13 April 2014

One Thing Leads to Another

Last time I talked about where the initial idea for New Sight came from.
(Spoilers—if you haven't read to the middle of the book)

Kids addicted to magic.

I don't even remember how many ideas I went through. A friend at work used to run one of those outdoor camp places where people send their behavioral and drug addict kids. For a while I thought that's what the story should be about. But my mind had it set in a totally fantasy world where those blue people from Avatar kept flying through on their dragon things.

BOTH of those things stressed me out to the point where I had to put the aside. While a story about kids in a magic rehab camp sounds awesome, it felt too dramatic for me.

If you don't know me, you should be informed that I'm NEVER dramatic. Well, hardly ever. Only when I don't get exactly what I want. You understand, yes?

Anyway, in my heart and mind I loved both of the above ideas, but as I started to write, the story became so much more about the adventure of the kids finding out about their magic and all of the horror, wonder and issues it would lead to. I'm an action addict, and the emotional side of the story kept dragging it down.

In my mind anyway. I'm not the one to write that story.

So I scrapped the totally fantasy world and set it in our world. Magic is almost dead, hardly anyone knows about it, and those that do should not be trifled with. This made writing the novel so much easier. Introducing a whole new world takes time and experience, neither of which I had in abundance when I started. Simplicity won that round, but I don't think an almost normal world takes away from the story.

Y'all will have to tell me after you read the book!

I do admit to a little bit of sadness when I gave up the flying dragon things. I'll have to pull them out in a different novel.

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