Well, I am enjoying getting into the story of The Magdon Generations which is bringing my Magdon series into modern times. Origins Of The Magdon was exactly that…..an origins story for Archy. This is set to be a bigger beast compared to the five-part novelettes, I want a complete story in a novel format.
It’s interesting approaching this project as with Origins I was just focussing on Archy and all those around him were side characters. It was, after all, his journey we have been following. Whilst I have a little left of the main story for Archy his adventure for me is complete. It is more about final touches than idea development as I know where fate is taking him.
To that end, though, writing a series focussed on one character with supporting characters was easier.
With Generations, I want to bring a new theme into the story, one of family and commitment. These are my key themes for this part of the story. With Archy, it was discovery and adventure which I feel those stories capture and demonstrate well.
To that end, I have this week gone from the family element and a random villain to running two simultaneous story arcs to intersect through the story. From a “basic” villain I have now decided to give some meat to the myth of the Veks (worshippers of The Magdon) and bring them into the modern world as something more than a handful of shady worshippers living in dusty places. Now I want them to be something bigger, give that part of the Magdon mythology something more.
Ironically I have always suffered with good-guyism. Even as a boy (I remember going to school dressed up as a pirate and had to explain to everybody I was a good pirate as I didn;t like being seen as the bad-guy). It remains the same now that I find it hard to portray the story of the villains as anything other than easily defined bad-guys. That way my moral compass is nice as obvious. However, taking the writing approach to give the villains in this piece a little more substance I have to challenge myself and put that aside. I probably suffer (being quite self-critical) of not fleshing out the villains enough in my stories so everyone can “dislike the bad guy”. Of course, the villain in this piece, Viktor Franklyn, will be a person to dislike but I also want to break my own stereotype and add a human element to them.
Oh, of course, he is going to be ruthless, as is his partner Tuilika but by giving them their own story arc I get to pay them a little more justice in the book. I do like running the two stories because I can feed into the story from different angles.
Normally my writing method is very linear. Most of the time I tend to write each chapter one after another, making notes of futures ideas for when I reach that part in the story. It served me very well in Footprints On The Other Side, my adult thriller, as the story was so complicated but needed to feed across the three parts of the book. I think it would have been far too easy to have got lost in the story had I skitted around the different chapters.
That said, I do tend to write important key scenes in an early draft if they shape the story. I did it with the end of the Origins Of The Magdn series.
I think it is too easy sticking to rituals and routines. Come on, I know I am not a scholar of literature, creative writing or carry accolades to say I am in any way qualified to dare to write. To that end I suppose I need to test myself, push my own boundaries and see if it serves me well in the story writing.
As always though I digress.
This week has been one of working on whims and going with my gut. The free book release started that process. New characters, new story arcs and new ways of writing the next story.
I’ll probably end there with the confession that I have absolutely o idea what I am doing in any of this. Marketing being the main one, selling myself, approaching agents or reps from the “industry” but nobody has banged on the door and said “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING, YOU’RE WASTING YOUR TIME GO AWAY!” So I am taking that as a positive sign.
There is nothing worse than self-doubt as I have said before. I’m doing all I can to see the good in what I’m doing and in the end as long as someone, just one person, reads the story and likes it then I’ve done my job well.
It would be lovely to make it in this scary world and perhaps one day I will.
Until then, I’ll jut keep doing my best and see where it gets me.
Tobey Alexander 
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