Camera on Four. Rolling...

So this is going to be a fairly long post. I’m going to cheat quite a lot and post something from my book.

Basically the last couple of weeks have been busy. I’ve finally finished the book – now to be known as Queen of the World – and it has been edited, redrafted and tweaked about as much as I can do without seeking professional assistance. It’s about as good as it is going to get. I’ve sent off a few agents in the States because I haven’t yet gotten around to finding a printer. Most UK agencies was a regular mail submission. I trawled a few agencies which accept email submissions and tried my hand. So far, no joy.

I did get one request for a full manuscript submission though. I’m not going to name anything yet in case it all falls through. Hopefully I’m going to get more than one request for a manuscript in my career so naming each one as it goes seems a bit silly. If it gets accepted then, of course, I’ll plug the bejeezus out of it. We’ll see.

Oh, and some guy offered to give me a thousand euros if he can invest in the manuscript. Bit of an ego boost, to be honest. We’re talking a salad-tossing confidence boost here. Reckon it’s going to be turned down though. As someone said on my Facebook - If it’s good enough to be invested in then it’s good enough to retain 100% ownership of it. But anyway, felt a bit splendid when the offer came in.

In the next couple of days some proper work will begin on the sequel. It is currently in progress in the sense that I have about four scenes and two new characters in my head. I also have the first few chapters primed and ready to go. I know how the book will open and how all the robot ninja sharks will be seamlessly integrated into my world of magical realism.

(Part of the above paragraph may be a lie.)

Now to the long bit. This is the prologue to Queen of the World. I hope you enjoy it and get a better sense of what this blog has been banging on about for the last two months.

Most people say that magic doesn’t exist. They’re correct, to an extent. Magic is a product of the imagination. People would like to be able to fly; to conjure fire from their fingertips. Those early days of childhood, where anything seems possible, stay with us. They help form our future and they linger long after we have matured. A boy may eventually stop pretending to be a famous hero, but the dream of fame itself does not completely fade. Neither does the ambition of being the greatest swordsman or the finest archer in all the land. The world admires those skilled in the martial arts.
The world wants heroes.
Unfortunately life doesn’t work that way and so admiration comes in other forms. A man who can provide for his family is respected. A loving parent is, in turn, loved by her children. The king of a nation who rules with a fair and steady hand is given the loyalty of his people. This is how it should be, and this is how many believe it to be these days. For most, life is relatively peaceful.
It was not always so.
The world was once savage and cruel. Respect and admiration was demanded by the strongest and the most barbaric. Loyalty was given to those who were feared the most. Nations were forged by warlords, by chieftains, by people who were larger than life. They ruled with an iron fist, caring little for the common wants and needs of their subjects. They made vicious examples of any who stood up to them. Those who would not fight worked the fields and were at the mercy of the very soldiers who claimed to protect them. War was common, as opposing factions fought for land, resources and power. Lives were short and brutal.
Then came the Four.
Nobody knows where they came from or why they came. The Four walked separate from one another, each journeying one corner of the land. Slowly, patiently, they came to every one of the warlords and the chieftains in turn. They were viewed with suspicion, with intrigue, with derision and scorn. The Four would ask for an audience. This was sometimes granted, but often denied.
The Four could be persuasive.
It is said that they could do anything. Anything. The legends tell of mountains being cracked open with the wave of a hand. Whole cities brought tumbling down. Rivers made to boil and the sky turned to flame. Men were shaped to appear as beasts and women to birds. They could kill with a look and torture with a word.
The warlords and chieftains listened.
The Four came with a simple message. Those in power would use their position to help their people. They would make peace with one another and focus on advancing culture, education and science. They would protect those who lived under their rule and no longer terrorise them. They would ease the burden of taxes and let the people support themselves as well as each other. They would promote trade. They would provide sanitation and medicines.
They would do all this, or they would be removed from their rule forcibly.
One does not argue with a God.
Some did, of course. Some tried to silence these arrogant men who made demands of them. They did not live long to regret that choice. The more intelligent of the warlords, the smartest of the chieftains, these were the ones who survived. They did as they were asked, and they pledged to lead their people into a new age of prosperity and peace.
The Four, once satisfied, left. They did so with a warning.
Let things return to how they were, and we will return.
Since that time, over five hundred years previous, no nation has dared test this promise.

Second daft. (sic)

I’m done with the second draft. Ish.

The missus read through the manuscript. It was printed out, all two hundred and forty pages of it. It looked lovely. Having the thing in my hand after nine months of staring at it on a laptop screen was great. I was like a kid at Christmas waiting for it to arrive. When it did it was laughs and smiles all round. Anyway, she read through it and gave me some excellent feedback as well as some morale-boosting affirmations that it wasn’t a big pile of poo. I’ve since mailed it off to a few other friends who agreed to critique it, and am now anxiously waiting to see what they say.

I found this very cool PDF file from Darcy Pattison giving advice on the second draft. It gave some tips which most other articles covering drafts touch on, as well as some others I hadn’t considered.

So after drafting a bit extra and touching up the first three chapters – well, making three chapters since the original manuscript isn’t chaptered, just broken into pieces – I’m looking to agencies who may be interested in representing me, providing they don’t think the story is a big pile of poo. It seems only a handful of agencies in the UK represent fantasy. There’s a list of them to be found here. Reading through it struck me that getting an agent is going to be pretty tricky. They get hundreds of submissions monthly, it seems, and not only do I have to ensure my work is saleable but also that the submission stands out in the first place. What if it turns out that a person is a great story writer but terrible at submissions? That isn’t self referential, but looking at some writing forums a common complaint seems to be ‘I’ve been submitting for years and never got a single good reply back from an agency’. Is that due to their writing or the way they submit?

Also, I need to write a synopsis. I find the idea of doing so to be difficult. It’s not so much condensing down the story into a single page – that shouldn’t be too tricky, I haven’t written the Bible – but the deep-seated need to want to keep things interesting. I would rather say ‘Then the character arrived to meet his nemesis WITH HILARIOUS CONSEQUENCES’ and then let whoever I’m describing it to read for themselves what happens. I have this idea that if you know the story in advance, and get it all in five hundred words, why would you then read a hundred thousand more?

Of course I understand it from a selling-the-bloody-thing perspective. It just makes me go ngggghhh.

I sent one submission to John Jarrold. The submission was terrible. I’m not expecting anything in response. Balls.

In less than a week I move to my home for the next year. Student shared accommodation. Get in. Also, I’ll be home to visit the family and friends in sunny Essex later this month. The sunshine here in Arendal is excellent at the moment. I caught my first Norwegian fish. It was a cod. I was happy.

Really happy.

It tasted awesome, too!