Curse of a Dark God draft 2 finished!!!!

ByJohn Brown

Rejoice! Sing! The draft is done!

Hallelujah.

Based on my records I spent:

  • 48.5 hours on the pre-draft for this book
  • 503.5 hours to finish draft 1
  • 130 hours to finish draft 2
  • A total of 682 hours of work to this point

If I’d been working full time on this that would be roughly 17 weeks. That’s about 4 months. I don’t think that’s so bad, considering this book clocks in at 230,000 words. Not bad at all. But no wonder just finishing a novel is the thing that filters most would-be writers out. That’s a freaking huge amount of time. I hope as things progress I get faster.

Here’s what I focused on in this draft.

  • Sugar’s story. It was a mess and the biggest problem with draft 1. I had to rewrite or massively revise about a dozen of her chapters. In fact, I ended up added three chapters to her story: White Tower, Withers, and Loyalties. I’m very please, however, with the result. I think it works very well.
  • The Gnolum. I had purposely left the seeding chapters for these giants out (seeding as in I can’t just have them show up at the end without laying some groundwork). I had to add 2 chapters for them to this draft.
  • Early Argoth chapters. The first two chapter of Argoth’s story needed to be totally rewritten. The second needed major revising.
  • Chapter titles. For titles in draft 1 I used the name of the main pov character in the chapter and a short summary of what was happening. It helps keep things clear. So those are now out and the chapter titles in.
  • Rough stuff. In many of the early chapters I was still feeling my way into the story. Yes, I had an outline, but I just can’t get the whole story until I begin to write. So there were many chapters with notes to myself or blanks to fill in. Some things no longer worked because of later chapters. All this I had to fix.
  • Reordering chapters in the last half of the book. About halfway through the book Talen’s story breaks off from Sugar’s and Argoth’s. So when I was originally writing them, I found it easier to just write all of Talen’s story and then all of Sugars and Argoth’s until the three met up again. Well, this created some time gaps. I fixed those. I also had long stretches of one pov. For example, I had Talen’s story running for 14  chapters without any break to the other viewpoints. All this had to be fixed.

So I’m very pleased with this draft. Here are the first three chapters for your enjoyment: CODG draft 2 beginning for readers. Remember: feedback from my wife, agent, editors, and other early readers will change it. You’re welcome to contact me with any comments you might have about it.

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  • My presentations at LDStorymakers May 10-11, 2013

    ByJohn Brown

    I’ll be giving two presentations at LDStorymakers this year.

    “Vivid and Clear” — Despite the often repeated 11th commandment for writers—show, don’t tell—writers NEVER show. They can’t. It’s all tell, tell, tell. The trick is to tell in a way that helps your readers imagine the situation (action, thought, dialogue, description, etc.) with such vividness and clarity it triggers an emotional response.  In this hour we’ll explore a number of simple but powerful prose techniques that help you do just that.

    “Story Turns” — Story turns–cliffhangers, rugpulls, plot twists, reversals, surprises, revelations (and more)–are a core part of an exciting plot, pacing control, and making a reader want to turn the page. In this workshop we’ll explore the main types of story turns and how they work so you can use them in your writing. (They’ve got me scheduled to give this one twice.)

    More importantly, I get to attend some very interesting looking presentations from other writers when I’m not on stage. I had a blast last year.

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    Writing Update: 6/13/11 – reviewing the beginning

    ByJohn Brown

    I’ve finished chapter 17 of CURSE. I’m up to 50,000 words and have moved from the presentation phase into the struggle. And I’m stopping at this point to review the what I’ve got. I’ve learned that if the foundations of the story–the presentation phase–has fundamental flaws in it, you’re only going to create a HUGE rewrite mess if you push on.

    I know this from experience. When writing the first draft of CURSE back in 2009 (oh my heck, it feels like forever ago), I ignored my Spideysenses and told myself I could fix anything that was wrong in post production.  And it IS possible to fix many things afterwards–you can change scenes, improve clarity and transport, remove continuity errors, layer in character tags and things like that.

    And it IS true that sometimes you do just have to write to the end to figure out the story.  Sometimes you have to just write to the end, and do it in a substandard way, because if you don’t you’ll never finish anything. Sort of like sketching first and then painting. But if there’s something wrong with the basic premise of a story line, and you keep writing, then that story line affects everything it touches. The fractures ripple out all the way to the end of the book. And you might end up, like I did, having to toss a huge amount of what you’d written.

    Which is not all bad. I learned a lot and invented a lot of cool stuff while writing that. But when you’re on a deadline, it can be a killer.  And I’m not doing that this time. I worked out the big issues in my chapter outline.

    So I’m pulling back and reviewing. I’m delighted with everything but the villain. He’s still not right. I love his chapters, the scenes. I love the name I’ve given him–Endless. But the structure isn’t right. I’ve inadvertantly created two main villains. And that’s not useful. Having two “main” villains doesn’t double the power of the opposition. It splits it. The villain/henchman model works well. But I don’t have that either. Over the next few days I’ll be rectifying the setup. Then moving forward.

