What's in a name?

I've created a list of characters that I add to as I write the chapter outlines, these characters may only be in the book for one chapter but it's useful to have a list of everyone.  The problem I'm having is thinking of names for them all, at the moment the central character is pretty much called John Doe. That name sort of fits one of the central ideas of the book but it's far too unoriginal, although I will likely stick with the first name of John.

What I'm doing is giving the characters the same first names as my friends.  They don't have anything in common with the characters, I mean, just because the soul sucking she-demon has the same name as my brothers fiance doesn't mean that she... actually that's not the best example.  I'm also killing a few of them off so it's been quite fun thinking of interesting ways to do so.

As I said, I'm just writing chapter outlines at the moment and I'm finding the processes interesting.  I introduced a small plot element of a Hand of Glory, it was only going to be mentioned once or twice just to explain how the villains got entry to somewhere.  A bit later on, I hit a problem, I knew where my characters had to get to but couldn't think of how to get them there.  I then remembered the Hand of Glory and realised that that type of thing would probably not be easy to obtain and, by having my characters follow that lead, I could get them where they needed to be.  So, that's an example of how something minor that I had introduced early on actually turned out to be quite important in the overall scheme of things.

Procrastination

I haven't updated this in a while so I thought I should probably write something.  

As far as my attempts at writing a novel goes, I've settled on the wizard detective story.  I've created a number of characters and I know how the story begins, how it ends and some stuff that happens in the middle.  It's the bits in between all that which are causing me difficulties.

I attended an "evening with Ben Aaronovitch", the author of Rivers of London (I highly recommend that book).  It was very entertaining and interesting but did leave me thinking "what have I let myself in for?" when  it comes to writing my novel.  As Ben said, 80,000 words is a lot of words and I struggled to write 10,000 for my university dissertation.  I'm currently checking out the National Novel Writing Month as a possible way to keep me motivated.

As for new dreams/ideas, I had one for a post-apocalyptic vampire story, which I may have briefly mentioned in an earlier post, but a second dream helped expand on it.  It's your standard 'vampires have taken over most of the world' story, humans live in fortified camps with massive walls to keep the vampires out.  The vampires behave more like feral animals, I'd say somewhere in between the creatures in the I Am Legend film and those in The Passage by Justin Cronin.


The new dream focused mainly on the attempts of one camp to transport supplies, they have to bring the convoy through a valley which has plenty of shade and cover.  Despite it being during the day, they are attacked and then it's a race to get to safety.  I suppose that could be considered as one possible set piece, the main story for the novel would be a trip in to vampire infested territory to try to find a supposed cure.


That's all for now, I will try to keep the blog updated a bit more, if only to prove to myself that I am making an effort.

Magic

After having a bizarre dream about the meaning of words (the dream had words shedding and changing clothes as their meaning and context changed), I was looking for a way to incorporate it into what I wanted to write and, eventually, I thought I could use it as the basis of how magic works.  This post will be a brief run down of what I'm trying to do with magic in the two main stories I'm working on.

The Fantasy:  I quite liked what George R.R. Martin did with magic, it exists but the world has kind of moved on and many don't really believe in it any more.   In my world, magic exists and the people certainly believe in it, they just don't understand it.  It takes years of study to understand it and even then you've only scratched the surface.  The magic exists as a language, write the words of that language on an item and you can imbue said item with an ability.  However, it's not enough to just write the words, you have to truly understand what they mean, how combining different words can change the meaning, and therefore alter the end result.  Of course, it's one thing to be able to write it, another thing entirely to be able to speak it, something which no-one has ever been able to do, at least so far...

The wizard detective story:  I thought the focus for this could be on names.  I like the idea of hidden names and that if you know somebody's true name you have power over them (Rumpelstiltskin).  I thought I'd focus on why knowing the name gives you power and whether or not the name in itself has power.  I also had the idea that the name changes depending on a persons experiences (sort of the idea that the person we are today is a result of all that we have experienced in our life)..  If mages derive their power from their name then what does that mean for my non-magical detective? Does he have no hidden name?

Sci-Fi

I don't really read science-fiction, I enjoy the TV shows like Star Trek, Stargate, Firefly, not so much Battlestar Galactica but I won't get into that.  For me, sci-fi has always been about aliens, spaceships and space battles.  I really can't say where this dream came from but, at the time, I had been considering what to write for a sci-fi story even though I didn't know where to start.

The world is heavily controlled by the government, all major cities have security checkpoints for entry and exit, to the extent that they feel more like prisons.  The rest of the world is more of a wasteland, you can live there but conditions are harsh.  The government, in an effort to further solidify its control, creates the Warlock program, the purpose of which was to create super soldiers: faster, stronger, more intelligent.  The program fails, the test subjects either ended up dead or insane, so the government has them all eradicated and shuts the program down.


