For the last three years, I have been insensitively studying for my PhD. Part of that has been to create a novel from my research. I already knew what I was going to do with the novel. It wasn’t my first draft. In fact, I had started it roughly 10 years ago. Written 40,000 words of it back then. Now that old draft couldn’t be any more different to where it is now. 150,000 words, with more depth, more development, different perspectives and more complex themes. I finished Seas’ Game in September, starting to queery agents but I also want to work on another concept I came up with awhile ago. Death’s hourglass.
This project is no where near as developed as Seas’ Game. Sure, I have the two main protagonists and the concept. But to be honest, that is really it. After working on Seas’ Game so intensively and feeling like I’ve been getting somewhere, I am struggling to do the same with Death’s Hourglass. But I have a theory it is simply because starting is one of the hardest things to do.
They say there are three kinds of writers. Planners plan everything in advance. They know everything that is going to happen, how it is going to happen and where in the timeline. Pantsers write without a thought in their head. The last one, Plantser, are interesting because they’re more of a scale. The in-between.
I am not a planner but I am not full pantser. Maybe 80% of the time, but not 100%. So I’m a plantser. And this plantser is going to make a plan to work on this new project.
Character Profiles
One of the ways to know a story is to know your characters. From the moment I created Sarah in Seas’ Game, I knew the one thing she cared about most was those she classed as family. Her biggest fear was death for her and those she loved. Her actions were from fear paralysis and protection. A complicated and contrasting mix. Because… in real life people are contrasts to themselves.
Hayden and Mara. I know some things about them. Hayden has panic attacks and is afraid of the dark. He’s a widow and he has a daughter. Mara is 13 and she was about to be forced to marry when she caught the plague in the 14th century.
That’s not enough. I need to know who I am dealing with to better understand how they will interact with the world. So my next task is to create character profiles. Hopefully this will help me know where to take it.
Creating the Lore
Creating the lore of a fictional world can really help me develop the story. After all, the real world has rules that can or cannot be broken. In our world, gravity keeps us down until science is used to overcome it but in a fantasy world, gravity might need magic to levitate a broom and fly. Or food to manipulate matter. That sort of thing.
For Death’s Hourglass, I do have some ideas for lore. Mostly around soul aesthetics, but not much else really. That sort of thing. So I need to create the lore of my world. Ask questions. Understand what can and cannot be done and how it works. A game I played at university is perfect for this: “What if”.
- What if: The Angels of Death were not the only beings in the Astral Plane.
- What if: they don’t know the existence of the other being.
- What if: that other being is waiting for a trigger to happen.
- What if: Hayden sets off the trigger.
The what if, as you can see above, also helps with plot ideas as the first two what ifs are lore. Angels of Death are not alone but they do not know it. The other two work on the plot aspect.
With this in mind, I will know how my characters interact with the world around them. There are some things that I have in the first stages, like the doors in the death plane being missing, that may need to be changed. We shall see.
Making a story bible
I did this with Seas’ Game, but the later stages. It’s a list of all the different things in the world, like the different Watches on Tollak’s ship, or the type of species and how they differ, major events that can affect the timeline and things like that.
I have already started this with Death’s Hourglass. I wanted a representation of a soul that wasn’t exactly ghost-like and I have assigned souls colours based on their core emotional experiences. Kind of like the Inside Out characters, I suppose.
There’s no real rule about a story bible. It is a note or reference that makes it easier for the author. My friend, Sophie, creates TONS of story bibles from: name (and relationship) logs, locations, teachers, items.
I could probably make a more detailed one for Death’s Hourglass so I can see their world a bit more clearly. Plottr is very useful for all of this.
Working on my project
Hopefully, when I create all of this, I will be able to work on Death’s Hourglass. I am hoping to do quite a bit of work during the Christmas and New Years holidays as I have now recently found a job that I am due to start in January. I don’t know what my time is going to be like after the holidays but I am hoping that I have enough energy to do the thing that I really love to do: write. For now though, I’ll have to crack on before I start my job. Writing is hard and the more I put it off, the harder it is going to be.
So here’s a public deadline. By next Wednesday, I need to have done the character profiles and the lore. I will make a post on that Wednesday about how far I have got, as well as what type of planster I am, because I think I might have discovered something while writing this post.