I Finished the First Draft of Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass!

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? 

-Quinley