With Summer off to the editor for a developmental read and nothing much else to do at this point, I’ve decided to get back to work on the World War One fantasy novel I began last year. I’ve been laying down new beats this week in the form of some new characters and putting more thinking into the overall world building. What I had before is still decently readable for a first draft, so I’ll keep it with minor changes and begin plugging the gaps in the narrative. I decided to include an American presence in the war. Also, given the nature of the conflict (magical “Green” nations versus technological “Steel” nations) it made sense to me that the Green nations would need some way of countering the nascent aerial forces of the kaiser and his troops. They have zeppelins and very basic aircraft for spotting (single seat, small engine monoplanes without even basic aerolons, relying still on wing warping techniques to turn). But the Green nations had zip, until I decided to combine the two thoughts. And thus I arrived at:
The TWR. The Texas Wyvern Riders.
America is one nation that was never behind the veil and has a combination of technology and magic. There are also some rather unusual magical creatures on the vast continent, including the Wyverns of the southwest, most notably indigenous to the west Texas region. Some intrepid ranchers have captured a few, harnessed them, broke them, and made them into a sort of aerial corps.
The more details I add, the more characters I’m tracking, the more complicated the book (series… I’m thinking three right now) is becoming. I’m beginning to understand why George R. R. Martin takes so long to write each of the Game of Thrones novel. I’ve had to resort to a couple of different documents to keep track of the various geographic details, as well as a timeline of major events, and a separate timeline of character events and scenes. But that all seems to be working in keeping me organized, as well as helping me to see gaps in the narrative where I can fill things in. And the other cool thing is that, by jumping around settings and characters, it makes it easier to shift chapters around to change up the order of events without having to do a major re-write each time I do to fix continuity errors.
So, I’ve got my focus for the Spring now. I’ll aim to finish up the first draft of the first novel by early summer. And hopefully by summer, Summer will be out to agents for consideration (fingers crossed on that!). 2017 already looks like a great year is ahead.
Note: you can read an excerpt from the novel HERE (the prologue).