Best Method To Structure Your Fiction and Excerpt of WIP
Plus Making Promo Materials
I finished my novella sequel to Fazgood. At 27K words, it took 13 months off-and-on to get through three drafts.
An excerpt from the climax:
Fazgood could not contact Warren in this pitched battle. A moment’s lapse would see the Earl trampled, shot, or worse. He pulled out the revolver and sprang toward the basket. An unheimlich skittered past him on the chase, close enough to touch.
Voices prayed, begged, commanded.
The unheimlichs spread to the city hall to spring through an open window. Screams burst from windows where observers had just been merry. The front door flung open to let citizens stumble forth, eyes vast with terror. Then a solitary woman’s shrieking, rasping with age. Then silence.
Spindly shadows filled that City Hall doorway; the unheimlich and its newly-made scions.
The Mayor held out his bulky revolver and fired. An unheimlich in the doorway exploded into gilded flame.
Fazgood crouched and searched. “Calzjha?”
It was a fool’s mission, he knew. Calling a name in this tumult? Seeking when torchlight, lanternlight, Bright Essence light, and magic rifle fire fought his eyes? The crowd had cleared from the square, still he exposed himself to unheimlich, gunfire, and the scrutiny of the Bright Essence.
“Calzjha!” His heart felt about to leap from his chest and search on its own. “Calzjha!”
Above, the Bright Essence crowed. “The revelry is complete! Your ancestors attend! I attend for those you betrayed!”
“How small this town seems! Like little doll-houses!”
It shrugged all its limbs. “Seems to me!”
It swept a frond at the town hall. The end of that limb distended and expanded until enormous like the body of a whale. The frond smashed the town hall. Brick cracked and tumbled. Windows exploded and showered the square with glittering shards.
Golden munition pattered the Bright Essence’s whirling body. The distended limb swept the square. An owl-like eye near the center squinted in pain, awash with glittering black. Another volley from the soldiers pierced the Unnamed, pinning the wounded organs in painful reality.
The unheimlich chittered and advanced across, leaping in where the Unnamed had swept away. They regained the center of the square, swarming over and past the basket. Another fusillade caused a wall of skittering limbs to burst alight
The story is action-packed, and includes Fazgood’s character arc, where he works to overcome the trauma of being Epic. Is there Therapeutic Romantasy? ‘Cause he’s going through some changes.
Meanwhile, I am going to give away as many copies of my work as I can.
I cannot emphasize how well this works! Try it on your story.
I discovered that I had nested all four types within Fazgood’s 110K words, and my WIP is both Character and Milieu driven, plus what that means for the plot.
Recently used manuscriptreport.com to get a new angle on how to write marketing material. I got the report for Fazgood and will tell you how that goes.
“But Tim! What about being an old guy! You told us you’d give us the tea!” Okay.
First: I feel awkward using phrases like “spill the tea”, because it became popular after the ‘90s, and wonder if I don’t seem grasping for lost youth. Second: 80-year-olds are telling me “ah, you’re still young!” which frightens me, because I imagine myself at 80 with my life still absolutely unchanged. Third: I’m starting to look for some way to “pull the wool over my own eyes” (look up the phrase and be amazed!), because I need an ideal or a purpose to get me through once my life starts to really decline.
Life isn’t cheery, but by accepting it as is, I can ease up on the recrimination of not being The World’s Oldest Child Prodigy and having Proof Of Concept.
I’ll talk with you soon!