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This is a continuation of my blogging here at WdC |
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This will be a blog for my writing, maybe with (too much) personal thrown in. I am hoping it will be a little more interactive, with me answering questions, helping out and whatnot. It follows on from the old one, which is now full. An index of topics from old and new can be found here: "Writing Blog No.2 Index"  Feel free to comment and interact. And to suggest topics! |
| Novel #33 We come to a novel that I am not sure how to categorise. The idea is stupid, and the delivery is not the best, but I do like the characters, and I did kill a few characters off, and the ending makes sense. I also liked the setting, based originally on a local development that was being built on the site of an old reservoir, but changed completely. Still, there’s just something about it that feels… odd In the end, though, Cats And Rats is pulp fiction at its finest (worst?), and the title gives away everything about the story. It clocks in at around 61,000 words, but its one beta reader think the ending should be extended out to increase the tension. Now, I started this in 2012 as part of National Novel Writing Month, an American thing that at the time had started to penetrate into some sections of the Australian writing community. I tried to finish it during the month of November, but I failed because I ended up in hospital for 10 or so days. I got 50k words done before being shunted in, but the story was not completed until December. In the end, 33 days of writing saw this completed. I wasn’t working at the time, so I had a lot of time on my hands. This tale started with a very simple premise – I drew a picture some years before of a rat-man hybrid creature and decided to write about them. But the fantasy setting made them way too clichéd, and so I struggled. A short story did come of it, but it is not very good. Then, some years later it came to me in a flash of what we shall call inspiration that it needed a modern setting, so an urban fantasy/horror story idea was born. To give you an idea of where it initially went in my head, the working title was Crazy Cat Lady, and a whole bunch of crazy cat ladies make an appearance, and they turned out to be very important. By the time the story was fully formed I had pipes and a forest and stupid cops. I had the beginning, I had a middle scene and I had the ending all formed, so I just started to write, hoping to get from the beginning to the end via other scenes without too much trouble. I sort of thought it’d be a long novella (short novel?), around 40k words. The story was pretty flimsy at best, the characters didn’t really grow that much, and it was all by the numbers in what happened. But as I wrote it I realised that I had so much stuff in my head that it was going to be longer than I thought. Every chapter had something happen in it, it moves along at a not too bad pace and if the characters are a little like 2-dimensional stereotypes (even if I like them), so be it. It’s the story and the ride. This novel is, in fact, truly mediocre. But that’s okay, because I have read so much “professional” stuff that is truly mediocre, including from several multi-national huge publishing companies. So maybe mediocre is what they look for today. (Insert winking smiley here  …)Excerpt: “Please. I assure you, I am not crazy,” he tried. Joseph saw a small, fur-covered, long-fingered hand grasp the edge of the stairwell. He opened his mouth but the words stuck in his throat. Instead, all he could do was point with a trembling finger. The lawnmower man shook his head and looked down with contempt. With a speed that terrified Joseph three hands all reached up and grabbed the lawnmower man where they could, and then pulled down hard and just as fast. He lost his balance and tumbled from view in the blink of an eye, his scream ending with a very wet, echoing thud, the light from his torch switching off at the same time. But it was only when the head arose from the darkness, sniffing at the air, that Joseph moved. The small eyes set on him and narrowed, and he threw himself out of the door, then shoved it shut behind him. His trembling hands caused him to fumble too often and there was no need to guess just what the solid thing that slammed into the door from the inside was. There is a bit to like about this story, and I should go back and do a rewrite and update of it, because it is the sort of tale that seems to fit in with some of the weird or bizarre stories coming out at the moment. Again, a new beta reader probably also wouldn’t go astray… |
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