How I wrote Progeny…
In a way, a game is responsible for my debut novel, Progeny.
Close to two years ago, I decided to look finding a local gaming group. “Why would a person who had never played a traditional paper and pen game do that?” you might ask. Trust me, I asked it. I had never tried something like that before, but after picking up a book at a local bookstore and perusing through it, I decided to give it a shot. It sounded like it could be fun.
Something must have possessed me to look for a new hobby, and I am glad I did. I quickly found a group of guys that lived nearby and for well over a year, we met every Friday night to play. It was more fun that I had expected. I loved the imagination each session required me to bring to the table. You had to think on your feet – come up with your own story. The creative juices began to bubble.
After a few months as a player, I threw my hat into the ring to run a game, and for the next ten months, I did. Each week, I had to think up interesting people and places for the players to interact with and new challenges for them to conquer. In between sessions, I would send out short stories either recapping what had happened, or giving the players a glimpse into another part of the narrative they were playing.
At some point – after significant and persistent encouragement – I got it into my head to turn my short stories into something larger. A 312,000-word novel, the first part in a ?-book series effort was not what I envisioned at the time, however. Truthfully, I do not know what I was thinking I would produce. Regardless, I decided to give it a go.
For three months, I did nothing but brainstorm, getting ideas down on scraps of paper whenever they struck, keeping a running log on my computer of everything that I thought might have a place in the world I was creating in my mind. I came up with nations, cultures, customs, histories, conflicts, fashion, mores, environment – everything that a real world has.
I did all of that before I thought up the story I would tell. If I worked with pastels instead of words, one could say I painted the background of a portrait first. I wanted Terrene to feel ‘full.’ A story with no weight behind it is… well, not a very good story. I have read a few. Bleh.
So, I had my canvas – what next?
Oh, yea… I was writing a book. I needed a plot. Well, the tale behind the inspiration of Nikalys and Kenders and their physical and personal journey has two parts to it.
The Goddess Indrida’s prophecy (or at least an early version of it) was one of the first things I wrote for the book. It was based on the history of the location where I had decided Progeny (not the original name, by the way) would take place. The prophecy drew back the curtain of the story and the closing act was solid (in my head).
Now, I knew the beginning of the story and I knew the ultimate end. The high-level plot was set. But who were going to be the actors?
“Write what you know.”
I have seen that guidance in countless places, heard it from numerous people – and most of the time, I think it is very good advice (although, it does not hurt to stretch yourself either – challenge your writing instinct). Other than knowing the exact type of books that I enjoyed reading and a bunch of stuff about IT – what else did I know well? Well, as it turns out, there are two little people in my life who are very important to me. They are the inspiration behind the main characters. I hope they enjoy this story when they are old enough to read.
Setting? Check.
Plot? Check.
Characters? Check.
Next, I outlined the whole book (as well as high level outlines for subsequent books). Eventually, months after this was just a ‘hey, I think I might write a book’ thought in my head, I wrote chapter one.
Nine Hells, it was bad. I have a copy of it around here somewhere that I keep to remind me of where this story started. Yet, it was a beginning. From there, I outlined the next five chapters to a fine detail. Too fine, if I recall. I learned quickly that – for me – an outline is a rough guide, not a map.
I would write a chapter, outline another… trying to keep an idea of where I was going at all times, but never afraid to veer if the story took me in an unexpected direction. Which it did countless times. Sometimes I wrestled it back on track, other times, the path it went down was too good to ignore. Instead, I went along with it, curious where we were going.
Some of those surprising turns resulted in some rather significant revisions of my original ideas, but the book is the better for it. Two of the most important characters in the books were ‘accidents.’ Am I ever glad that those characters inserted themselves into my tale. Progeny would be much different without them.
About ten chapters into the first draft, I began to alternate between writing new chapters and editing old. I found this forced me to think clearly about telling a consistent story. Ultimately, it made some of the later editing passes much easier. Well… easier, anyway. Editing is never ‘easy.’
As I wrote, I kept the outline thing going for a while – probably about two-thirds of the way into the book. At that point, it was so clear in my head where the story was going, I did not need to write it down anywhere any more. Words just poured out.
The first draft of Progeny was about 25,000 words lighter than what is in the book. Over the course of a few months, I read the novel numerous times; sometimes on the computer screen, other times printed out double-spaced, still other times printed but spaced as if in a paperback novel. I changed many little things over those months: adding descriptions, some – okay, a lot – of detail to some character’s stories, rephrasing. I killed semicolons left and right, realizing that it is okay to have paragraphs that are more than a single sentence.
When I thought I was “done” (HAH!), I had something of which I was proud. Then my copyeditor got ahold of it. I found my understanding of the words ‘may’ vs. ‘might’ was lacking. Did you know ‘blonde’ refers to feminine people/objects, but ‘blond’ refers to male? I did not.
After a fantastic job by her and yet another editing pass, I was done.
Progeny is a big book. Is it an ambitious effort for a new author? Of course it is. But I love the story and the characters – and I cannot wait to see where it goes next.
