writer life

Inspiration

~ klstrader ~ Leave a comment

I often find inspiration in odd places, as I’m sure many others do as well. I think most of my ideas come from music. I’m kind of an audiophile. Music is always on, except for when I’m writing. Sometimes I can write to music, but usually not.

Benjamin, a lead in my first novel Glimpsing Infinity, for example, was inspired by Florence and the Machine’s song “No Light, No Light.”

Invidia, another lead from my debut novel, was inspired by Nine Inch Nails’ “Sunspots.”

Glimpsing Infinity‘s theme as a whole was inspired by Nine Inch Nails’ “Right Where It Belongs.”

Nine Inch Nails is kind of my favorite band. Fun random fact: Trent Reznor alone is Nine Inch Nails, and he hires a band to go on tour with him. Reznor makes all of his music by himself. Crazy. The man in super talented. But I digress…

Inspiration.

A lot of fight scenes are played out to other songs on NIN’s album With Teeth. It’s pretty amazing. You should give it a listen.

And gods… Flyleaf’s “Chasm.” This song rocks my socks off. Many scenes were written with that song playing in my head, and sometimes aloud. And to other awesome songs by them. If you’re not familiar with Flyleaf, go to YouTube now. I’ll wait. Just joking. I’m done talking, so really go there and listen to their amazing music.

What inspires you?

Rewrite: Part Two

~ klstrader ~ Leave a comment

I’m back to where I was when I realized I needed a complete rewrite: sixty thousand words, or about two-thirds of the way done.

So much better.

My lead is lovable and believable, the love interest isn’t whiny and helpless, the bad guys are horrible and deserving death. There are twists and turns. There are emotions.

I’ve learned how to balance overpowered characters, and I’ve learned how to weave multiple layers of intrigue. Well, at least I feel like I have. It’s better. I’ll say that. This manuscript is by far the most challenging I’ve worked on, and I realized it’s because the characters’ levels are epic (to put it in rpg terms.) Epic-level characters need epic-level bad guys, and epic-level stories to live in. It’s tough.

I can’t just keep throwing dragons and the like at them, even though I love them so. This manuscript is host to a plethora of new, unique, original creatures. And those creatures who aren’t unique to me are given my own spin. I’m excited for you all to meet them.

I’ve also mixed in some old with the new, in regard to the gods (whom these epic-level characters have regular contact with.) Not only will you find original deities of my own invention, but you’ll also find cameos from favorites like Athena. Pandora has a minor role as well, and others will be present.

But it’s much more engaging than the previous draft. I’m back on track.

Thanks for reading!

Rewrite (Or: Sometimes I Really, Really Hate My Characters)

~ klstrader ~ Leave a comment

Not after like three chapters. Not after the opening. Not even at the halfway point. I was sixty thousand words in, man. And I absolutely hated it.

It wasn’t the content I hated so much as the reason behind the rewrite. It was my goddamn characters again. They’ve taken on a life of their own, I swear. Each of my characters is very strong-willed and powerful and intelligent, and now I fear they’ve become self-aware. I argue with them, and sometimes they win. Which is how that manuscript made it to sixty thousand words to begin with. But I finally put my foot down. Enough is enough. No means no. I don’t know what it takes to keep them in line.

It’s going much better this time around. I’m about twenty-one thousand words in again (which is the reason for the delay since my last post. Sorry!) and the picture is much clearer. My lead character Shane was trying to do too much. But that’s my fault. I made him too powerful. Of course you try to take on the world when you actually can, am I right? Eh? Am I? I’m right. So that’s why everything was getting to muddled up. Not only that, though. It was turning into a romance novel. I have no problems with romance. All of my books have romantic elements. It’s one of the baser emotions any human can feel, or want to feel: love. That’s why it works. But Shane, being the charismatic, silver-tongued devil (wink wink) he is, wanted to focus more on the skirt he was chasing that the bad guys. Yeah, I said skirt. I’m bringing it back. And he’s not just a devil. More like half-devil. More like quarter-devil, actually. But that’s all you’re getting.

Anyway, I had to reel the romance in and give Shane more depth. He was the cliché super-hot, super-awesome-at-everything hero. All the ladies wanted him, all the men wanted to be him. Not so much anymore. There was nothing that tied the audience to him. There was nothing that made you care. No flaws, no backstory. But I fixed it. He’s now my favorite character I’ve ever created, which is a bold statement if you know me, and how much I absolutely love Invidia. Gods, she’s the best. Ok, ok. It’s close between the two. I’m not sure anyone could replace Invidia, actually. Shane is pretty awesome, though. I’m excited for you all to meet him. He’s the kind of character that really makes you look forward to writing each day, and hopefully in your case, reading.

The action… This next series is going to be way more action-y-er than my first trilogy. Station and Consequence: Absolution is setting the bar pretty high, anyway. Both with the action and the character development. I surprised myself with Shane. And the intrigue. Absolution has a few more layers of intrigue and plot development than what I’m used to working with. The scope is wider. It’s grittier. You’re going to feel more. You’re going to see more.

So, as much as I hated scrapping sixty thousand words, my characters showed me what I was doing wrong. This rewrite is much better than where I was going with the broken manuscript. Well, not broken. That might be a little harsh. It just wasn’t the direction I wanted to go. And I think my characters knew that, and were warning me away. I think that’s why they were being so difficult. That’s what I’m going to tell myself, anyway.

Thanks for reading!

Kyle