This past week was not good for my writing, I’m afraid. I did finish my pre-editor edit of Into the Eternal Wood, and the first chapter of the novella will be going out to my mailing list early tomorrow morning. My wife had several interviews this week, and for moral support I usually go along with, which reduced the time and motivation I had for writing still more. Even so, I went from about 5,000 words to 8,500 words on Halls of Power.
This week looks to have far fewer interruptions, so I’ll be getting to work and hope to have over 20k words by next Sunday. I’ve realized that writing on Saturday and Sunday were killing me somewhat, so instead I’m working on the book Monday-Friday, with a goal of 2,500 words a day, minimum. If I can get my inspiration properly rolling, I may have Halls of Power done much earlier than my end goal, but I don’t dare promise that.
Incidentally, once Halls of Power is in the editing phase, I’m going to figure out which ideas I like the most for my next book/trilogy, and put them up as a poll to see what people like the most.
Ancient Dreams 
Regarding the poll: I’d suggest a small (like one page at most) sample for a more honest reaction, especially if they aren’t the works you already put out previews for.
I know I’ll be excited by your superhero universe, for example, because that’s a genre I read and enjoy currently and if it’s just the synopsis and a world overview I’ll definitely vote for that. But if you have some really interesting character(s) in a sci-fi setting that can be shown in a brief sample, even if it won’t be in the book itself, that could change things.
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Totally understand, I’d probably put up a few samples of what I’m looking at when I did them. I’ll admit I’m somewhat leery of doing sci-fi, because I tend to run into writers block with science fiction far more readily than with fantasy. That part worries me, I’ll admit.
But I’m not going to just throw the ideas at you guys without any context. That would be silly of me.
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You already have what, the first chapter or so of several potential ‘next series’ first books up on this blog, right? I’d say that, maybe a little more, plus a plot overview (I’m imagining more detailed than a blurb, but not enough to ruin any twists) should in theory be enough information that people can answer a poll with an informed decision.
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I do. I’ve got three that are more developed than the others (Through the Fire, Sisters of Radiance, and Born a Queen), along with several more that I’ve started, but haven’t gotten very far. There’s also new ideas that might be better for appealing to a broad audience (many of the ideas above are more for me than for the world at large), which makes it odd. I’ll have to ponder on it.
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I get where Paul McD is coming from but I was thinking something more consise, like an elevator pitch for each potential book/series. Having one for all of those would even the playing field between those works you’ve put up previews for and anything you haven’t, as well as (I’m guessing here) give us a better idea of what the series is actually going to be like.
I’m thinking of the first few chapters of Ancient Ruins, specifically. I’d argue it’s not represenative of what the book is like as a whole. It’s necessery setup, sure, but the tone shifts significantly with the introduction of new characters and antagonists. And all of the previews I read had that world setup feel too, I never felt like we got to know the primary protagnoist in them.
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Ahh, I see where you’re coming from! And yeah, you have a very good point. If I was going to write them up, I’d have to do something like that. I’ll definitely think on things when Halls of Power is close to complete, so that I can do this properly.
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This was what I had in mind when I talked about a plot overview, though perhaps I could have worded that better. I feel a chapter or so of the book is important to give an actual idea of how it might be written – the opening chapter or two might not be much for getting a feel for the actual story, but if you have an overview of the story through a plot overview or an elevator pitch or whatever you want to call it, then you have an idea of if the actual story idea interests you, and the initial chapter or so lets you know if how Ben is writing it works for you (I realise Ben will probably write things fairly similarly to how he’s done Ancient Ruins/Spells of Old, but I suspect things like a genre shift will result in things being written somewhat differently. Or perhaps he’ll try, on purpose, to write in a different manner, who knows.)
I just feel it’s important to have both points, because I’ve come across too many books where the synopsis seemed really interesting, but then how the author had gone about writing it just sucked the life out of it, for me at least.
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A fair point. I just have to point out that my first draft of a story is often… incredibly rough. Possibly even cringe-worthy. I doubt I’ll change from my semi-omniscient third-person point of view (I don’t like first person, or when I bounce around between different character’s heads), so I think the writing style will stay mostly the same… but who really knows?
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