    For those of you who are writers, I thought you’d be interested to know that there were a few times these last two weeks when I dreaded the writing. I had a large problem before me or had to invent a new chapter (as opposed to using something from the previous draft), and a dread filled me. But I sketch/drafted my way to the end, and soon found the writing a joy again. 

    I can’t say enough about the sketch/draft method. I’ve found it works in creative activities OUTSIDE writing as well. When working up a lesson plan for my day job, designing landscaping for our house, developing a talking script for a sales call, writing a technical manual, or a hundred other things I’ve had to do–it’s always easier to work from something than create everything all from scratch.

    Sketching allows me to create that first draft. And it allows me to do this without having to worry about quality. Sketches can be silly. Weird. Full of crap. They can be all this because I can throw them away. They’re not meant to be permanent. And so there’s no pressure to perform. There’s no staring at a blank screen or page. Sketching is a free-wheeling joy. It fills me up with ideas. And then, when I’ve got the general idea of what I want to do, I can start in on the “real” draft knowing WHAT I want to accomplish which leaves me free to think about the HOW. And if I run into problems and realize the draft isn’t going to work, or I run into something better, I just call the current draft a sketch (or “take” as used in the movie business) and move on to the real one.

    Sometimes a chapter or section requires 1 sketch or take, sometimes I’ve run up into the 20’s. Sometimes I haven’t needed any at all. It’s not the number that’s important, it’s the process that has really freed me.

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  • LTUE presentations

    ByJohn Brown

    Life, the Universe & Everything is coming up in a little over a month on Feb 12-14, 2015. It will be held at the Provo Marriott Hotel & Conference Center. Some reasons to go.

    Number one. Toni Weisskopf, the editor and publisher of Baen Books, is the guest of honor.

    Number two. LTUE and LDStorymakers are the best two cons in Utah for learning how to write, but LTUE is lots cheaper.

    Number three. Lots of local authors will be there. It’s a great forum for hearing their insights and finding out what they’re doing.

    I will be giving three presentations.

    • Plotting Secrets: Action. In this one, Larry Correia and I team up to share a model of plotting that should make developing your action story much easier. Attendees will be able to use the methods on a novel idea Larry, Joe (Larry’s son), and I came up with called Mech Runners. Basically, Larry turned to Joe and said, “What’s awesome?” Joe said, “Giant robots, bandits, and murderers.” We took it from there.
    • Plotting Secrets: Romance. In this one, I team up with romance author LL Muir to share a model of plotting that should make developing your romance plot or subplot much easier. Attendees will be able to use the methods on a story idea Lesli and I came up based on The Hobbit. It’s called My Precious.
    • The Story Setup: A Powerful Tool You’re Probably Overlooking. The story setup is a fabulous tool that’s not only helped me drastically cut down the time it takes me to develop my ideas, but it has also helped me develop better ideas. In this presentation, I will explain what the story setup is and how you can use it to help you nail your novel.

    I hope to see you there.

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  • Advance Praise for Servant of a Dark God

    ByJohn Brown

    My editor just emailed me another endorsement from one of the folks we sent the manuscript to. I’m so excited! This one’s from Kage Baker.

    I’m a total stranger to three of the four that have responded so far. It continually amazes me how generous the pros in this genre are with both their time and praise.

    Here’s the last one.

    “A classic heroic saga, dealing with the bedrock issues of good and evil and identity. These are classic themes because they matter; and Brown makes them matter both to his young protagonist and the reader. It promises to continue for quite a distance, and I hope it does.”

    —Kage Baker, author of House of the Stag and The Company series.

    Here are the previous ones.

    “Thoroughly engrossing from the first page to the last! John Brown shows himself to be a writer with remarkable depth and power. I haven’t seen a debut novel this good in years!”

    —David Farland, New York Times best-selling author of Runelords and Ravenspell series

    “In Servant of a Dark God, John Brown has created a complex and intricate world, filled with all the permutations of human good and evil, as well as evil that goes beyond the human, where neither heroes nor villains are quite what they seem at first, and where the cost of virtue is high indeed, yet where, in the end, the tenacity of such virtue is what is required to triumph.”

    —L. E. Modesitt, Jr., award-winning author of the Recluce Saga

    “A complex, powerful story of a youth trying to learn who he is and what he is, with no allies he can trust in a world stalked by a monster. A book that copies nothing I have read before and which goes its own way brilliantly.”

    —David Drake, author of the popular Hammer’s Slammers and Lord of Isles series

    Wow. I think I want to read this book!

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  • Drovers Update: Draft 2 finished

    ByJohn Brown

    Huzzah!

    I just typed the final words of draft 2 of the first book of The Drovers. It now goes to my beta readers (I’m the alpha reader, the one who sees draft 1). And while they’re reading, I will begin draft 2 of the second book.

    This is the shortest novel I’ve ever written, clocking in at 61,000 words. My target was 50,000 words, the average size of a Louis L’Amour western. But this will do. Depending on the beta reader feedback, I may add or cut a few thousand words. But not much.

    I still don’t have a series name, dang it!

    The Queen’s Drovers?

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