Tag: writing

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’m trying my best to write strong female characters in this novel, but…I have a feeling I’m not going to do nearly as good a job as I would like. My Hero is male and as such, well, that’s going to have some “weaknesses” that can’t be avoided. But I am, at least, trying.

I’m probably going to have six POV characters and two “main” characters. It’s looking like I’m going to have three male POV characters and three female POV characters. I currently am running the risk of making two of the three women a little too sexy for their own good and that has more to do with me being a middle-aged man than anything else.

And this is my first serious attempt at writing a novel, so give me a break.

I have no idea as I write this if this story is going to be popular or not. But it is a strong concept. It’s really strong. Strong enough that I keep writing it, keep finding ways to keep myself entertained long after I usually would get fed up and walk away from it.

I’ve also managed to not show what I’ve written of this first draft to as many people as possible. This first draft is good, yes, but it’s not THAT good and it’s very much not finished yet and very much, well, a first rough draft. So, it’s best if I keep it to myself for the time being.

I am really enjoying writing it, though. I just have to keep at it. I have to keep believing.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The thing about the novel I’m writing is, initially at least, it’s kind of located in a kind of meh place. It’s an actual literal place and as such it’s kind of uninteresting to someone living in LA or NYC. But that changes dramatically not so much because the location changes but because the use of the location changes.

Trust me, if you read what I’m writing, you’ll get it.

I have thought a lot about this and I am finally about cool with this. I’m ok with it now after some struggle because, well, the use of the otherwise unassuming location is interesting enough — really interesting in fact — that I think readers will really like it. And the reason I ultimately give for using the particular location makes sense in the context of the story well enough that I think readers will appreciate it.

And, as I’ve said, my expectations are really low. All I want is someone, one person, who I don’t know to read this novel and want to know what happens next. If I can get someone to read the entire finished product and they honestly liked what I wrote enough that they want to know what happens next, then it will be a success.

Anyway, I have a lot of work to do. A whole lot of work to do. That’s the thing about novels they don’t really tell you about — it just takes physical time to sit down and write 100,000 words, especially when you’ve done little, if any backend work. But that backend work is what I’m going to do after I finish this first draft.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’ve finally gotten passed the passionate part of writing a novel and I’m just…writing a novel. It’s kind of, by definition, a labor of love. You aren’t getting paid and you know you have just the barest possibility of writing anything eventually that at some point someone you don’t know might read and actually like.

Having said all that, these cold hard facts don’t stop you from thinking — as you write the novel — who would play different characters in it should it ever be turned into a movie. You also find yourself daydreaming about what kind of movie it would be if it was one. As it stands, this scifi novel I’m writing might be described as, “Contact meets Colony meets…”

No.

While this novel definitely has elements of Contact, and Colony and Under The Dome and upcoming movie Captive State, there are some pretty big aspects of this story that defy ready comparisons. The basic conceit of the story is pretty unique. And one element of the story that I don’t know how comfortable movie producers would be with is its naming of names when it comes to politics. In fact, as I imagine it going into this story (I’ve barely gotten into the second chapter at this point) the story is going to wallow in contemporary American politics to such an extent that it might be a turn off to some people.

Maybe a lot of people.

But the interesting thing is I’m well aware that if I’m not careful that this story is going to come off as something of a liberal globalist fever dream. So, I’m working hard to try to make at least one sympathetic character center-Right. In fact, as of right now, the romantic female lead is going to be that center-Right character. One of the things I’m learning as I write this novel is if you have one character you pretty much have to have another character floating around for them to talk to. It’s difficult to have any conflict if all that happens is you have a character look around in awe at all the cool stuff happening to them.

One element of this story which — if it somehow miraculously becomes a movie — would set it apart, is the space aliens are not 2001 ethereal types. They’re well versed in the human condition and rather matter a fact about working with humans to save their sorry asses. I don’t know how easy it would be to describe that in a movie, given how conditioned mainstream audiences are to space aliens who are completely clueless about humans and how they operate.

Regardless, I love movie and as I write I do find myself thinking about who might play this or that character. It’s interesting how the original Star Wars has such a young protagonist and how that plays into the Hero’s Journey. When you actually sit down to write a story — be it a novel or a movie — basic things like your Hero’s age begin to really play a lot into how you construct your character.

I haven’t done squat of the heavy backend lifting when it comes to writing this novel, but this first draft is just to try to get the story down, to understand what I’m trying to say. One element of this is the novel, if I’m able to pull it off successfully, could easily be an allegory for the Trump Era. But that’s something to think about in the second draft, I suspect. This first draft is just to settle on the basics of what is happening.

Writing this novel, I have Mission: Impossible — Fallout in the back of my head a lot. This I’m writing starts off a lot more dramatically than I first imagined. I know the general macro story fairly well, it’s the micro elements — the nitty gritty elements of having characters walk around in this expansive universe I’ve constructed that I am enjoying processing. Anyway, I need to actually get the hard work done of writing the novel first and foremost. I can’t screw around writing about writing forever and expect to actually finish anything.

