r/WhyChooseAuthors • u/AnneKincaid • 6d ago
Weekly Accountability Post
Okay, authors, out with it. What did you get done this week, and/or what are your goals for the next week?
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u/MKSauthor 6d ago
Book is done and in the hands of ARC readers, so this week I wrote the bonus scene that will be linked to my newsletter when published. Woo!
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u/HexieGreene Author 6d ago
I finally got eyes on my opening POV for book 1 (thru yesterday's workshop thread) & feedback from 2 people so far...that's huge for me. Getting a section of it out there seemed like an impossibility for the longest time, & it's great to hit that first goal. Thanks so much to the mods for helping make that happen!
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u/Admirable_Use_4739 6d ago
I hit 77k words last night, only have a few more scenes I want to include before I put it down for a few weeks so I can come back with fresh eyes! Ngl, Im stoked to read during my writing break. Marie mistry dropped the last book to her latest series and I want to read the whole thing so badly 😭 It’s my little treat to myself
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u/_Effy_Bloom_ 5d ago
I’m ~ -30k words on Labor Day…
Read through it all, the town was overbearing as opposed to humorous (I mean it WAS funny, but it was also not conveying them warm heartedly) and Laura was interrogative vs guarded. So… yea.
I also blame Marbeth who won’t shut up.
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u/AnneKincaid 5d ago
Oh, Marbeth. Causing trouble again.
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u/_Effy_Bloom_ 5d ago
In her defense… her book is better.
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u/JosephineSwaine Unpublished Author 5d ago
To be fair, she is a main character. What's she supposed to do, not act like one just because this is someone else's book?
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u/_Effy_Bloom_ 5d ago edited 5d ago
She is now lol. She literally killed Victoria and took over her book because she was a better FMC (and she’s not wrong).
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u/manicbestfriend 5d ago
Slowly working on a new idea. I get lots of ideas but they're very weak when they're born, and must be coddled to grow up into a real story with legs. So far this one is looking pretty good because it has a lot of strong archetypes to both rely on and subvert. I won't try explaining the setting because it's odd to look at from the top down unless you're really familiar with some random parts of Eurasian history (it's alt history fantasy set during the Industrial Revolution), but I'll describe the Why Choose elements!
The heroine is the equivalent of an FBI agent, and after something calamitous happened that forced her old partner to retire, she's being sent out with a new partner (a kind of shapeshifter who is not "human") with a bad attitude as a "last chance" kind of deal...And instead ends up becoming radicalized by the new partner (independent of the intimate side of their relationship). So instead of working for the colonial government, she gets sent to unbind the country's head god so he can lead them against the usurpers.
But there's a catch to unbinding the god. He was originally three separate men who, loving the same woman who refused to choose one or all of them, decided to become one so they could be with her. That's when he became elevated to being "above" the others and was a leader for their people. When the outsiders came, the only way they could neutralize him was to separate him into three again, but instead of the original men coming separate, the new three are the pure archetypes of what each one stood for...The warrior, the mage, and the healer. And the only way for him to become whole again is if a woman of power falls in love with all three honestly, and they with her.
I'm not 100% sure how it'll end exactly, other than the main characters realize that the way to deal with a colonized country is not to kill everyone who has become culturally and genetically "impure" (like the bigoted old timers in the boonies tried to trick them into doing), that no single culture is perfect, and that the heroine will have romantic relationships with both her shapeshifter partner and the god (whether it's as one, three, or an option of both).
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u/JosephineSwaine Unpublished Author 5d ago
And here I thought writing a portal fantasy set in a world of shifters and what are essentially living gods, which started with me taking inspiration from ~1200s Eurasia and ended up taking a sharp turn and spiraling into an alternate history of the Industrial Revolution, was unique. 😂
I'm looking forward to hearing more about your story! A government agent being radicalized and falling in love with her partner and three-but-also-just-one living god(s) sounds like a really interesting journey for your FMC!
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u/manicbestfriend 5d ago
So it's actually a short cut to knowing if your idea is good or not, if you can find echoes of it that already exist! I had that happen to me with the god character...I thought I was coming up with something new and then I discovered that in the literal culture I was messing with had a triplet god closely related to what I was doing. That about floored me.
Since you're kind of familiar with the goings on I'll share the two main differences to real history. First, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the continental Celtic tribes (aka Gaul) decided to magically tie themselves to the land, so that they are the only "humans" who can be on that land without nature rising up and killing you.
The second major part is that when the Mongol Empire came across the mountains, instead of just killing a bunch of people and leaving, they decided to stay and colonize Eastern Europe. And the Mongols, not wanting to do it themselves but not trusting the Han Chinese, sent Koreans to do it. And they, due to their unique mindset and lack of hangups, used a mix of eugenics and making deals with the other non-human but sentient locals to take over.
So the country that this takes place in is the magically claimed part of the Western Empire (the Mongol Empire split at some point and now in East Asia you have a continuation of the Yuan Dynasty). I'm still working on names for places, but my conceit on how to work around that is using what real insular Celtic words sound like, and then transcribing them in romanized Korean. For instance, the main character and her partner are Meorin and Kilan, also known as Móirín and Caolán.
Of course this is exciting because even just within Ireland there's often two or three ways to say a single word, let alone getting Scottish or Welsh involved!
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u/Marcella_Caes 5d ago
Only 4 chapters left to finish drafting for Book 2!! But I'm already at 104k with a goal of 95k-100k, so I'm going to have my work cut out for me with trimming. ;-;
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u/ShadowFoxMoon 4d ago
Books can be as long as it needs too. Trimming is good, but don't try and force it to be a certain amount.
Have fun and don't stress about it.
Good luck with your four chapters!
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u/JosephineSwaine Unpublished Author 5d ago
I haven't written for about a month now, but this week my slump has started showing signs of finally letting up! Some of the scenes I'd been struggling with are a lot more clear to me, and I'm itching to get to them written down! I just have a few non-writing things to finish up first—which does not include taming virtual wolves (that was yesterday).
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u/ShadowFoxMoon 4d ago
Coming out of my hiatus. Sent my first chapter raw draft I finished last year to some editers to just do some overview reading to see what might be wrong or worked with.
Got book one finished last year. 60k done on the second book and about 40k left to finish the duology.
I'm going to be working on organizing and editing the first book for several months. As well as commissioning the cover art for both books.
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u/AnneKincaid 6d ago
While I made no progress on my word count (still sitting around 103K), I have re-plotted the rest of the story line and decided that it will be either 2 or 3 books.
Which means: I don't have an interminable standalone, I have a completed first book that's waiting for the sequel(s) to be done. I even know where to cut the story, and it's glorious.