I will admit that I’m going a little stir crazy without having a novel to write. I finished reading a preview copy of C.N. Faust’s The Heretic Priest, which is due out in August. I can’t post the review until that time. I will say that people should check out her site and The Dragon’s Disciples, part one of The Age of Walking Death Series. She has built an amazing world of vampires, humans, and liches that jumps and creeps off the pages.
That was what I succeeded on my first day of ‘vacation’. Today I plan on creating several villains and supporting characters for ‘Tales of the Slumberlord’. My goal is to finish doing the notebook work for this series and then possibly tackle ‘Ruins of the Zodiac Gods’, which I still haven’t decided on 1, 2, or 3 books. What would people think of an opening book where it’s short stories with a young protagonist in each story and only 2-3 of the 11-15 heroes are alive at the end? Then the second book is about what happens to the survivors.
Legends of Windemere 
Story idea sounds interesting, The kind of interesting that makes me go “Damn, wish I’d thought of that.” Potential to be a really good series, and with Hunger Games (although I’m sure yours will be vastly different) riding high, now might be the right time to do it. Good luck with everything you’re working on 🙂
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Thanks. I won’t get to this series until long after the Hunger Games fad wears off. I have about 40 story ideas in various phases of outlining and I’m trying to put them into some order. Mine is definitely going to be different since the characters are heading out for enough power to return to free their hometown. I have time for this because I have until another of my series hits its finale. One of the ‘survivors’ plays a major role in another character’s final adventure, so I’m just hoping to get the basics on paper while my mind is on it.
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I like the idea, it would a different approach doing book 1 in short stories.
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Yeah. Ionia might have just sparked a crazy idea that will push me to new experiments though. I have many years before I tackle this book/series, but I think this new idea will work.
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I think it would be cool if at some point you released a book in chapters with a different character in each, kind of like Stephen King released the Green Mile series. Just my opinion, but think of the opportunities it would bring for promotion and the following you could build while people are waiting for the next in the series to come out.
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That sounds like what Rachel Morgan did where her book. Released it in 7 parts before releasing them as a complete book.
Actually, you may have just solved my problem with ‘Ruins of the Zodiac Gods’. One of the main issues I was having was that 11-14 short stories felt like it would be too huge for a complete book, so I was chopping it up. If I make the first ‘book’ with all of the characters and then have each preceding book be with one character then that could be interesting. Make it a set of novellas. Another idea is that I make the first section of each book how they avoided the curse on their town. I could cut out the prologue of the demon awakening from a well outside of town and the meeting of the kids before they head in separate directions can be retold from each child’s perspective. That part might be the tough part and force me to go first-person perspective. That’ll be a challenge.
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A challenge indeed but I already want to read it and you haven’t even done it yet!
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I know. I have to be careful. I keep talking about series that are much further in the future. It’s the downside of churning out ideas and using the last 17 years to nurture them. Honestly, I’m curious which of my series is going to slip into my brain next for attention. Though, I hear Sin shouting that he’s been ignored for the last 6 months. The poor boy’s books are too epic (4 act stories based on tiered villain RPG’s) to fit into the notebook that I already started.
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“What would people think of an opening book where it’s short stories with a young protagonist in each story and only 2-3 of the 11-15 heroes are alive at the end?”
Why only 2-3 alive? Why not kill em all?
I’m killing the whole entire human race in my novel and I’m loving it!!! lol
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Mostly because I have a need for 2 of them in other series. I have a few stories where the hero dies at the end, but it’s rare that I do it.
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I like the story idea, but you have to be certain that the people die spectacularly and for a reason. I get so cranky when characters are eliminated for no reason and in silly manners. Like how Dumbledore was killed, really cheesed me off.
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I agree. I was thinking that it would basically be many of them dying in the final battle with the big demon, so several grotesque deaths, sacrifices (at least one in vain), and an all around brutal fight. Also, keep that mentality in line for my second book. 😉
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