MathiasCavanaugh.com

I tend to find that when I am working on a novel project it generally takes about 50 pages or 12,000 words before the real basis of the story itself is charted.  Usually by about page 50, about three quarters of what I had originally mapped out as the course of the story has gone into the scrap heap.  Or at least that stuff is stashed away for a possible future story.  Under the Darkened Moon followed this rule which I did not even consider a rule when I started writing it as it was my first project.  However over time the law seems to be holding true.  I have at least 50 pages completed in several other novels and each of them have resulted in 75% of the planned course being discarded or seriously revised.  Be it The Half-Orc Princess, Cry of the Golden Wyvern or Her Lovely Blood, the 12,000 word rule has been a nemesis to the finest laid plans for each of them.  Even a project I just started today as a sort of test story, The Arrow, completely went off in another direction by the 1,500 word mark and is, honestly, better than what I had sketched for it.

I attribute this to the fact that I seem to work better when actually writing than postulating and sketching things out.  I just cannot see how everything fits together until I start actually writing the actual text.  Maybe some other writers can.  But I cannot.  So I am just accepting this and embracing.

I have given up for the time being on reading The Farseer: Assassin’s Apprentice. I am so far into the book and nothing that has made me remotely interested in the story has happened.

I have decided to read The Hunger Games instead.

I have begun compiling a list of literary agents to whom I will query and otherwise send my manuscript to once it is completed. My plans are that after this latest edit of Under the Darkened Moon is completed and the review group has given their comments that I will do a polishing edit. Everyone reading the story seems to think it good and have only minor comments such a the occasional awkward sentence or the misspelled word the spell checker missed. But once that polishing edit is complete, I am allotting one day per chapter so about a month and a half, I have to have some idea of what to do with it.

Side note:
I already had an encounter with one lit agent who a friend referred to me. She claimed to be accepting epic fantasy for review and lobbied for me to send her a sample. However upon me sending her the first 50 pages of my novel she then claimed that she was not looking for epic fantasy. Her web profile, however, says that she is. I don’t know whether or not she is just confused as to the what the genre is that she claims to want submissions on or she just hated the story and did not want to say so. Either way, it certainly annoyed me because I went though the bother of doing a polish on the first 50 pages and rushed it off to her.

We writers do silly things when we write. Many of these silly things are never intended to make into our final manuscripts but are just done as placeholders so that we can move on and not get bogged down in the foolish quest to make everything perfect from the get go.

We name our characters things like John Q. Knight or an_elf_01. We call our call remote cities that we haven’t yet come up with names for Bumfuck Egypt or just BFE until we come up with something better. In my current work in progress, Under the Darkened Moon, I had the main character shouting “Bazinga!” for one of his spells he would cast until I had worked out the language now known as Old Kingdom.

Sometimes I just have to shake my head and ask what I am thinking but these little things help me move on and get the story done. The funny part happens when you forget about these sorts of shenanigans and rediscover them during the editing process. You sit there with your face twisted and wonder what ever compelled you to call that one particular character Farty McFartpants.

Under the Darkened Moon, the first novel I have come close to completing, is proceeding through the editing process. My mind numb from having read, edited, read, incorporated feedback, read, edited, incorporated feedback, etc. there is a need for in me to seek shelter elsewhere from time to time. When I cannot concentrate on editing this story, which is now so engrained in my mind that it is literally part of me, I am actively working on the development of Her Lovely Blood.

Currently that novel stands at around 30,000 some odd words and intrigues me the most to start working on seriously as my next project. I started writing Under the Darkened Moon on July 18th of last year. That means I have dedicated almost a full year to that story. Now starting its 8th edit it is getting near the end of the line for that one and it will have to be shopped around before the end of this year. I need to get involved in something new so that once this story is out the door I can hit the ground running on the next project.

My review group has just finished up the first 26 chapters of my novel Under the Darkened Moon. Good feedback so far with several helpful comments. I have selected the ones I feel are addressable, some of them just aren’t, and have begun weaving fixes into the story.

Right now the novel stands at about 146,000 words. After originally trimming the story back from a 200,000 word first draft and down to 130,000 words, it has given me some room to make these additions over time.

