "Dune" into every title suggests that I should pursue something similarly. I stared at the screen for a minute and nothing came to mind. Oh well.

So what about point-of-view and 1st person vs. 3rd person? I just read the first three Jack Reacher novels. The first one, Killing Floor, is written in 1st person. I found it riveting, and at the same time, recognized it as very tricky to pull off. I had already observed something similar in The Hunger Games and its 1st person perspective. Darklight never did fit that mold, but this possible sequel just might.

I also thought carefully about what I liked about the Jack Reacher books, all the Foundation & Robot novels by Asimov, and Dune. In the intro to Killing Floor, Lee Child really caught my attention in explaining how he made character development the most important aspect of his writing. It seems valuable to listen to advice from a multi-best selling author, right?

I had already approached Darklight kind of like that. The Snow Flake method suggested it. But even now as I write down ideas of a new plot, I am focusing hard on character development. I want a strong character that my readers will connect with and want to embrace. I want them to cheer and whoop when my character triumphs. I want them to cry when there is a setback. No one will do that if character development is sacrificed for other things like environment, plot, and cheap tactics.

Avoiding potholes

I'll let you in on something. Darklight has magic. It's a techno-fantasy novel, meaning it has scifi and fantasy mixed together. I'm not sure how my future agent will rate it. But another thing I gleaned from a Lee Child interview was to do research. I have been digging around and double checking that I don't go overboard and let magic become a crutch.

Consider this. On one blog site, I saw a great comparison between a couple famous books, both of which have magic throughout. I'm not going to mention the titles. But the article compared how in one novel, magic served as a medium but was never a "get out of jail free" card. Instead, it caused things to go wrong, and provided a means to make things right.

In truth, it was  characters that prevailed and not magic. In the other story, magic often contradicted itself, was used as the way to move the story along, and was outright inconsistent. It provides the means for the writer to dig themselves out of a hole. I don't want that at all, so as I pencil down notes about my sequel, I think carefully about holding magic in check and not letting it morph into the deus ex machina.

Thoughts acquiring form

While mowing the lawn, I had tiny ideas pop into my head. One of them sounded outrageous at the time. It contradicted what I thought on previous days when I was pondering this sequel. Later as I wrote this latest idea down, it sounded astonishing, unbelievable, highly contentious, and shocking to me. I didn't know if I would like it at all. In other words, perfect. I want to tell you what it is, but I'm afraid you're going to have to wait on the story itself.

I also read the Snowflake Method again. I had written a page of thoughts and ideas down before circling back to capture my concepts into a single, descriptive sentence. Then I expand that single sentence into a one-paragraph description. As I wrote that paragraph, I felt like this story was catching fire. I could already feel my hunger to send the query to Query Shark.

I am beginning to visualize the first scenes. I can almost see the whole thing unfolding before the main character's eyes in 1st person. I need to invest more time in designing the rest of the characters as well as the key plot points. But I can already feel the excitement.

Happy writing!

Darklight is released to my beta readers!

After working on Darklight for the past two years, a novel that has floated around in my mind in different forms for probably twenty years, it felt great sending copies of it out to my beta readers. Now comes the hard part: waiting. I hate it when you have to wait for feedback.

I have continued to read it myself, spotting tiny typos here and there. But I'm also looking at things such as my chapter breaks and other structural styles. I am constantly reviewing it. Certain sections have been re-read so many times, I almost have to skip past them.

I am totally aware that there are some parts that need more work. Some sections were hurriedly thrown down to move on to the next scene. In that situation, should I go back and flesh it out? Or will that slow things down? Did I hustle through that scene for some telling reason, like it was boring? I know I will get back to that and fix it. But I first need to be aprised of any glaring issues that someone who hasn't read any of it can spot from a mile away. And hence I must wait for my good accomplices to take their team and walk through my manuscript.

Bottom line, it feels really good to send it out. I just hope this results in a solid response where I can fine tune it even better and then eventually start querying agents.

The hunger for Darklight returns

Seven weeks. That's how long Darklight has been sitting on the shelf since I finished it. I had started working on a couple overused expressions I had to fix. But believe me when I tell you that is NOT exciting. Writing a finale is awesome; fixing typos is boring. So I put it on the shelf.

Until I started reading something else. Back in December, I went to see the Jack Reacher movie. When I first saw the preview, I thought it sounded like a weird title. Then I found out it was the title character from a best selling series. The movie knocked my socks off. After seeing the movie, I told my wife that I wanted a couple of those books for my birthday last month.

She bought me two and pre-ordered the blu-ray for the movie (she's extra thoughtful like that!). I finished reading the debut Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor, in four nights, and was hooked. I've already started the second book and don't see my self stopping anytime soon.

At the same time, I find myself analyzing the author's writing patterns. Why does this book capture my attention? What has hooked my fancy such that I read until 2:00 a.m.? What is Darklight missing in that respect? That is what renewed my desire to work on Darklight again.

Are you writing? Well don't forget to keep reading as well. It can help you get through the rough patches.

Happy writing!

Bootstrap and jQuery make me look good

I recently was given a task that seemed kind of big for me. I had to generate a web site targeted for a certain with little time. I put off planned vacation time in order to meet this schedule.

Bottom line, I spit out the site, and to top it off, my co-workers were impressed with my work. I had picked three key technologies:

• Grails
• Twitter Bootstrap for styling
• jQuery for incidental refinements

Grails was the ticket to rapidly building a web site that not only was easy to create, but had mature plugins like Spring Security, ability to map some URLs for customized REST points specified in the requirements, and easy ability to manage database evolutions. Grails also comes fully loaded with Spring which through its MailTemplate made it easy for me to build an email-driven registration system.