Come with me to find out.
http://www.progenythebook.com
Close to two years ago, I decided to look finding a local gaming group. “Why would a person who had never played a traditional paper and pen game do that?” you might ask. Trust me, I asked it. I had never tried something like that before, but after picking up a book at a local bookstore and perusing through it, I decided to give it a shot. It sounded like it could be fun.
Something must have possessed me to look for a new hobby, and I am glad I did. I quickly found a group of guys that lived nearby and for well over a year, we met every Friday night to play. It was more fun that I had expected. I loved the imagination each session required me to bring to the table. You had to think on your feet – come up with your own story. The creative juices began to bubble.
After a few months as a player, I threw my hat into the ring to run a game, and for the next ten months, I did. Each week, I had to think up interesting people and places for the players to interact with and new challenges for them to conquer. In between sessions, I would send out short stories either recapping what had happened, or giving the players a glimpse into another part of the narrative they were playing.
At some point – after significant and persistent encouragement – I got it into my head to turn my short stories into something larger. A 312,000-word novel, the first part in a ?-book series effort was not what I envisioned at the time, however. Truthfully, I do not know what I was thinking I would produce. Regardless, I decided to give it a go.
For three months, I did nothing but brainstorm, getting ideas down on scraps of paper whenever they struck, keeping a running log on my computer of everything that I thought might have a place in the world I was creating in my mind. I came up with nations, cultures, customs, histories, conflicts, fashion, mores, environment – everything that a real world has.
I did all of that before I thought up the story I would tell. If I worked with pastels instead of words, one could say I painted the background of a portrait first. I wanted Terrene to feel ‘full.’ A story with no weight behind it is… well, not a very good story. I have read a few. Bleh.
So, I had my canvas – what next?
Oh, yea… I was writing a book. I needed a plot. Well, the tale behind the inspiration of Nikalys and Kenders and their physical and personal journey has two parts to it.
The Goddess Indrida’s prophecy (or at least an early version of it) was one of the first things I wrote for the book. It was based on the history of the location where I had decided Progeny (not the original name, by the way) would take place. The prophecy drew back the curtain of the story and the closing act was solid (in my head).
Now, I knew the beginning of the story and I knew the ultimate end. The high-level plot was set. But who were going to be the actors?
“Write what you know.”
I have seen that guidance in countless places, heard it from numerous people – and most of the time, I think it is very good advice (although, it does not hurt to stretch yourself either – challenge your writing instinct). Other than knowing the exact type of books that I enjoyed reading and a bunch of stuff about IT – what else did I know well? Well, as it turns out, there are two little people in my life who are very important to me. They are the inspiration behind the main characters. I hope they enjoy this story when they are old enough to read.
Setting? Check.
Plot? Check.
Characters? Check.
Next, I outlined the whole book (as well as high level outlines for subsequent books). Eventually, months after this was just a ‘hey, I think I might write a book’ thought in my head, I wrote chapter one.
Nine Hells, it was bad. I have a copy of it around here somewhere that I keep to remind me of where this story started. Yet, it was a beginning. From there, I outlined the next five chapters to a fine detail. Too fine, if I recall. I learned quickly that – for me – an outline is a rough guide, not a map.
I would write a chapter, outline another… trying to keep an idea of where I was going at all times, but never afraid to veer if the story took me in an unexpected direction. Which it did countless times. Sometimes I wrestled it back on track, other times, the path it went down was too good to ignore. Instead, I went along with it, curious where we were going.
Some of those surprising turns resulted in some rather significant revisions of my original ideas, but the book is the better for it. Two of the most important characters in the books were ‘accidents.’ Am I ever glad that those characters inserted themselves into my tale. Progeny would be much different without them.
About ten chapters into the first draft, I began to alternate between writing new chapters and editing old. I found this forced me to think clearly about telling a consistent story. Ultimately, it made some of the later editing passes much easier. Well… easier, anyway. Editing is never ‘easy.’
As I wrote, I kept the outline thing going for a while – probably about two-thirds of the way into the book. At that point, it was so clear in my head where the story was going, I did not need to write it down anywhere any more. Words just poured out.
The first draft of Progeny was about 25,000 words lighter than what is in the book. Over the course of a few months, I read the novel numerous times; sometimes on the computer screen, other times printed out double-spaced, still other times printed but spaced as if in a paperback novel. I changed many little things over those months: adding descriptions, some – okay, a lot – of detail to some character’s stories, rephrasing. I killed semicolons left and right, realizing that it is okay to have paragraphs that are more than a single sentence.
When I thought I was “done” (HAH!), I had something of which I was proud. Then my copyeditor got ahold of it. I found my understanding of the words ‘may’ vs. ‘might’ was lacking. Did you know ‘blonde’ refers to feminine people/objects, but ‘blond’ refers to male? I did not.
After a fantastic job by her and yet another editing pass, I was done.
Progeny is a big book. Is it an ambitious effort for a new author? Of course it is. But I love the story and the characters – and I cannot wait to see where it goes next.
Come with me to find out.
http://www.progenythebook.com
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