In October and November, Cait from Paper Fury and Sky from Further Up and Further In have been running a blog link-up called Beautiful Books where writers answer questions designed to help them get to know their books better. Today I’m posting my response to the final Beautiful Books link-up. Over the course of these posts, I’ve been writing about my NaNoWriMo 2014 novel, Siren. For those who don’t know, Siren is a rewrite of The Little Mermaid involving teenagers and superheroes. So, on to the questions!

1. On a scale of 1 (worst) to 10 (best) how well do you think this book turned out? I’d love to say it’s a 10, but honestly, this book is a mess. It wasn’t completely outlined, some characters weren’t even named, and it was drafted during NaNoWriMo. The poor dear didn’t have a chance. I’d say it’s a solid 5; a pretty averagely bad first draft, but definitely something that I think I can fix in the future and hopefully turn into something awesome.

2. Have you ever rewritten or edited one of your books before? If so, what do you do to prepare yourself? If not, what’s your plan? I have indeed edited a book before. I’ve done a few rounds of edits on two YA fantasy novels, and a detective novella. To prepare myself for editing, I first completely forget about the book. Then I read it and hopefully don’t cringe too much. After that, it’s off to the old battered notebook for a good long brainstorming session on how to fix this heap of words. And finally, after a few weeks of that, it’s time for the fun (or not) to begin.

3. What’s your final word count? Do you plan to lengthen or trim your book? My final word count for Siren is 74,008 words exactly. I’m not sure whether I’m going to length or trim it yet. I guess I’ll see what needs to be done to it first and then work out which way the word count needs to go.

4. What are you most proud of? Plot, characters, or pacing? Definitely my characters. My plot is full of holes, my pacing is all over the place, but I love my little characters to bits. Some of them went through a lot in this book, so I’m sure they’re really glad to be resting for a while. Characters are always one of the things about writing a book. This is the third book in a series, so I already knew the characters fairly well. For me this was just like getting to hang out with my best friends.

5. What’s your favourite bit of prose or line from this novel? Ooh, I have a couple of quotes that I really like from my book. I can’t decide between them, so you get to see them all.

"Eric tightened his grip on her, stroking her hair as she buried her face in his shoulder, searching for comfort. “It’s ok Nicola.” The words rang hollow. It wasn’t alright. Sara wasn’t here with them. Hector had got away. All they had was a big empty building. Bricks and mortar couldn’t replace their friend. They had failed. It was as simple as that."

***

"She flipped round and raced down toward the other end of the pool, her long, muscular tail pumping hard against the water. Lap after lap she swam at top speed until her heart was racing and her muscles were aching. But no matter how far or how fast she swam, she couldn’t outswim her bitter feelings. They didn’t trust her. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t persuade them otherwise."

***

"Losing control of his powers frankly scared Eric. Not in the I-might-fail-a-maths-test kind of way. More like the kind of scared when you’re standing in front of an oncoming train and your feet are glued to the ground. The idea of turning his friends into human icy-pops didn’t really appeal to him."

6. What aspect of your book needs the most work? Definitely the plot. The timeline of events doesn’t make sense. There are several large plot holes that I’ve been doing my best to ignore for a while and that are definitely going to need to be filled in. And occasionally I forgot what I was going to put in the book, in the first place. There will be editing. Lots and lots of editing…

7. What aspect of your book is your favourite? My favourite aspect of this book is definitely the relationships between the characters. I have a team of superheroes, and their relationships with each other were so fun to write, especially, as often happened, when they didn’t run smoothly.

8. How are your characters? Well-rounded, or do they still need to be fleshed-out? I seem to talk about character quite a bit in this post. Mostly they’re pretty well-rounded, thanks to my having written about them before. But there are always more ways that they can be fleshed out, and that’s one of the things I’m looking forward to doing when I start editing.

9. If you had to do it over again, what would you change about the whole process? I would probably have looked at my outline more while I was writing. I say this every time I actually plan a book before writing I, but checking the outline occasionally would definitely make the whole process go a lot smoother. I have a terrible habit of writing an outline and then never looking at it again.

10. Did anything happen in your book that completely surprised you? Have any scenes or characters turned out differently to what you planned? Good or bad? Oh a whole lot of things. Some were pretty good, like how the characters I didn’t plan turned out. Some were pretty bad. I’m pretty used to my books surprising me though. That’s how I know I’m really getting into the book, when things start happening that I never planned.

