M.J. Whitehead

I’m in love with Changes at the moment. For those of you who, like me a few months ago, have not picked up the Dresden Files, you’re missing out. It’s contempory fantasy at its best, borrowing a little from other genres, going interesting places and inventing new rules to do it. It’s not particularly hard fantasy, although there is a little bit of rules-based magic going on, there’s no underlying explanation of the structure of magic or anything, it just happens.

Changes is a great example of how to keep a long series fresh. Jim changed things up with the typical life changes, family revelations, backstory reveals, and all those other tricks we use to keep people interested in a series.

Changes went a step further. It’s completely rebooted the series’ dynamic. As we find out on the first page, Harry is looking for a daughter he only just learned he has, and he goes through some tremendous losses in his attempt to make her safe. This is the kind of book we need more in fantasy- the plot-changing twists and turns follow their own theme. (the title telegraphs that there’s a theme behind the changes, but doesn’t give you a clue at all)

I’m not going to say we should all beat our characters up in exactly the way that Harry gets it in this book, but we should definitely consider having Huge Game Changers™ like this in the middle of a fantasy series. If the Dresden Files were a trilogy, this would be the second book that not only improved on the first one, but really kicked its ass.

If I can do half this well I’ll be gushing with pride.

Writing in the skeleton of Dreamspace continues apace. Some of it is very bare, and there are scenes where I know the prose is off, or the scene isn’t really doing enough yet, or it’s dialogue-driven instead of action-driven, but I’m reassured that I can see all the problems. For now, I can simply say to myself that this is what rewriting is for.

This is fine though, it gives me something to flex the revision muscles. Currently the document is sitting at about 35,000 words, not counting the appendices that are probably more for my own reference at the moment. The plot is beginning to take shape, (those 35,000 words are stretched through a lot of scenes, and include some of the outlining in areas where I haven’t written enough to establish what’s going on) and it looks like it will be readable at the very least, which is exciting. It still very clearly needs test reading sometime to see if it resonates with my potential audience, and I need to resolve whether any of the scenes near the beginning make a strong enough opener. Right now I open by establishing the narrator and setting up some things for the series because it’s just sorted into chronological order.

Otherwise, I’ve been brainstorming a series of short stories in a universe I’m referring to mentally as Ouroboros. As the nickname suggests, it involves time travel- more specifically, it’s about a time-travel war between a distopian world government and a bunch of rebellious historians and scientists who invent time travel. So I have some plans to write about historians playing at being secret agents, mock Back to the Future while explaining that time travel paradoxes don’t really exist, and so on. I think hopefully the geeks-as-spies in a civil war thing should keep the time travel fresh for this universe, and I’m hoping I can use it for some cool short stories.

Just a quick post to say that I’ve gone through and done the short outline for all of the major plot points in Dreamspace. The story structure is sorted out, as are the basic scenes. I may need to outline a side-story or an extra scene or two for character development and setting, but the plot is all in there in something like 15 chapters. (Many of these chapters are composed of three or four separate scenes, as scene breaks are just too frequent to translate into chapter breaks for me)

I’m also about 10% through my first “skeleton” draft where I put all the basics in place. I do this while outlining because it helps me discover where the plot needs to go. Once I’m through the skeleton draft I’ll be working on the first version I post online- so we’re 10% there already. In an earlier post I mentioned I’d start posting drafts after I outlined- this skeleton draft I’m talking about is what I was referring to as the outline, and you wouldn’t really want to read it, as it’s more designed to get things out of my head and on to paper than it is to entertain. I should probably have been more specific, but as people say in German: “so ist das Leben”. (I’m too lazy to type the french)

Just a note: Once I’ve finished outlining my current project, Dreamspace, I’m going to start posting drafts online as I finish the first draft for each chapter. (That is, you’ll get the drafts in chronological order, even if I don’t write them that way)

As per earlier posts, I’m promising to retain the e-book rights to Dreamspace so I can continue to make it available for free online.

I’m currently something like 33-50% through the outline, and have passed the 10,000 word mark. I’m expecting this book to have many drafts before I consider it finished, so it’s initial release to the web will be in a decidedly “alpha” format.

Oh, and as a final thought for those interested in the setting: Dreamspace is set in a roughly Victorian society in terms of social progress and technology, features feudalistic politics, “school of magic” themes, introduces three magic systems, and features gunpowder in the form of slow-loading rifles and cannons. Those of you who like swords and sorcery only and dislike gunpowder have been appropriately warned!

I’ve just finished world-building the wider universe for Dreamspace. I’m pretty enthusiastic about this one, so I’m having trouble thinking about whether to post it online or not. I am, however, enjoying breaking from aBoM, but I’m getting to the point where I really need to start practicing describing this book for

It’s a fantasy, but unlike the A Beginning Of Magic universe, there’s no science-fiction crossover. (The universe could be said to be a fantasy-western crossover in that it involves interstellar colonisation, frontiers, and as Ian Banks calls them, “out-of-context problems” or first encounter situations. But there aren’t cowboy hats or pistol fights, so I’m never going to pitch it that way) The universe features faster-than-light travel, (but not the book) and I’m tentatively calling it the Worldcrystals universe. The initial book features four hard-fantasy magic systems, three of which are “foundational” to the wider universe. Can’t spoil much more about the world-building, as I don’t know what else I’m embargoing until after the book is finished. (I haven’t decided if I’m going to do a big reveal about the wider universe or not, as this world is “special” within the universe)

The plot of the story is half “magical school is much more frustrating than I expected it to be” and it twists to its other half at the climax point, which is “what might happen after the hero wins the day and kills the villain?”. I’m not done here so I don’t want to say too much more, as I’ve not really started outlining in earnest, just done discovery writing on a few chapters.

The book is narrated in first-person by a main character, and in third person from our narrator’s perspective for two other characters. Trying to differentiate the narrative and the dialogue has really helped me with a better sense of “voice” for my characters, so whether or not this book ends up being good, I’ll have learned a lot from it.

I’m considering publishing via blog a “practice/marketing” book in order to save myself revision time on later projects. Currently my world outline for this is called “dreamspace” and I’ve got tentative plans to make it a magic/steampunk crossover. It would probably also be super useful to have something on my “writing CV”, even if it was giveaway, because it implies I come with a fanbase.

Need some time to think about this before I commit to it, but a few provisos and promises:

• If I do this, I’ll be giving up on e-publishing and first rights for that book forever in order to have it available for free. If I do well enough maybe I can find someone who likes the book and will let me keep it up online, but I’ll basically be promising not to take it down ever.
• If I do this, the story will always be available in its latest revision online for free, even if I also offer it for pay.
• …, readers will essentially be beta-testing for the book and it may be broken in various ways at any given time, and it will be subject to plot-changing and character-changing revisions.
• …, I’ll probably be exploring magic concepts similar to “soft magic” in other fantasies that I think have room to grow but might be hard to sell as a hardback, f.ex. male/female magical divergence ala Wheel of Time.
• …, I’ll probably be writing a chapter or two a month while writing something else.

Spoiler warning: This post will contain spoilers for the whole Harry Potter series. I’ll be doing this kind of analysis from time to time, but I will always gate it behind the “read more” link to avoid accidental spoilers. Just because Harry Potter has been released in its entirety for quite some time does not mean there do not exist people who are still halfway through it, or have not yet read it but may later.
(continue reading…)