But sometimes I find myself feeling like taking a little break, to process things before diving back in.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

They say if you have a lot of exposition in a story you have to get through, it’s best if something interesting is going on in the background so it’s not boring to the reader or viewer. I find myself with a nice chunk of a scene that really explains a lot about what’s going on in a brief way, but I also find myself struggling a little bit with making the whole thing a little bit more interesting.

So, I think I might rewrite the scene some, but a bit more creative with it. It’s an important enough scene and conveys important enough information that it deserves a better presentation than what it currently has. It shouldn’t be too difficult, I guess, to spice things up some. Really all you need is something odd or interesting happening as you do all this exposition. I’m pretty flexible and fluid when it comes to scenes at this point in the process — there’s a lot of heavy lifting backend stuff I’ve not even begun — so it’s just a matter of putting my mind to it.

I have a few ideas. It’s interesting how you write a scene, think it’s finished, then turn around and

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

The more I think about it, the more I can see there is a lot of symbolism built in to the scifi novel I’m writing that could be construed as my personal critique of the Trump Era. I think it has more to do with how art is made than anything else. I’m learning that if you actually are serious about writing a novel, your era is part of the primordial goo from whence a novel is birthed.

In other words, you don’t produce a novel — or any work of art for that matter — in a vacuum. You produce it as a snapshot in time. This novel in particular, if I can pull it off, could really be an interesting take on the Trump Era for various reasons. The novel deals with some pretty basic, fundamental issues that we come back to time and again in the Trump Era. I don’t know how much of that is I’m just interested in those topics and how much of it is writing about that has come to the forefront of my mind as part of writing this novel at this point in time.

Anyway, writing a novel seriously is definitely an interesting experience for a multitude of reasons. It’s definitely like a romantic relationship given how long it takes. That’s why I’m a little annoyed by the whole “write a novel during the month of November” thing. Writing a novel seriously is a long term project and you usually don’t even show your first draft to anyone for no other reason than it’s pretty much just you, the author, trying to get the story down in your own mind before you come back to it and try to make it readable enough that someone else can read the second draft.

I am really enjoying the process of writing a novel, though it sure does take a long time to simply sit down and write a novel that I hope will be at least 100,000 words. But hopefully once the process is done, it will be something, someone will want to read. Really, at this point, if I can get one person I don’t know personally to read the finished product and they want to know what happens in the second book in the series, it will be a successful in my mind.

Wish me luck.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The novel I’m writing shares at least one plot point — in a sense — with “Captive State,” “Under The Dome” and “Colony.” But the concepts my novel deals with are significantly bigger and deeper than those creative works. My concept is much more like The Matrix compared to those creative works of art because I’m coming at the same idea from a dramatically different point of view.

Either it’s going to hurt me or help me that this micro genre is popping up. Either it means people are interesting in this concept, or there really is nothing new under the sun and by the time I actually finish the novel no one will care because something sufficiently similar will have come out already and it will be a moot point.

But we’ll see. We’ll definitely see, I guess. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

"Captive State," "Under the Dome" and #writing my #scifi #novel https://t.co/CTkdJJ4jMs

— Shelt Bumgarner (@sheltbumgarner) October 7, 2018

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The novel I’m writing is, at least at this point, my personal attempt to address the Trump Era via a novel. In some ways it’s obvious and in some ways it’s not. The more I think about it, the more there are some major issues of the day that the novel deals with.

Chief among these concepts is “what is America?” The story gives me an opportunity to address the issue of the United States being an “idea” as opposed to “blood and soil” in a really concrete manner. It’s one of the things that makes writing the novel so much fun.

Anyway, I could go into this a lot more, but I need to shut up and, like, actually write the novel.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

I’ve finally begun writing a novel seriously and it’s a lot like a romantic relationship. You start off with a lot of passion, dreaming big dreams of what you’re going to do only for that to fade and you realize you have to be a lot more realistic about what’s going to happen.

When you first start a novel, you don’t know what you can and can’t change. So, I, for one, found myself writing and re-writing the beginning of the novel because I simply was unsure as to what the story exactly was about. I say this, I must note, even though I wrote a fairly lengthy scene summary. Once I actually starting writing the novel that scene summary went out the window and now it’s more of a general guide than actually something I’m following.

Now that I’m pass the passion phase of writing the story, I find myself really enjoying writing a novel, but realizing it’s a lot more work than I ever imagined. I try to work a little bit every day on the novel until the muse comes back and I write a lot in a huge burst like I did initially. At least, I hope that’s what’s going to happen. If it doesn’t, it could be a long, long time before I finish this novel.

But I’m trying my best. I really enjoy the process of writing a novel, it just takes a lot of out me because I have done little or none of the really important backend work of a character development you absolutely have to do for a successful work. But this is just the first draft. I have a lot of work to do yet. I definitely am not going to show this first draft to anyone. It’s just going to be too horrible.

Add to that my general grammar and spelling ability and it’s probably just for the best if I keep the first draft to myself. But the key thing is to keep going. I have to keep writing. I can’t grow distracted by this or that other stupid daydream. This concept is really strong for a first scifi novel and I need to keep going if I’m going to finish this at all.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Just a little mulling.