11. What was the theme and message? Do you think it came across? If not, is there anything you could do to bring it out more? I didn’t actually write the book with any idea of its theme or message to tell the truth. I have an idea that there is probably a theme starting to come out, but I couldn’t tell you what it was for sure. Not until I’ve actually read the book.

12. Do you like writing with a deadline (like NaNoWriMo) or do you prefer to write-as-it-comes? I LOVE writing with a deadline. In fact, I’ve drafted more books during NaNoWriMo than I have in any of the other months in a year. I love the rush of trying to get the book finished inside a certain amount of time.

13. Comparative title time! What published books, movies, or TV shows are like your book? (Ex: Inkheart meets X-Men, etc.) This is a tough one. I’d say it’s X-Men meets Hans Anderson with a dash of NCIS on the side.

14. How do you celebrate a finished novel?! Generally much cheering, and a pile of chocolate. Chocolate makes any celebration better.

15. When people are done reading your book, what feeling do you want them to come away with?That’s easy. I want them coming away wishing they could write something so awesome and where can they buy the next book? Oh yeah, and when is the movie coming out?

I hope you enjoyed hearing a little bit about how my book has turned out. This is the last post on Gossiping with Dragons for this year as my blogging break starts today. Have a happy Christmas and I’ll see you all in the new year.

Are you taking a break over Christmas? What is your favourite part about writing a book? Which books, movies or TV shows is your book like?

It’s time for another edition of Beautiful Books, the three month long link-up designed to help writers share and discover things about their books. It’s run by Cait from Notebook Sisters, and Sky from Further Up and Further In. If you want to join this month’s link up, click HERE.

This month, I’m working on Siren my sci-fi superhero retelling of The Little Mermaid, which is the third book in a series of retellings. I’m writing it for NaNoWriMo and having great fun while doing so. In case you’re interested, here is the synopsis:

Since his last defeat, Hector, leader of the mutant rebellion, has vanished. But when mutant berserkers start attacking the city, the team knows only he could be behind this. Meanwhile, Eric is dying. Despite all efforts to find a cure for him, every attempt has failed. Frustrated, Nicola strikes out on her own, determined to find a cure, and a way to stop Hector’s evil plans, before it is too late.

1. Be honest: how is your writing going?
If I’m honest, pretty well actually. I’m enjoying myself, the book is making some sort of sense, and I love working with this group of characters again. That’s one of the great things about writing a book in a series. Writing the book is like going to visit a group of old friends. I’m pretty much on target to him my planned word goal of 60k for the draft too, which is amazing.

2. What’s your first sentence/paragraph?
I am the first to admit that beginnings are not my strongpoint. It always takes me several to really get into the swing of the book. So while I’m willing to share my first paragraph, I will warn you, it’s not particularly interesting, and definitely not very well written.

Life in the mutant team was a weird mix of overly exciting and busy times, and really, really boring ordinary ones. Right now it seemed that they were stuck in one of the ordinary ones, and Nicola couldn’t stand it. Even her morning swims in the lap pool couldn’t make up for the fact that nothing was happening at all. No investigations. No mutants to go and arrest. Even Hector, who was leading a rebellion against the government and their proposed laws against mutants hadn’t done anything in a while to cause trouble for them. Yep, Nicola was thoroughly fed up. If only something would happen. Now, in the cool waters of her swimming pool, she pounded her frustrations out with violent pumps of her muscular, mutant tail.

3. Do you have a book cover, and/or pictures that reflect your book?

Having an artistic sister is awesome because it means that someone will draw pictures and covers for me in return for chocolate. (Plus she seems inexplicably interested in my series, so she drew me a lot of pictures for fun). So, here is the amazing cover she designed. Is it not a beauty?




4. Do you have pictures of each of your characters? If not, describe them for us! (Be as descriptive as you can.)
The artistic sister strikes again. As well as drawing me a beautiful cover, she also gave me a picture of every single one of the major characters for the entire series, including some characters I haven’t even introduced yet. The main characters for Siren are the girl with blue hair, Nicola, and the boy in the black hoodie, Eric.





