The Story behind the Story of Intrinsic (Part One?)
Okay, so Intrinsic is the first book I've ever written and finished writing with the story pretty much complete in my mind... sort of. I wrote it with the intention of there being a second book that would start up not long after the first book ended. So, to me the book is finished, but anyone who read the book (read: my family and friends) wouldn't really know what was going on exactly.
I felt it was a huge accomplishment.
A breakthrough in my writing.
I mean, there it was, the finished manuscript, laying there pristine and finished.
I knew it would need a lot of work to be publishable. Work that I was willing--am willing-- to put into the story because it is something that matters to me.
See, Intrinsic is the story of a girl with a family who discovers magic and her family simultaneously.
I went to this writing conference in Connecticut, the 2011 Unicorn Writer's Conference, to be accurate. While there, I went to the Scifi/fantasy/horror talk given by Daniel Waters, author of the Generation Dead series. I don't remember a lot of what he said. He had a lot of criticism for the "write what you know" advice. However, I remember that his writing process involved choosing a central point to write from and go from there.
The central point I chose for the writing project I was working on was: "Family is the most important thing you can have. They can be your greatest ally as well as your greatest weakness."
Basically, I wanted to write about my family. I wanted people to be able to experience the joys and fun I'd had with them as well as some of the sorrows.
So the idea went from, "I want to write about my family." to "I want to write about a family similar to mine."
Then, I tried to write a first draft or at least first chapter, but I quickly realized that I needed to have the family planned out to write about them. So, I began to design the family and I wanted it at least as big as mine. I first started with Grandma and Grandpa and then I did their children. Then I made the grandchildren, picking the grandchild who'd be my central character. The daughter of someone who, for some reason left the family. So the main character could rediscover the family.
That didn't work the first couple times around.
I designed and redesigned and redesigned this family, each time picking a different angle from which to work.
By then, it was September and I wanted the first draft done by Christmas so I could give it to someone in the family as part of the gift exchange.
See, we do this exchange every year and this past year, the theme was "Do It Yourself". I wrote the story myself, printed the pages out, punched holes in them, and put them in a binder. All by myself. I even bought the ink.
So, I started writing the story of Ariadne Fox, only daughter of Mary Fox nee McGill, who tested positive for word magic. However, I hadn't hammered out plot or story or anything. So, I came up with a plot pretty unrelated to the family I'd planned to showcase and the book finished with the lead-in to the next part of the plot.
Ruining my central idea completely.
Yeah. Great job breaking it, author!
So... I went to another writer's conference, happy as a lamb because I didn't realize my mistake yet. I was happily reading through the chapters and bit-by-bit editing the 118 page monstrosity. Cutting what I felt needed to be cut (the central fracking family) and doing things to move the plot forward. You know, usual editing things.
See, the central idea would basically be about Harry Potter if Harry were a long-lost cousin of the Weasley family... Maybe if he were a Prewett, for example. And a girl. And my magic system is always going to be radically different from the Harry Potter Method of Magic. More... subtle... ish...
While at the writing conference, we did a lot of talk on character and plot and I realized three things:
1.) Ariadne Fox's story, while interesting, had nothing to do with my McGill family.
2.) I could rewrite Intrinsic without the McGills or rewrite Intrinsic without Ariadne and her story and start from scratch.
3.) I needed to do more world-building because my world is a bit different from our world. Magic is out in the open after something happened during World War II and the Cold War wasn't just about nukes and the space program and communism. It was also about getting as many magical beings (and magically gifted people) in the military as possible. The world's going to be more different than I was writing it in the book I'd completed.
Ultimately, I had and still have a lot of work ahead of me. I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to go about it, while also planning out my blog. I hope this helped you in viewing my writing process. Maybe I'll post chapters of the original first draft eventually. Maybe not. I'm not decided yet. If I did, would anyone read it and comment on how I should go about editing it?
I felt it was a huge accomplishment.
A breakthrough in my writing.
I mean, there it was, the finished manuscript, laying there pristine and finished.
I knew it would need a lot of work to be publishable. Work that I was willing--am willing-- to put into the story because it is something that matters to me.
See, Intrinsic is the story of a girl with a family who discovers magic and her family simultaneously.
I went to this writing conference in Connecticut, the 2011 Unicorn Writer's Conference, to be accurate. While there, I went to the Scifi/fantasy/horror talk given by Daniel Waters, author of the Generation Dead series. I don't remember a lot of what he said. He had a lot of criticism for the "write what you know" advice. However, I remember that his writing process involved choosing a central point to write from and go from there.
The central point I chose for the writing project I was working on was: "Family is the most important thing you can have. They can be your greatest ally as well as your greatest weakness."
Basically, I wanted to write about my family. I wanted people to be able to experience the joys and fun I'd had with them as well as some of the sorrows.
So the idea went from, "I want to write about my family." to "I want to write about a family similar to mine."
Then, I tried to write a first draft or at least first chapter, but I quickly realized that I needed to have the family planned out to write about them. So, I began to design the family and I wanted it at least as big as mine. I first started with Grandma and Grandpa and then I did their children. Then I made the grandchildren, picking the grandchild who'd be my central character. The daughter of someone who, for some reason left the family. So the main character could rediscover the family.
That didn't work the first couple times around.
I designed and redesigned and redesigned this family, each time picking a different angle from which to work.
By then, it was September and I wanted the first draft done by Christmas so I could give it to someone in the family as part of the gift exchange.
See, we do this exchange every year and this past year, the theme was "Do It Yourself". I wrote the story myself, printed the pages out, punched holes in them, and put them in a binder. All by myself. I even bought the ink.
So, I started writing the story of Ariadne Fox, only daughter of Mary Fox nee McGill, who tested positive for word magic. However, I hadn't hammered out plot or story or anything. So, I came up with a plot pretty unrelated to the family I'd planned to showcase and the book finished with the lead-in to the next part of the plot.
Ruining my central idea completely.
Yeah. Great job breaking it, author!
So... I went to another writer's conference, happy as a lamb because I didn't realize my mistake yet. I was happily reading through the chapters and bit-by-bit editing the 118 page monstrosity. Cutting what I felt needed to be cut (the central fracking family) and doing things to move the plot forward. You know, usual editing things.
See, the central idea would basically be about Harry Potter if Harry were a long-lost cousin of the Weasley family... Maybe if he were a Prewett, for example. And a girl. And my magic system is always going to be radically different from the Harry Potter Method of Magic. More... subtle... ish...
While at the writing conference, we did a lot of talk on character and plot and I realized three things:
1.) Ariadne Fox's story, while interesting, had nothing to do with my McGill family.
2.) I could rewrite Intrinsic without the McGills or rewrite Intrinsic without Ariadne and her story and start from scratch.
3.) I needed to do more world-building because my world is a bit different from our world. Magic is out in the open after something happened during World War II and the Cold War wasn't just about nukes and the space program and communism. It was also about getting as many magical beings (and magically gifted people) in the military as possible. The world's going to be more different than I was writing it in the book I'd completed.
Ultimately, I had and still have a lot of work ahead of me. I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to go about it, while also planning out my blog. I hope this helped you in viewing my writing process. Maybe I'll post chapters of the original first draft eventually. Maybe not. I'm not decided yet. If I did, would anyone read it and comment on how I should go about editing it?
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