On July 11th, I completed the first draft of The Haunted Sketchbook, I had worked on it long before Camp NaNoWriMo--for a couple months in fact. 17,000 words was about the right amount of words to get me to finish the first draft (which ended about 40,000 words in total).
Synopsis-
Genre: Gothic | Historical Fiction
The Haunted Sketchbook is set in two time periods.
In the past, an artist by the name of Ferdinand Diggory is experiencing a haunting. He discovers that his sketchbook is cursed; whenever he draws in it, it will twist the sketch into something monstrous, and something he didn't draw.
In the present, Edith Porter is trying to discover whether the haunting was truly real-- she wants to discover the truth, but will her curiosity lead her into more danger than it's worth?
What's Next for The Haunted Sketchbook?
I am currently working on characters in preparation for the 2nd draft. I want to make sure that I know the characters well, as I did with the second draft of Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass, which helped move the story forward and also create new discoveries along the way.
I have recently been doing what is called a "character sketch" for some of the characters in the story. Basically, the writer lays out traits of the characters and then describes them in different perspectives (third, first, and second person). That's what I did for Ferdinand Diggory, and it highlighted an aspect of the character I had not seen before. I am going to do the same for Edith and even Cecile, as this technique helped me discover in the past what I had missed with Felix Moore--what elements of his character were being overlooked.
I am also thinking about the backstory that Ferdinand has and what the ghost and other mysterious figures motives are. Even if the reader does not know their true motives, it is important to the characters to figure it out, so their actions seem clear.
I also hope to research 18th century England. My knowledge of the 18th century mostly comes from American history, so I want to expand that knowledge to England when writing this story. As I noted in my Camp NaNoWriMo post about the novel, it takes place in two different time periods. (That is Edith's telling of it is set in the Victorian era, and Ferdinand's in the 18th century).
I am going to be writing the second draft soon, so these are all things to look out for.
On December 4th, I finished the second draft of Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass. I'm happy about that, since that means I can move onto the third draft. And I have a lot of plans for the third draft.
In comparison to the first draft, the second draft was much longer. I felt as if I knew the characters better. Hopefully I can carry that forward into the 3rd draft.
Synopsis
Genre: Gothic horror | Historical fiction
Matilda Moore was found dead at the castle, her brother, Felix, is missing. No trace of him was found except an eyeless wax doll made in his likeness. What happened at the castle is unknown, but it is as if something evil is lurking within it...something evil is causing these terrible events to happen.
What's Next For Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass?
My plan, given that the writing style seemed somewhat modern, is to try to make it sound more like a 19th century novel. This seems important, because both the narrators are from that time period.
The novels I'm using as an inspiration for the style are Jane Eyre and The Picture of Dorian Gray. In the second draft the characters sometimes (accidentally) use modern words, which I didn't realize until much later. I want the reader to feel as if they are reading a book from the past that someone happened to uncover, rather than a book by someone attempting to write about the past.
I did write about the journey to the haunted castle in the second draft, but I feel I didn't write as much about it as I could. In the third draft, I will likely take inspiration from the characters' journeys through the country side in Dracula and Jane Eyre, since the landscape in my novel, is very important in representing how the characters are feeling.
The characters, Matilda and Felix, have changed a lot since the first draft. And I feel like I have a better understanding of them as characters, than I did in the first draft. However, outside of my novel this does mean I will have to update their profile pages on my blog. They are rather outdated and don't really reflect their characters as they are now.
(Image from wiki commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Beattie_Eugene_Rochas_seance.jpg)
Another thing I am going to do is research the Spiritualist Movement, because Matilda is a part of it. It is important to how she views certain situations, so I want to make sure I get some of those details right.
There are also stylistic choices I made in Felix's telling, that I wish to keep in the new draft, but want to make sure make sense to the reader as they read. Those choices show his state of mind, and that he may be unreliable. So, I am going to try and figure out how to do that better in the third draft.
These are my plans for the third draft ahead.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What's your favorite 19th century novel? Do you like to write or read historical fiction?
