Last night, I finished Chapter Nine. It was a Bran chapter, where my protagonist had a lot of choices to make and perhaps not all of them are right ones. It was a lot of fun to write because it had a great balance of dialogue and action. There is just a certain fun quality of writing a gun battle with magical elements thrown into the mix.

Now it is time for a break, from the writing at least. I want to continue on but there is more research to do. I will be reading four different books, some of them written 900 years ago, to gain a better understanding of that world. When I finish this book, I want it to be as authentic and yet fresh for readers that college level medieval literature teachers could use it to contrast and compare literature for that time period to this. On the other hand, I want Neil Gaiman to read this and go, "Wow, he really did his research." Tall order, I know, but that's what I am driving for.

The word count as it stands now is:

Prologue: 3173
Chapter One: 4060
Chapter Two: 3244
Chapter Three: 3660
Chapter Four: 4144
Chapter Five: 4547
Chapter Six: 2793
Chapter Seven: 3598
Chapter Eight: 4939
Chapter Nine: 4257

These chapters will be the ones that are sent to the agent who requested a look at this book. They are being edited right now and I'll be going back over them early next week to clean them up after being plagued by red marks. Should be fun going back over them all and lending a sense of continuity to them if they don't already have it.

After I finish that and my reading, I will start writing the first Interlude. It should be short, somewhere between 1500-2500 words. The book has two of them, separating the book into thirds. The first Interlude is from the point of view of Philip Plantagenet, the Dagda King, my antagonist and the whole point for the book existing. It will be one of those chapters that turns the entire book on its head, I hope, and I can't wait to write it.

Hope all of your writing and reading is going well!

Labels: The Dagda King

Today I finished Chapter Eight. It was a Bran chapter, as I said, and it's the one the reader gets a broad glimpse of what's going on in the story.

These kind of chapters are tricky. How much information is too much? Is there such a thing? Should a writer lay out the entire story so the climax is defined, or should the reader learn as the protagonist learns... as the story progresses? Is there such a thing as letting too much out of the bag too soon?

Most of that is a fine balance.

The background and history: there needs to be enough that the reader is interested in learning more, but not so much they are bored with expository ramblings. I took great care setting this chapter up, deciding before I started what information needed to be in it and not much else. The rest of it can be related as the story moves forward. I tried to tease the reader. Hopefully it will work.

Most books have a chapter like this. In The Sword of Shannara, it is Chapter 2 I believe, where Allanon tells Shea what's going on. In Song of the Fell Hammer, it's around Chapter 20, where the High King tells Sorin what is going on. In The Elfstones of Shannara, it is Chapter 8 where Allanon reveals Wil and Amberle to the Elven Council. Every book has it at a different place but they all share something in common—it must be handled with care.

So I tried.

I am now over 1/3 finished. The count as it stands now:

Prologue: 3173 words
Chapter One: 4060 words
Chapter Two: 3244
Chapter Three: 3660
Chapter Four: 4144
Chapter Five: 4547
Chapter Six: 2793
Chapter Seven: 3598
Chapter Eight: 4939

The next chapter is a Bran chapter. It will be a lot of fun to write; a lot of foreshadowing I've set up in earlier chapters comes to fruition in this one. It will also be the last Seattle chapter. I'm kind of sad about that. I've felt quite comfortable writing in a city I know. All chapters after this will be wholly made up.

But those chapters are going to be great fun to write, because the real story is about to begin.

Labels: The Dagda King

Chapter Six is finished.

And it also became Chapter Seven.

I decided to split it. Six is 2793 words and Seven is 3598. If you add them together you'll see what I saw—one large chapter that sticks out compared to the others that preceded it.

I really like how Chapter Seven came out. Lots of fantasy that still manages to move the story forward. The other knights, besides Richard, have become real people to me... particularly a surly knight from Chicago named Sal Vicenzia. I think you'll love to hate him.

As it stands now:

Prologue: 3173 words
Chapter One: 4060 words
Chapter Two: 3244
Chapter Three: 3660
Chapter Four: 4144
Chapter Five: 4547
Chapter Six: 2793
Chapter Seven: 3598

On to Chapter Eight. It's a Bran chapter, and the last chapter before all hell breaks loose for all involved. Bran confronts his bitch of a hypocrite mother in it, as well as discovers what is going on.

Hope your writing or reading is going well!

Labels: The Dagda King

Today will see the completion of Chapter Six.