5. What scene are you most excited to write?
My book is a retelling of The Little Mermaid, with Nicola as said mermaid, so the scene I’m particularly looking forward to writing at this point in time is probably the one where Nicola makes a deal with the Sea Witch. The Sea Witch herself is rather a tricksy character who tries to fool Nicola while making the bargain, so that should be a very interesting and fun scene to write.

6. Share a snippet or a scene that you really enjoyed writing.

This is a first draft, so the writing's not epically good, but I really enjoyed writing the similies in this little excerpt.

Losing control of his powers frankly scared Eric. Not in the I-might-fail-a-maths-test kind of way. More like the kind of scared when you’re standing in front of an oncoming train and your feet are glued to the ground. The idea of turning his friends into human icy-pops didn’t really appeal to him. Most of the time he felt he was doing pretty well, but then he’d have an episode like this, and he’d feel like he was right back at the beginning again.

Controlling his power enough to shut it off was the hard part. It was like trying to catch a waterfall in a thimble. A futile task. Ever since he’d nearly burnt his power out and fried his brain when fighting against Hector, he’d been pretty ill. Still, everyone was pretty hopeful that he was getting better, and who was he to say anything against that?

7. Now that you're writing, have any of the plot details, or the process itself, turned out different from what you planned or imagined?
My plots always change a lot as I write them, so it’s no surprise that a lot of the plot points have shifted round for this book. Nothing is drastically different at the moment, but some plot points have been omitted, some have been rearranged, and other bits have been added. It all makes sense to me at the moment, so I must be doing something right.

8. Is there a character or aspect of your plot that's difficult to write?
I’m finding it hard to write a part in my plot where one of the characters is supposed to be dying. The emotion is hard to portray, and it’s difficult to work that into the plot without making the character become weak and unable to take much part in the story at all. As he’s rather an important character, this is a delicate balance. I can tell it’s going to need a lot of editing later on.

9. What’s your favorite aspect of this novel so far? Favorite character?
My favourite aspect of this book so far is actually all the sciency stuff that’ll never make it into the final draft. I’m really bad at working out how the science works in a sci-fi novel, so I’m really pleased with myself for making my sciency stuff actually follow some sort of logic. I don’t think I can pick a favourite character at this point though. (It’s kind of like favouritism anyway).

10. Have you drawn off of any life experiences or people you know to create your novel and your characters?
I draw off parts of life for little things for my characters. One character hates paperwork, like me, or enjoys running, or hates stairs. I base a lot of their likes, dislikes, and little traits like that off things I’ve seen in real life. But I don’t normally made a conscious decision to use anything from my real life in my book. I’m sure little things creep in while I’m not looking though.

11. Do you have a playlist or certain song for your novel and/or characters?
Sadly not. I’ve always wanted to be one of those writers that is able to find the perfect song to match a book or a character, but I’ve never been able to do that. Instead I just listen to whatever sounds most appealing at that point. One of these day’s I’ll manage it.

12. Let’s have some fun for a moment: imagine you are somehow transported into your book’s world. Which character are you most likely to be found hanging out with?
I would love to hang out with Nicola for a while, but I think she might end up being a bit too energetic for me. I’d probably enjoy a bit of quiet time with Jonathon, the genius, and all his interesting gadgets, and I’d probably get on quite well with Bethany, the empath, who basically runs the household. Introverts unite!

13. How do you keep yourself motivated to finish your daily wordcount? (Pinterest? Internet breaks? Chocolate?)
Sheer determination most of the time, and copious amounts of tea. No writing session is complete without many, many cups of tea. And it’s NaNowriMo, which always motivates me to write more. I hate to finish my day without writing all my daily word count.

Did I mention the tea?

14. What your favourite writing quote or piece of writing advice?


I have lots of writing quotes I love (I may or may not have a 12 page document of them), but the one that is my favourite for NaNoWriMo is this one:


15. How does this book make you feel so far? Are you laughing? Crying? Frustrated?
I feel differently about this book every time I start a writing session. Sometimes it makes me laugh. Sometimes I’m excited at the way the adventure is turning out. Sometimes I’m gleeful about it (mostly when I’m doing mean things to my characters). It’s been a great journey so far.

Now it's your turn. Tell me about your book. Are you doing NaNoWriMo? How's it going? What's your favourite writing quote?