I wanted to let you know that I finished the second draft of the Mystery of the Body Thief on the 20th of May! The reason I didn't post this earlier was because I had a lot of other posts planned, and I wanted to take some time to write this post. (And not rush it).
It feels so great to have the second draft done, because now I can move onto the third! And I have a lot of plans for the third draft.
Here is a little bit of a behind-the-scenes for drafting. To keep myself organized I've been creating folders for the different drafts of my novel:
I do this because I've written different scenes in different documents, and it is easy to lose them or confuse them because of that. I do not want to confuse the first draft with the second draft, nor the third draft with the second, or anything else along those lines.
But let's now move onto what is next for TheMystery of the Body Thief:
Synopsis-
Genres: Fantasy | Murder Mystery Series: It is the first book in the Lady Annabelle Mystery Series.
Horatio wakes up from being in a coma, but he doesn't remember anything that happened before he fell into unconsciousness. All that he remembers is a name, "Annabelle!"
Also... Detective Inspector Time finds himself having to solve a case without Lady Annabelle.
Murders have been happening throughout many different kingdoms, and no one knows who exactly is behind it all.
What's Next for The Mystery of the Body Thief?
So as not to rush either story and to give more time to both, I have decided to divide the novel (which was originally 255,185 words) into two books. So as to be thoughtfully written rather than something that is just dashed off, this is going to be a book series. I suppose it is good that I already have three books planned out for it as opposed to just one.
On another note, I have realized that the names are very inconsistent. I have characters whose names are common and others whose names are unusual (ones that I made up myself). I realized, after compiling a blog post as to what changed in my story, that the common names were left over from the novel originally being in the genre, Alternate History. To give it more of a High Fantasy feeling of another world, I decided I needed to rename some characters.
I am in the middle of renaming Annabelle, Angela, and Marigold. Some names will stay the same like Horatio's. I realized, even though something like Lord of the Rings has fantastical names, they also have some real names (they are few and far between), but they are woven into the story enough that they don't sound strange. At the moment the naming for my story is all over the place, so I am going to try and fix that in the third draft. When I do change their names expect their profiles on this blog to be updated with their changed names.
In the third draft I will also be continuing to world-build. I have more ideas for what the world is like, and the magic system has become much more clear to me, than it was before (before it was barely there).
Also, since I was rewriting and reworking the story from 2018-2020, it meant that I had to give myself an outline for the third draft in this drafting. The scenes are much like Dolls of Wax Eyes of Glass's first draft, but that was because I was trying to make sense of stuff that I wrote years ago. And, I wanted this draft to give me an idea of how somethings will play out in the third draft. So I now have an outline that isn't my 2018 writing to work with.
I have started rewriting and editing Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass for April's Camp NaNoWriMo. Since I do not plan to repeat myself, because not a lot of the story has drastically changed (partly because it didn't take me so long to finish the first draft), I will not be including the characters' bios again. So if you wish to learn more about the characters, I recommend checking out this post or looking at this page.
Let's begin:
Synopsis-
Genre: Gothic Horror | Historical Fiction
Maltida Moore was found dead at the castle, her brother, Felix, is missing. No trace of him was found except an eyeless wax doll made in his likeness. What happened at the castle is unknown, but it is as if something evil is lurking within it...something evil is causing these terrible events to happen.
How the editing is going so far-
At the moment, I am rewriting the part of the novel that is told from Felix's perspective, since in the first draft, I did not really focus on his that much. (I focused on Matilda's more.) By focusing on him I have managed to figure out details about him that I did not discover before.
I've also been working on figuring out his voice more. I have it somewhat figured out, but I want to get more into the details about him, because like Maltida he is a complex character.
I am in multiple "cabins" this Camp NaNoWriMo: one that I am running, and one I am just a member of. In one cabin there was a character development question prompt, which I answered for Felix. I discovered elements about him through doing the exercise. For example, some random things I discovered about him were that he wanted to visit France, and that he used to (long ago) tell stories to his sister, Maltida. Felix in the first draft mostly kept to himself, so I am so glad that he is finally speaking to me and revealing his secrets.
(Image from Pinterest, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/312859505337819468/)
Other parts of my rewriting work taught me about Matilda.
