Bux or Books 2.0

Book by blindmanphoto (deviantart.com)

The way we read is changing.

At least this is one of the theories by Nicholas Carr, author of 'The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.' Basically, the way we use the Internet is rewiring our mind in how we absorb and in fact look at information. The skim-and-click technique we use to access what we need when online is making it harder for us to sit down with a 300 page novel and read for long ends at time.

So does this also mean we are entering a new era of how we write books? This question has subconsciously been playing in the back of my mind as I struggle to get not one, or two, but three books written in the last few years.

Book Project 1: The Traditional Fiction Novel

Fairy Tale by KaseiArt (deviantart.com)

The first book project is a young adult adventure novel, roughly 400 pages in length, but born out of frustration with the usual conventions of similar fiction of the time. Long, drawn out dialogues, zero character building and a quick wrap-up in the last 50 pages. Boring! I felt the need to cram a lot of events, character and world-building as possible into 300 pages. Only then it became 450. And then it 600 and then back to 400 until it became (in the opinion of seasoned test readers) a summation of bullet points.

Book Project 2: The Experimental Travelogue

Travel Alone by Freexel (deviantart.com)

Then came my next book idea: a quick turn around experiment in writing and self-publishing (in draft) a book in only one week. It would just be a random collection of thoughts put on paper. A blog-to-book if you will. That didn't pan out. I simply couldn't find the time (or was it Internet-nurtured short attention?) to write the complete thing. It lay in my drawer of unfinished projects for over a year, before I picked it up again thinking: 'What if I turn this into an examination of why people write and read books?' Later it morphed again into a half fictional / half auto-biographical travel story where the main character is alone with his thoughts while riding around the world on his bike. Still: not fast enough.

Book Project 3: The Collection of Quick Reads

The Brothers Grimm by Fran85 (deviantart.com)

My latest project-to-mature is an anthology sequel to the Grimm's Household Tales (or fairy tales) done in a 'death match throughout time' fashion, mainly focusing on telling the stories in the abbreviated narrative the originals were told. What has never changed through all these years is my fascination with fairy tales. Something about their intrinsic simplicity of story and format. So I'm writing my sequels in the same fashion. This suits me just fine, what with each story only being roughly 2 pages long, except that I now have approximately 200 stories to tell.

I think I have an answer to why it takes me (and possibly many other potential writers) so long to actual finish a book and see it get published:

information time span deprivation

We all want the information now! I for one simply can't bring myself to write long descriptions of places, events and character interaction when all I really want is to get to the heart of the matter. And yes, despite that being the point of a novel (lest all the new bestsellers become 100 page 'shopping lists') I think I may have to bite the bullet and commit to writing perhaps the first ever skim-and-link novel. One that reads as fast as it does to order it through Amazon and text your friends about it.

Death Revisited

I am paying a visit to my good old friend: Death.

Death to the Old
No, I'm not a near-suicidal artist or deep gothic writer, I'm talking about the character Death... warmed over. You see, I don't want to rehash the same old, same old with Ælemental. I want it to be fresh, innovative and exciting to a new generation. But I'm also tackling fairy tales. Yeah, you know, the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Andersen. And that's just in the first book. So you see my dilemma: how to dress up the old in a new coat.

The New Fairy Tales
By now you may have caught on to the Sisters Grimm series or one of the fairy tale TV shows (Grimm or Once Upon A Time). And yes, the shows are just as creative as their titles suggest. Kinda blah. The Sisters Grimm novels are actually quite entertaining, but are rather light in approach. I'm trying to rewrite fairy tales in the way Tolkien would have done: with grandeur and prolific gravitas. But I also want it to be weird. Alien weird. Guillermo del Toro or Clive Barker weird. I want the characters to have history, but also an otherworldly feel and strangeness to it, that is offsetting at first, but totally logical when you dig deeper.

Meet Death
Death really is just a minor character, but there are fairy tales that deal with the Grim Reaper in all of his glory. I wanted to incorporate a fair amount of real danger to Ælemental and have Simon, Sally, Alix, Karl and Maya truly deal with deadly threats - both real and fantastic. Gone is the robe and scythe, in with the black suit, fedora and morphing face. Add some SFX like screams erupting from the folds of his jacket and a permanent black fog upon which he glides and you're starting to get where I'm going.

The Practical Aspects
So I stopped redrafting Chapter 16 back in November 2011, leaving Simon, Alix and Sesame stranded inside Death's offices, while searching for the magical artifact that will give them bargaining leverage towards rescuing Sally from her kidnappers. But Death would not be useful if he didn't have a few trinkets I wanted to use. Like the glass of water in which his image reflects when you hold it above a dying person. But I cannot possibly let you on to what happens with that glass of water other than that I changed it into a glass key. The glass key is useful for foreshadowing upon who befalls some awful fate later in the book. Death himself turns out to be very interesting and not all is as it seems at first. Aw, read the book if you want to know how or what. :)

Back to writing...