As I predicted in my last update, it was a more difficult chapter to write than what had come before. One of the major conflict points of the entire series had to be set up and I wanted it to be done right. It was a Richard McAllister point of view chapter, and although Richard comes quite easily to me as a character, the story aspect had to be handled delicately. A lot of conflict. And that was just the first half of the chapter.

The second half is Richard with his fellow knights. In this part of the chapter, which I am finishing up, the reader meets the other six knights and gets a good solid taste of who they are. It took me some time to develop them, to know their stories, to know their strengths and weaknesses, and to make them believable. They come from Seattle, Chicago, Betwys y Coed, London, Paris, Rome and Vienna. If you look at all of those cities, you'll see a commonality; I'll leave you to find it (it's not hard). I can't wait for you to meet them. Some of them with enter and reenter the series at different points when it is necessary.

Now, for a bit of good news, both writing and business news.

First, I received a rejection letter for Fell Hammer in the mail over the weekend. You may be asking yourself, "How can that be good news, Shawn?" Well, if an agent or editor has decided to give you a well thought out response, it can be invaluable information to have. The editor in question enjoyed the intricate story (his words, not mine, I don't think the book is intricate at all), enjoyed the characters, and enjoyed my style. But the areas where I needed to improve, he said, were with the development of those characters, their dialogue, and how every character seems to just say what is needed for the story.

Now, the latter part of that is semi-problematic. I come from the Terry Brooks school of thought where you put what is needed in the story to either drive the story forward or give the reader a better understanding of the character. Extraneous conversation, even if it is more life-like, can bog the scene down for the sake of genuine conversation. So I am of two minds on that one—I will probably try to give a bit more and see what happens.

As for his other comments, he was right on. Character development and dialog. How do I know he is right? Because I saw it myself when I went back and read some of it a month ago. And I am happy to see, in my own writer's progression, that my dialogue and character development is much much much much improved in this new book. Growth equals opportunity, and if I am still growing as a writer it means my opportunities in New York also grow.

As for the second bit of news, an agent contacted me 10 or so days ago—on a Saturday, no less. Completely out of the blue and unprovoked by me. How did that happen, you may ask and who is the agent? This speaks to the importance of networking and putting yourself out there and making friends at writing retreats and conventions. If you haven't believed me about the power of networking, than you should believe it now after I tell you what happened.

Robin Hobb aka Megan Lindholm came to visit me two weeks ago. Megan had asked to do a signing with The Signed Page for the US release of Renegade's Magic and since Megan is one of my favorite people I said sure. I've known her for six or seven years and she's one of the sweetest and smartest writers I have had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know.

When she came to Seattle, we talked about anything and everything as usual. Then she asked me if I had found an agent yet and how the new book was coming along. I told her the current book is writing itself, that I am really excited about it, and I think that Del Rey and any other publisher who reads it will like it. She knew that Del Rey had passed on Fell Hammer but had asked to read my second effort.

She then proceeds to tell me that her agent is looking for new fantasy writers and asked if she could talk to him about me. I was just shocked. To her understanding, if a publisher asks to see more work from a writer, it must mean the writer has something worth reading. After questioning Megan about her agent and how she feels about him, I told her to tell the agent to look me up, read the Prologue, and if he is so inclined to write me an email and we'll talk.

The agent, it turns out, is Ralph Vicinanza, foreign rights expert and agent for multiple bestselling writers, including Stephen King.

I received Ralph's email with openness and with excitement. Here I hadn't even solicited him and he was soliciting my work. He asked to read my first four or five chapters of the new book, despite it not being done, and he'd let me know what he thought. How kind is that?

Since I don't usually edit my books until the end, I was in a bit of a predicament. I want him to have the chapters but I want them edited first. The good news is my editing ex-girlfriend has offered to do it; she is already hard at work on them and hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have something to show Ralph. In the meantime, I'll be working on those edits as well as writing, so my output will probably decrease a bit with the additional workload. But it is worth it—this is an opportunity I can't pass up no matter what it does to my schedule.

I am going to give Ralph the first 1/3 of The Dagda King. It should give him a fair understanding of what I am trying to accomplish. And I guess I'll know relatively quickly if I have something or not. I hope I do.

Cool Note: He asked for the chapters in .txt format because he reads on Amazon's Kindle. Super cool.

So don't forget: networking is your friend! You never know how building friendships and relationships will help you in this twisted journey.

Labels: Agent, The Dagda King