But Grails was just the beginning. I had been tinkering in my spare time with learning how Twitter's Bootstrap layout library worked. It was fantastic and let me quickly build a professional looking site. I learned how to use the various classes to lay things out. Then on the input fields, I was able to easily tag required fields. Bootstrap provided convenient validation. I even marked up certain fields using the HTML5 "email" types, and Bootstrap would trap entries that didn't have email fields and alert the user.

Finally, I needed to force users to scroll through a EULA, and that is where a bit of jQuery did the trick. I had jQuery only enable a checkbox when they scrolled to the bottom, and then clicking on the checkbox would in turn enable the submit button.

All of this may sound like Web Programming 101, but what you probably don't realize is that for the past 10+ years, I have worked on thick client interfaces using Swing and other things. I am a real newbie when it comes to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript! But tools like these define a whole new style of programming. Based on what I've seen, today's web programming paradigm isn't the same as what it was five years ago.

That means I don't need to catch up on how people built web pages 5-10 years ago. I need to learn what people are doing today. And tools like Grails, Bootstrap, and jQuery tell me that this is in my grasp. My fundamental skills as a programmer are still useful even in a paradigm I sidestepped for 10+ years.

Maybe some people would consider my web-based skills impure because I lean on these libraries too much. I admit I probably couldn't build these things if I had to. But that doesn't matter. When people were building up the web 15 years ago, they never imagined many of the standard things we use today. And what does it matter? If the site looks good and works, that's what counts, right?

This makes me excited to work on the "next" website. These tools make it really fun. Even now I'm learning how to customize the look-and-feel of Bootstrap. I've already plugged in a custom font. After a bit, I might figure out how to customize the navbar. All good stuff.

Happy programming!

Darklight is finished

I just finished the last few scenes in Darklight tonight. It weighs in at 76,000 words. Feels great! Up until now, I had an idea, a concept. Now, I have a story.

If an agent asks, I can hand it to him or her. It may not be perfect, but it's complete. Time to read it top to bottom, and start fixing typos and other things. I'm also prepping to send it out to my beta readers. I can't wait to hear their response.

After more polishing and feedback, I can decide if it's ready to send out for querying.

This is really exciting for me! A story I started twenty years ago is finished and readable. It's real, not just an idea floating around in my head. Beyond publishing, I hope I can someday write sequels and prequels. But that is for tomorrow.

Happy writing.

My novel Darklight is resolved

Resolution complete! I finally wrote the last scene to Darklight and it feels great. Ever since I nailed the beat sheet, I have been writing hard for six weeks. It feels like forever.

I still have to flesh out one already existing subplot. In fact, there was a tidbit in the resolution that connects to that subplot, but since I will be working on that soon, I figured it best to not bring it up. Instead, I want to let the subplot finish itself, and then I can tailor fit it to the resolution.

Wrapping things up

The scenes I had been writing up until this point seemed to be getting longer and longer. But in the resolution, they got shorter and shorter. I felt a pressing need to "finish it up" and not drag the reader through lots of tension. But instead wanted to unwind things and provide a distinct sense of satisfaction. At the same time, I gave indication that people aren't just sitting around. These characters have lives and there is more work to be done. And maybe, just maybe, you can read about that in another novel in the future. But not today.

Things right now are at 69,000 words (and change). My beat sheet estimates have shifted to 78,000 after I finish the subplot, which should be perfect. But at this point, I'm not overly worried about it. With a total of ten scenes left to interweave, it should land at a pretty good size.

After that?

After that, it will be time to send it out to my beta readers. If you are feeling interested, leave me a comment and we can discuss the possibilities. After I have a chance to send it out, get some feedback, and do my own proofreading as well as top-to-bottom reading, I then plan to simply put it on the shelf for a bit. I don't know. A couple weeks, or perhaps a month. Then read it again and look for more mistakes. After all that, hopefully it will be in a good enough shape to start querying.

Happy writing!

Sometimes I just sleep on it

Courtesy of http://franckernewein.com/

As I previously wrote, I had just finished writing the climax scenes for Darklight. It was really exciting. I felt like I was hitting the high points. After doing that, I immediately jumped into writing the first resolution scene. I didn't get far into the first paragraph, when I began to felt really blah with what I had written.

I backed up and tried some editing. I had two characters in it, so I tried swapping it to the other character's point of view. That didn't help. It just sucked. So, I did what I do best. I stopped there, and claimed victory in what I had accomplished so far. After all, I had just knocked out 2500 words.

Let me sleep on it

I saved all my work, updated progress stats in my beat sheet, then shut it all down. This afternoon, I found myself enjoying some quiet time with little duties. Guess what: my laptop started calling to me. So picked it up and got going. I had a teeny tiny idea lingering in the back of my mind. I wanted one of my characters in a reflective state of mind, looking over the events that would follow the climax of my story. Instead of writing every little detail, I instead wrote some short flashback scenes for the major pieces of what follows the climax. It gets the major points out and while providing a sense that things are complete, or about to be complete.

This part also lets me reach a high point in a crescendo for one of my characters that I have been slowly building. You see, each of my characters has a type of transition they undergo in my story. This is also somehow I gleaned from the Snowflake Method. Each character has a different way to grow, and this scene was a real visible display of one character I hope many of my readers will connect with.

What's next?

I always enjoy books that set themselves up for sequels. That's because some of my favorite books aren't just one book. For example, I have read every one of The Foundation series. I read two of the Dune chronicles.

I personally have vague ideas for possible sequels (and even prequels) to Darklight. To do that, I need to gear up my characters for future excitement and adventure. Things aren't simply "they lived happily every after." All of this makes me excited.

Happy writing!