I found this painting. It was a catalog cover. It took me a while to find the original painting, but when I did couldn't help but write a scene inspired by it told by Matilda. The castle in my story is surrounded by a forest and trees, and I could imagine Matilda choosing to walk through it and reading there, and having something mysterious or unexplainable happen while she was there.
I have also started expanding on scenes that didn't get much attention in the first draft. The first draft in a way acted as an outline for the novel. For example, I created a scene (which wasn't really a scene in the first draft since Matilda simply told the audience she stopped at a village), and added in details like what was going on in the village, who the people Maltida met were, and even what the village looked like (the general mood/atmosphere).
I've also been focusing on keeping the audience questioning whether what the narrators are saying is true or not, because I want the readers to be confused as to what is actually happening and have to decide on one of the many answers provided by Felix and Maltida. My goal is to create something similar to what happened in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, where there are several answers as to where Ichabod Crane went--whether the headless horseman actually kidnapped him or whether he left because Brom "Bones" scared him away.
So, that has been how Camp NaNoWriMo has been going for me so far.
I finished the first draft of Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass on December 10th! If you want to find out more about Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass I recommend checking out this post where I talk about the plot, the characters, and stuff like that. In this post I will be talking about what I am going to be doing next with the story.
Let's begin:
Synopsis-
Genre: Gothic Horror | Historical Fiction
Maltida Moore was found dead at the castle, her brother, Felix, is missing. No trace of him was found except an eyeless wax doll made in his likeness. What happened at the castle is unknown, but it is as if something evil is lurking within it...something evil is causing these terrible events to happen.
Excerpts-
"They say to write thoughts and feelings down, or else they will be lost to time. This, is what happened to me. And what I feel I must do now.
Or else any thoughts or emotions I felt during this time will merely be twisted and turned in various ways into a different story of someone else’s imagining, and not of the truth. Which I will tell you now."
- Chapter one, Matilda tells her side of the story.
"Perhaps it was my imagination or something else entirely, but I was certain I saw a shadow move across the room and then disappear. I blinked for a moment, as if thinking that would clear my vision and whatever it was that had crossed my path was gone from my vision, but not from my hearing…For I was certain I still heard foot-steps in the distance and, laughter— well to be more specific giggling, like child-like giggling, like whatever had crossed my path had played a prank on me, and was happily giggling in the corner at my reaction."
- Chapter seventeen, Felix tells his side of the story.
What's next for Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass?
This novel is going to be the first one that I publish (or self publish), before I publish The Mystery of the Body Thief. This is because this novel doesn't require a ton of world-building in order to get through to the second or third draft. There is micro-worldbuilding but that is with the castle and areas where the characters are.
A lot of Gothic books have detailed descriptions of where the characters are, and I am pulling from a theme that has been used for a while which is "the house/place where the characters are staying seems alive." I also found that an issue with the first draft was the pacing. I mostly outlined what was going to happen, but most of it felt like it went too fast. In the finished product the book it is going to go much slower and be more descriptive. I want to spend more time on details like the appearance of the castle. I also want to focus more on how the castle is crumbling.
In rewriting there will be some things that will remain the same, and also some issues in terms of plot holes and such that need to be fixed. For example I am going to need to add in an extra character to explain a plot point. One element that I wanted to keep some similarity with was the inspiration for the novel which was...my nightmare.
Also, an aside. Which isn't exactly related to the book itself, is that I plan to use this blog as my author's site when it gets published. This is partly because there is years worth of content about my characters and stories on my blog, and I would love for readers who discover me through my books, to have something to look at or read involving the characters from my stories.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What's your favorite element of Gothic literature? And have you ever written or read a ghost story?
A while ago I mentioned that I finished writing the first draft of this novel. This July, I am focusing on editing it and working on the second draft, along with some world-building along the way.
For this project I started writing the first draft in 2018 and finished it in 2020. I made a lot of posts about this novel in the past, so if you want to check them out, here you can, or if you can to look at posts about the series as a whole here you can.
