Apr 29, 2015

Let me start by thanking you all for pre-ordering The Life Engineered.

The journey from graphic designer to wannabe author has been an interesting one. While the hours upon hours of work and stress have been difficult at times, it’s been a rewarding experience so far. I often like to say; now that I know how much I love this writing books thing, I’m going to keep doing it. If I can make a living off of it I’ll just get to do it more.

What’s interesting about the project is how, despite the difficulties encountered, it’s made me less cynical about the writing process. The first full book I wrote was, to borrow a term from my friend and fellow aspiring writer Amanda, a vampire love triangle. It’s a terribly written story about a cliché plot and generally unimaginative characters, but I had to get it out of my system. It’s unreasonable to think that my first book would be any good so I didn’t waste any of my ‘good ideas’ on it.

Since then I’ve written three more books, the latest being The Life Engineered. The other two are still in need of serious re-writes but they’re far more palatable then that vampire drivel I used to warm up. I’m also working on a sequel to The Life Engineered. I’m halfway through the first draft and have a few rewrites ahead of me but I’m excited by where it’s going. It builds on what I’ve already told in the first book but more importantly on what I’ve learned writing it.

So what’s one of the more interesting thing I’ve learned while writing these books? Well, the more interesting is how characters have a life of their own. It’s a pretentious thing to claim, that made up characters are so well crafted that they become independent of their creator, but that has nothing to do with it. It’s much more scientific then that.

When planning out a novel, I like to come up with a plot and then populate that plot with characters. As I refine each element of the story before starting on the actual writing, I end up with a lot of details about personalities, setting and events. Often, while putting words to the page, I’ll end up with a situation where a character was written in a way that becomes incompatible with the plans I had made for it. The character is too compassionate to commit a horrible act or maybe not smart enough to figure out a key plot point, etc. At this junction I can decide to either rewrite to character from scratch and shoehorn it into it’s role, have the character act in a way that is inconsistant with how it’s been behaving so far in the story or, my favorite and more entertaining, ask myself “what would this character do in this situation?”. It’s the accumulation of these divergences that make the story tell itself and I end up being it’s interpreter. This is just one of the many clichés I used to mock about writers that I’ve learned exist for a reason. I’m not saying that there aren’t many authors who just repeat the trope without understanding why in an effort to make themselves sound interesting and deep, but know that it isn’t all hot air and fantasy.

I’ll have more random musings as the campaign progresses. In the meantime, here’s an illustration of a character from The Life Engineered.

Cheers, 

JF