In to one of the cities come a man and a young boy.  The man has no memory beyond waking up in the wasteland and eventually meeting the boy.  His only clues to his past are the strange metal wristband welded to his arm and the strong desire to protect the boy from harm.  The boy is something of an unknown, there doesn't appear to be anything special about him and yet the man feels compelled to stay by his side and look out for him.


They are not long in the city when they come under attack from a sniper.  The man's wristband lights up, instinctively warning him and allowing him to avoid being shot.  It soon becomes apparent to them that their attacker is a Warlock and so they now have to try and escape from his pursuit and avoid the government, who are eager to clear up their mess and any witnesses.


So no aliens and no spaceships but still plenty to work with.  There is the origins of the man, his wristband, what his link with the boy is and, most importantly, what does the Warlock want with them?  I have thought about it a bit and developed a few ideas but, at the moment, would rather work in genres I am more familiar with.  Still, it's always good to have other ideas floating around.

Wizards and Detectives

I quite enjoy these type of urban fantasy novels.  I've read Dresden Files (and seen the TV show), Rivers of London.  I suppose they must have had some influence on this dream but I'm not entirely sure where it came from, anyway, here's the idea:

The detective in question specialises in dealing with cases that involve magic, wizards etc.  The one thing about him is that he can't use magic, which isn't exactly out of the ordinary.  What makes him different is that magic also has no effect on him: spells don't work on him, magical items become ordinary when he uses them e.g. a flaming sword becomes a normal sword if he handles it, basically if it is anyway magical it won't do a thing to him.  


He takes up a case to protect a young pregnant woman from a couple of sorcerers who want to kill her.  Having defeated them, he finds out that they were trying to kill the unborn child, that it isn't human and now poses a direct threat to him.  It feeds on magical energy and, with the danger of the sorcerers out of the way, sees the detective, who is distinctly un-magical, as a danger that needs eliminating.


I think there is quite a bit to work with here.  There is the origins of the detective to sort out: what made him this way? When did he find out about his ability?  What is the down side to the ability?  Where did the sorcerers and the pregnant woman come from?

Powerful  wizards are likely to be fairly arrogant, particularly faced when faced with someone who, at first glance, doesn't pose any threat to them at all.  They are likely to rely on their magic to do things that might be more easily accomplished in a more normal way e.g. rather than use a gun to kill the detective, they will use a spell.  The detectives best weapon is the fact that the people he is after don't know that their powers can't hurt him.






  

Fantasy and Horror

I might as well start by writing a bit about the fantasy horror.  The initial idea came in a dream that was no doubt inspired by me having recently read The Listener by Algernon Blackwood.  It's a good ghost story, I didn't particularly like the ending but there were certain aspects to the ghost that caught my attention.  Anyway, a description of the dream should do:

'It's raining and a man on horseback rides in to a village and enters the local tavern.  While in there, he overhears a conversation between a group of villagers concerning the fact that one of their children is being haunted by a ghost.  The man is a ranger who works for a group that travel the land to protect people from ghosts, monsters etc and so offers his services to the villager.

The ghost in question appears at night while the boy is in bed asleep, it is the sound of sobbing that wakes the boy up.  At first the boy sees nothing but then the sobbing occurs again and, in the corner of the room, the child sees a figure standing there, its face covered by its hands as if crying.  When the boy lets out a cry, the figure  begins to move towards him, moving its head as if it's trying to listen for any noise the boy might make but, at all times, its face is concealed by its hands.

The ranger explains that the figure is a lost soul and that eyes are windows to the soul.  The figure has no eyes and, in order to keep itself materialised, it must cover its eye sockets with its hands.  It wants the boys eyes so that it can possess his body and once again fully exist in the material world.  To combat it, the ranger gives the boy a magical fake eye, one that will ensnare the soul within it, but first the boy has to let the ghost get close enough in order to use it.'

Obviously, that is more of a short story and I consider it to be a kind of prelude to the main event.  There are elements within the story that can be more fully fleshed out: who is the ranger, what is the group he works for and the details on the nature of the magical eye.  Then of course, there is the world it is set in but I'll save all of that for a later post.

Tread Softly

I've been looking for a new interest/hobby to occupy my time and, having wanted to write a novel for some time, I thought I'd try to get started on it.  Unfortunately, my writing ability isn't great so I figured a blog might help give me a bit of practice.

Therefore, the purpose of the blog is for me to write down any ideas, thought processes, general rants that may come up during my efforts.  A number of my ideas have come in my dreams, hence the title of the blog (also a slight reference to Inception), and writing them down may focus them into something I can use.

Currently, I have two concepts:
A fantasy, set in an imaginary world, with horror elements inspired my myth and folklore.
An urban fantasy, set in the modern world, it's sort of a different take on the wizard detective story.

So the blog will likely focus on those two but I do have other ideas which will no doubt get a mention.