Synopsis-
Genre: Fantasy | Murder Mystery
Horatio wakes up from being in a coma, but he doesn't remember anything that happened before he fell into unconsciousness. All that he remembers is a name, "Annabelle!" Also... Detective Inspector Time finds himself having to solve a case without Lady Annabelle. Murders have been happening throughout many different kingdoms, and no one knows who exactly is behind it all.
Characters-
Here are the characters. Please note, many things have changed. Phillip, the dwarf guard character from the first draft moved to later book, given that the time-line changed a lot. (The dwarf and elf war happens much later). Also since Phillip is not coming in until later, I replaced him for now with a character named Angela. I had created her character for All is Not Lost For All Will Begin Again, but that setting and story changed, too. Angela didn't fit the story anymore, so I moved her to The Mystery of the Body Thief instead.
There are other characters who appear later in the story, but I won't be including them in this post. In this post, I am including the characters who have the largest impact on the plot:
Horatio
A servant who works in the castle, who lost his memory. He has a connection to Annabelle, but what the connection is, he doesn't know, but he longs to find out.
Ophelia
She is one of Horatio's few friends and one of the healers at the castle. She works with the Earth and Air Gods and learns her magic from them. She is a very sweet (but quiet) person.
Lady Annabelle
Lady Annabelle is a princess, who is in a coma, who fell unconscious at the same time as Horatio. Before she was in a coma, she worked as a detective and sometimes would work with D.I. Time and Marigold.
Detective Inspector Time
An old friend of Annabelle's, he is a detective actively working on the case of the murdered royals.
Marigold Time
Marigold is also working on the case of the murders of royalty, and is the adoptive daughter of D.I. Time. She also works as a detective in the police department.
Vonivera
Lady Annabelle's lady in waiting, she is a friend to Horatio and a frenemy of "Angie." Unlike the other ladies in the castle, Vonivera is a fairy and she finds it odd to be amongst elves and humans.
Angela "Angie"
Another one of Lady Annabelle's ladies in waiting, Angela is "a close friend" of Vonivera's (or at least that is what she tells people).
Soundtrack-
I compiled a playlist of music that I listen to while writing this story. I decided to make a different playlist for the second draft, because it is neat to look back and listen to music that I listened to when writing the first draft of this novel.
My Goal-
Since I'm on the second draft, my goal is going to be edit/rewrite at least 12,000 words. I made my goal smaller because, editing is really hard and I don't want to make myself stressed with a large goal. There are also a lot of things that have changed in the plot-line, so getting those changes into the story, along with the world-building is very important in this second draft. While it may not be perfect, I have the third draft to fix those flaws.
For this Camp NaNoWriMo I am going to be writing my novel, Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass. And this is my goal for it:
At the moment I only know one narrator's telling of the story (that being Matilda), but in the future I know I will know more about Felix's. As for what I am going to do in July, I have plans to do my other project: The Mystery of the Body Thief, and work mostly on editing it and writing the second draft.
As for my inspiration for Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass, it came from a very detailed nightmare I had about wax dolls, which I decided would be a perfect starting point for a novel. And from there I just built on from it...
Synopsis
Genre: Gothic Horror | Historical Fiction Series: it's a stand alone.
Maltida Moore was found dead at the castle, her brother, Felix, is missing. No trace of him was found except an eyeless wax doll made in his likeness. What happened at the castle is unknown, but it is as if something evil is lurking within it...something evil is causing these terrible events to happen.
The Narrators
There is a third narrator, but they only narrate a small portion of the story. And instead of including all the characters (some of which may or may not even exist), I thought I'd show who is going to be telling the story to you, and who may not always be reliable in their telling of their story to you:
Matilda Moore
Matilda, is a rather quiet person. She tends to sit and read books, and does not enjoy social situations all that much. She would much prefer reading books, than talking to other ladies of high class.
Felix Moore
Felix is a very social person, and thrives in social interactions. He also dreams (silently) of being a romantic hero, and also has a hobby he spends some of his time doing: hunting.
Here are some songs that I will listen to when I am writing, and I have listened to them lot when I have been plotting the story.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What is your favorite Gothic Horror or ghost story? What are you writing for April's Camp NaNoWriMo?
