Per·di·tion: #prologue

Blog Info

My purpose with this blog is to interactively work through the process of writing my first young adult book, tentatively titled Perdition. The briefest way I could explain the general idea is that it's meant to be like Twilight but with a girl who's both less and more sure of herself than Bella, a ghost on a sinister mission, and a crazy extended family. Don't worry there will still be a love triangle. However, I certainly don't intend this to be a romance first. It's much more about coming-of-age, family, and loss. My plan is to work my way through the process, including research (such as reviews of other books I read for inspiration along the way), character sketches, pleas for help, and whatever else might crop up along the way. If you'd prefer just to read the book as it's developed, you can visit the secondary page. Here goes nothing...

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Book Progress and Shout-Outs

FYI: In case you have started to read or wanted to read my book, I've been working madly at the suggestion of +Michelle Lowery Combs and +Terri Weaver to get rid of the prologue. I've done that and I've also taken to heart Jeff Cohen's appropriate criticism that Persis wasn't behaving very much like a (mostly) confident young lady when she first met Luke.

Most importantly, I sucked it up and switched to writing on my massive laptop that has Word on it, so I've caught many, embarrassing grammar mistakes (although Flavia Bitussi and Matt Luo were already helping me out with that). I wanted to fight the corporate power by using OpenOfficeWriter, but it just wasn't getting the job done.

^The world's largest laptop^

Long story short, besides wanting to thank these helpful people, I wanted to let you know that while I've left the chapters in the original blog postings unaltered, I have updated the full text on the "Perdition: The Book" page. If you hadn't started or hadn't gotten far, you may want to read the new and improved version there. I hope y'all will continue to help me out--it's been invaluable thus far!

To Prologue or Not to Prologue...That Is the Question

One piece of advice I've gotten over and over again is about the importance of having good Beta readers. I've been lucky enough to find a small group of serious writers and we're helping each other out. When I posted the first couple chapters, I immediately heard from multiple sources to drop my prologue. At first I thought, "no! That's my dramatic irony!" I mean, what would Romeo & Juliet be like if we didn't know they were star-crossed?!

However, I realized a few things after calming down: 1) I am no Shakespeare and 2) they were right, especially because my prologue is only serving as a crutch.

I have found that it's difficult to know what to tell when, but all good books and shows manage to do this well. Just look at Lost...they kept us watching, no matter how ridiculous the show got, because we wanted those back stories. And what would be the point of The Hunger Games if we [SPOILER FOR OBLIVIOUS PEOPLE] knew up front how Peeta really felt about Katniss and didn't have to experience her self-doubt as she did? What if George R.R. Martin just included a list of everyone that was going to die? Oh wait, he did--it's called the "Cast of Characters."

^ OCSD Waiting to Happen ^

So, I know I have to do the right, albeit harder, thing. My question is do I use this as an excuse to continue to stall on getting into the rising action or will fleshing out the exposition better lead more organically into the meat of the story? I guess I'll worry about that after I watch Orange is the New Black, so I can understand what the hell all my friends are talking about.