A/U vs. All New - Update

Well, what do you know! I decide to leave my nano novel aside, sick of fighting myself about the A/U vs new world debate. Then I go out tonight and make a decision! So I think I'm going to go with a new world.

Basically, every year we have a Festival of Lights here in Lyons. Me and my wife went out to watch the lights and I realised what it was about an all new world that attracted me to the idea in the first place and what put me off using an A/U. I don't think Elizabethan England is impressive enough for what I want to write.

For example, one of the things I love in Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastards Sequence are the cities. And in those cities, the buildings are large, impressive and monumentous. You don't get that in Elizabethan London. You don't really find it in modern London, though slightly more. What I can get from a whole new world is a city that has that monumentous feel to it. And with the idea of a city in three parts (a floating city above, a pyramidal city between and a downtrodden city below) I can have both. The monumentous buildings above and between, the feel of Elizabethan London below.

So there you have it. Of course, I'll probably have changed my mind by tomorrow... :) But hey, that's part of the fun.

The Kingdom Postbox

So, having put aside the Magician's Men for a while, I'm now starting work on The Kingdom Postbox. This was my '05 Nano, and the first Nanonovel I managed to write The End on.

What's it about? It's the story of a little girl who must venture into a world of Dreams and Nightmares to save an uncle she has never met. It's about letters, and dreams, and stories, and emotions. It's about a world below our own, where Dreams and Nightmares live, protected from Reality.

Oh yeah, and it has huge walking cities, giant floating islands that move around at will across a crystaline sea, giant feline-dragons, Nonsense-spouting sea dragons, a strange house where no room is ever in the same place, a mad queen whose island is slowly dying around her and who turns little girls into dolls so that she can live in their bodies, and so much more... :)

So, that's the story. I'll keep this blog posted on how I get along!

Giving it time to breathe...

Well, I've finally made the decision. I think I've thrown myself into the rewriting/worldbuilding of the Magician's Men way too quickly. I'm not able to look at it all objectively, and am just going round in circles. So I've decided to follow my original plan, namely to try and work on my nano project from two years ago, a YA novel originally called the Kingdom Postbox.

First step is to sit down and read through it all, which I'm going to try and do this weekend. I just want to be able to do a single read through, working out whether the world, etc... still interests me. Then I'll make a decision.

So, we'll see... If I decide not to go down that road, I have more than enough other projects, ideas, to fall back on!! :)

A/U vs. All New

And the big, great worldbuilding extravangza began... and prompty collapsed!

I'm blocked. You see, before nano I was having difficulty with my worldbuilding. I've been hesitating between one or two worlds: setting it in an A/U Elizabethan world and setting it in a made-up world. Both have their own pros and cons.

A/U Elizabethan world:
Pros --> The whole thing began thinking about what would have happened if Christopher Marlowe apart from being a spy was also a magician.
--> Using an A/U gives the story a background that's already there.
--> London hanging in the skies!
--> John Dee as Queen's Magician vs. Francis Walsingham as a Ghost
--> Elizabethan London was very, very cool place
--> The joy of playing around with expectations

Cons --> The straitjacket of reality!
--> The decision of how much to change
--> The fact that not enough real historical characters appear
--> Though I shouldn't be thinking about it, the little voice in the back of my head that says an A/U world won't sell to publishers as well.

All New World:
Pros --> Blank canvas
--> The possibility of creating some really amazing places like GRRM does in A Song of Ice and Fire
--> Just the pure joy of creating a world from scratch which is one of my favourite things about writing fantasy anyway.
--> Strange races, amazing places and some pretty cool organisations I've made up

Cons --> It's not an A/U!
--> What if the amazing places, stranges races and pretty cool organisation aren't that amazing, strange or cool?
--> The lack of resonance with taking away the historical setting.

So... i'm stuck. I have no idea what to do. I've asked my writing friend(s) and posted a new topic on nanowrimo.org to see if I can get some help! Apart from that, I'm relatively lost.

Help! Someone!!!

Joel

The End... And The Beginning

Well, nanowrimo is over for another year! :) And this year I have a finished first draft: rough, a srange mixture between a film script, a comicbook script and a novel, but there anyway.

Now all I have to do is to work it into a proper novel.

This blog, I hope, will be the trace of that. I will also include any comments on what is going on in the world of sci-fi, fantasy, thrillers, etc... and reviews of the different books I read.

We'll have to see how it goes.

Anyone interested in knowing a little bit more about me, I'll send you to my original blog http://joel-brown.blogspot.com/ which hasn't been update in ages but still... :)

So, here we go. Kick off of the big worldbuilding/edit project: Monday 3rd December.