My plans are to get my review group then next ten chapters or so this weekend and perhaps even tonight.

Warning! May contain spoilers!

Michael J. Sullivan creates a set of superb characters in Royce and Hadrian, a pair of thieves who get a little too greedy at times. Or at least Hadrian does, and he then drags Royce along with him. I don’t think I can stop saying enough good things about the way the two main characters are constructed, how they maintain character all the way through the novel and are delightful to follow. Royce and Hadrian are surrounded by a cadre of supporting characters that by the end of this first volume have various levels of depth and are used to develop the level of political intrigue that is going on within the story’s world. Some of the other characters appear cartoonish. But this is not because of poor writing. It is merely, in my opinion, because of trying to cram so much into the novel and delve into so many of the side relationships that affect what Royce and Hadrian are involved in. Perhaps in some places these departures from the story as seen from the viewpoint of the main characters could have been done without. Without these side trips I think the story would have flowed better.

While the story opens in an excellent fashion, I love the interaction between Royce and Hadrian and the hapless highwaymen they encounter, the first half of the book does slog along at times as huge boulders of back-story are dropped with a plop into the narrative. And there are points of droning dialogue recited by characters who just seemed to be waiting for an opportunity to expound upon what they know of a situation. There were points in the story where I kept thinking of Syndrome from the animated film The Incredibles who humorously quipped, “You sly dog! You got me monologuing!” because it seems so silly at times. But as the story unwinds, things get significantly better. The second half of the story is tighter and much more captivating thanks in large part to the back-story having been over and done with mostly in the first half. Back-story dropped in the second half of the book flows much smoother with the narrative. If you are struggling through the opening half I assure you it gets better towards the end of the opening act. I will not say that the story was not without points where I had to stop and forcibly make myself resuspend disbelief before continuing, but those moments are minor enough to be overlooked. They happen in every novel I have ever read.

I was however a little disappointed in the ending of the first book. The first book in the Riyria Revelations series is prime example of what is common today among epic fantasy series. It is a book that at the end of it really has no end. There is just the cliffhanger for book two to pick up from and you feel like you have fallen off a cliff between chapters. Major plot points remain unresolved. The final battle with the supposedly mighty beast is light, quick and seems to be more of an anti-climax than a true climax. It was just another point on a slow journey through the story and an invitation to buy the next book of the series. My personal preference is for a more solid resolution at the end of a book, even if it is part of a planned series. I understand however that this is the current trend of the industry.

At the half-way point of the book I was not sure if I would be interested in the continuing adventures of Royce and Hadrian. By the end of the book I was much more interested in what these two thieves would be up to in the future. But not right away. I have put book two of the Riyria Revelations on my “to read list” but have opted to take a break and read some other stories before picking it up. The first book was just too long for me to want to delve right in to another tome on the same subject and I need some time to unwind from it.

I give Theft of Swords an over all rating of three and three quarters stars out of five placing it solidly above your typical fantasy story but not quite in the level of the more elite books of the genre. It was oh so close to getting four stars at times but the issues I discussed drew it back down from that level.

I don’t remember who told me this but it was good advice that I have always tried to remember and incorporate.

Never take too much control of your fantasy world to the point where you drown the reader in descriptions of the insignificant minutiae. Do not smother the reader with irrelevancies. Let them have freedom to imagine the less important things for themselves and they will have a more enjoyable time reading what you have written.

Let me just say this. If you opt to follow me on twitter don’t get upset with me if I don’t follow you back. Don’t send me nastygrams complaining. If your entire reason for following me is to get another follower for yourself then spare us all the hassle and follow someone else instead.

There are just some fantasy cliches that, no matter how well the story they are written around is, just drive me batty.  This is my list:

1. Dwarves who are masters of mechanical things.

2. Elves that live a really, really, really long time.

3. Elves that are the best users of magic in the realm.

4. Elves that are haute and stuck up.

5. Ancient evil that can only be defeated by a single, chosen person and no one else.

6. An overpowering hand of fate element that makes it clear early on that the main character has no real control over his/her life

7. Worlds where all the races hate each other simply because of xenophobia.

8. When only a magic sword lost for ages can save the world and must be found.

9. The gray bearded wizard mentor.

10. Dwarves with Scottish accents.