The Howl

The genre of the story I'm currently writing, Changeling, is called 'Young Adult Urban Fantasy'.  It's the first story I've ever successfully sat down to write.  I've gotten it through the first, very rough draft, and I'm currently on the second draft, fixing things like continuity and plotting problems.  It's definitely been a learn-how-to-write-while-writing experience.  It's also been about as much fun as you can have out of bed--a total blast.

The story's complicated, so I won't go into much detail here.  Suffice it to say that the main antagonist of the story, the B.B.M (Big Bad Monster) that my two teen FMCs (Female Main Characters) must face, is... well, I'll let them tell you:

“Okay, Sis, listen to this.” I read from my laptop’s screen what my Googling had turned up.

“…there stood a foul thing, a great, black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon. And even as they looked the thing tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville, on which, as it turned its blazing eyes and dripping jaws upon them, the three shrieked with fear and rode for dear life, still screaming, across the moor. One, it is said, died that very night of what he had seen, and the other twain were but broken men for the rest of their days.”

I turned around in my chair to look at Katie, lying on her belly at the end of my bed, with her chin resting on her hands. “Sound familiar? That’s from The Hound of the Baskervilles. Arthur Conan Doyle is supposed to have based the hound in the story on old legends about something called a ‘black dog’ or ‘barghest’.”

See what I mean about this story being a blast to write?  I mean, how cool is it be able to work in a reference to The Hound of the Baskervilles?

Like a lot of people, walking helps me think.  I live in a rural neighborhood in North-Central Florida, and the walking is great here.  Not only are there plenty of woods, fields, and low-traffic roads, but it's early spring here, and the weather is perfect for walking.  Later in the year, it'll become too hot and humid during the day, so I'll switch to walking mostly at night, but today, I took a long walk around a big, tree-lined hayfield.  The field is still mostly brown, but here and there are patches of green clover, with a few early spring flowers.  In a few weeks, before the brown grass turns green, fills the field and gets tall, it will be covered in a blaze of bright flowers.

So this morning I'm walking around that field along the treeline, deep in thought, working out a plotting problem in my story, when suddenly a long, mournful howl comes through the trees.

It's one of the neighbor's dogs, of course.  But my very first thought was Holy crap, it's the Hound of the Baskervilles!  Flee, flee!

First-Draft-Complete

Time to pop the cork on the bubbly. Last night I reached first-draft-complete on my work-in-progress, Changeling. Finally!

Since this is the first time I've mentioned Changeling here on this blog, here's the (admittedly rough) story blurb:

Siobhan Miller is a young girl of fifteen, a sophomore in a rural Tennessee high school, and a Faerie. For when she reached puberty, Siobhan went through a shocking physical transformation that revealed her to be one of the fae of old Irish folklore. It's difficult enough fitting in at a new school, meeting boys, making new friends, and dealing with the 'popular girls' clique, while hiding her differences behind the illusion power that is part of her fae heritage. But after these long centuries, the land of Faerie is growing closer once again, and its magic is returning to our world. And with that return, creatures and abilities long thought to be myths are awakening, and 'things' are beginning to come over from the otherside. Siobhan is forced to deal with the consequences, before they can expose her secret to the rest of the world.

 Now, it's not a readable first draft, by any measure. This is my first completed story, and it was definitely a learn-as-I-go experience. I owe a big debt to all the great people over at Critique Circle, who tore to shreds effectively critted the chapters I posted there. I learned a lot from the guys and gals there. Still learning, too.

Now for the bad news. Changeling is enormous. 135K words. It has plot dead-ends. The writing varies in quality from chapter to chapter. It needs lots of work.

None of which was unexpected. I'm not discouraged at all. I knew going in that I didn't know what I was doing, so I followed some sage advice, and gave myself permission to write badly... for the first draft. Otherwise, as in my past, it would have never gotten written.

So now I go over it with a weed whacker (might need a heavy-duty brush mower), trim out the wordiness many of you have ragged on me, I mean, given me thoughtful advice about. Straighten out the plot. Get rid of superfluous plot threads. Work on fleshing out some of the details. Apply more of the lessons from those annoying excellent crits.

I love the story world and the characters I've created. I feel confident that, with effort, patience, and the lessons I've learned/am learning, Changeling will grow up to be an enjoyable, readable story.