1. What came first: characters or plot idea? Are you a plotter or a pantser?
Neither actually. I got hit with a brilliant concept late one night. What if I took fairy tales and added superheroes? Thus the idea for a ten book series was born, including this book, which is a totally epic retelling of The Little Mermaid. Talk about too much inspiration! I used to be a total pantser (and secretly wish I still was), but I do plot a bit now. So my answer is probably plantser.

2. Do you have a title and/or a “back-cover-blurb”?
Yes to both. And I even made a pretty graphic for them too, including an amazing cover designed by my talented sister. See?


3. What wordcount are you aiming for when your novel is finished?
I’m aiming for 60k-70k at the end of the draft. That’s where the first two books in the series have ended up, so it’s not an unreasonable goal.

4. Sum up your novel in 3 sentences.
Eric is dying.
Stuff gets blown up.
There are mutants.

5. Sum up your characters in one word each.
I have lots of characters, too many to list at the moment without everyone getting thoroughly confused, so I shall just do the villain and the heroine.
Hector: Misguided (and vengeful as well. He needs both words.)
Nicola: Hyperactive

6. Which character are you most excited to write? Tell us about them!
The character I’m actually most excited to write about is a poor guy who barely gets any page time, Aaron. He’s the loveliest fellow, but he’s not exactly a big character (yet), and he does have some terrible luck. To sum him up, he’s super big, super strong, and super hairy. Any ideas as to which fairy tale character he might be?

7. What about your villain? Who is he, what is his goal?
Hector. Talented mutant, rebel leader, and man on a mission. His goal is equality for mutants. Or supremacy. It doesn’t really matter at this point. Currently he’s hoping to blow some stuff up for the good of mutant-kind.

8. What is your protagonist’s goal? And what stands in the way?
Nicola’s goal: Save Eric’s life, (and the world if possible) and hopefully punch Hector in the face if she gets a chance.

What stands in the way? Hector. Modern medicine (seriously not geared towards mutants). An entire rebel army. The usual.

9. What inciting incident begins your protagonist’s journey?
It all started the night the mutants began spontaneously combusting…Or it could have been the bit where her friend was dying and forgot to tell her that important fact. You’d think he’d have remembered to mention that at some point.

10. Where is your novel set?
Australia. Some city that doesn’t exist and has managed to go through two books so far without being named. I should probably see to that at some point…

11. What are three big scenes in your novel that change the game completely?
I’m not much of a plotter (my timeline happens to be a scribbly mess of notes in a notebook), but I do know of three scenes which appear to be rather important, so I’ve put those ones in.

Scene 1: The scene where they work out that mutants are making their powers explode on purpose. This one actually is important because it’s the start of the whole adventure

Scene 2: Nicola finding out that Eric is dying and hasn’t managed to get around to telling anyone yet. This one is important just because it’s explosive and has potential for some great dialogue.

Scene 3: The climax where they stop Hector’s plans but he ends up kidnapping one of their companions by mistake. Climaxes are very important and this one sets up nicely for the next book.

12. What is the most dynamic relationship your character has? Who else do they come in contact with or become close to during the story?
That would probably be between Nicola and Eric. It’s a very…explosive relationship. What? He froze her swimming pool the first time they met. They start to become better friends in this book. Good friends to the point where she would risk her life to try and help him. It’s a good friendship.

13. How does your protagonist change by the end of the novel?
She becomes a bit more responsible, a bit more caring towards others. She also learns a bit more self-respect, and definitely learns that teamwork is a good thing.

14. Do you have an ending in mind, or do you plan to see what happens?
I do indeed. For once I actually have a bit of a plan as to where this book is going. The ending involves much trickery, cool gadgets, and crazy villain stuff. It’s going to be cool.

15. What are your hopes and dreams for your book? What impressions are you hoping this novel will leave on your readers and yourself?
Basically I hope that people are left thinking that this is a seriously cool book and that they want to go and read the rest of the books in the series. As for me, I’m hoping to be left with the enthusiasm to go and write the other seven books in the series. And find the strength to edit them all too.


So that's a little about my NaNoWriMo project. Have you written about your book? Link me to your post! Have you ever found that your favourite character is one of the minor characters? Anyone else have trouble writing synopses?