Motherless Soul has been out a little more than a year and a half now. The reaction to the book has been great, so I'm working on a sequel. My goal is to have the first draft done by the end of this year. However, the first draft will require quite a bit of revising. The characters have done what they're supposed to do. They've taken over the story. I will have to go back and change some of the earlier chapters so the plot lines they picked out will work. I had a friend call this art of working beginning to end with lots of revisits along the way - “zig-zag” writing.
There are sections of the new novel that will take place in the nineteenth century. So, in addition to traditional means of research, I'm reading some literature for that era. I've read Middlemarch by George Eliot and Nana by Emile Zola and I'm about a third of the way through Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. I like what I pick up from books written during the historical era I'm covering because the authors are writing for the people of that time. They carefully describe the exceptional events, but assume the readers understand the day to day events. It takes a different kind of thought process to appreciate the classics.
The only character I'm bringing over from the first book is the hypnotist. He's moved on to a new project involving all new people. I don't want the second book to be too much like the first so I'm carefully including aspects that work out in a very different manner. I'm also using some ideas from people who enjoyed the first novel. I'm very encouraged by the way it is going, but it's far from done. No matter what happens the process is something I look forward to every day.
Showing posts with label past lives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label past lives. Show all posts
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Past Lives as a genre
I'm currently reading two books: The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis and The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean. I noticed they shared a plot feature with my own novel Motherless Soul which started me thinking about aspects of a book that connect it with other books. In this case all three novels switch the readers back and forth between multiple plots.
In the case of The Doomsday Book there is a young historian named Kivrin who is sent back in time to observe the middle ages. Things go wrong on both sides of the time divide so readers are left wondering how the team in modern times (2054 AD) will deal with their problems while we're also following Kivrin's adventures in the 1300's.
In The Madonnas of Leningrad Marina, Debra Dean's main character suffers with Alzheimer's so she spends her time switching back and forth between the life going on in the current time and the memories of the life she led during World War II. Nicholas Sparks used a similar device in the The Notebook although he was writing for a very different audience.
In my own novel, Motherless Soul, the characters experience multiple lives through regressions into their past life memories. There is a plot going on during the American Civil War while there is also a plot going on in modern times. Each one of my characters has a presence in both plots, with different roles. The past influences the course of the future.
There are many other cases of novels with this plot feature. The first one that comes to my mind is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain, but there are many others. Sometimes in novels such as The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje the plot exists almost entirely in the second life, but the idea is the same.
Although I like to call my book a “Past Lives Mystery,” there is no official title for this genre. Since most books I enjoy mix mystery, adventure and romance rather than existing exclusively in one category, I believe “plot features” would be a better system for categorizing fiction.
In the case of The Doomsday Book there is a young historian named Kivrin who is sent back in time to observe the middle ages. Things go wrong on both sides of the time divide so readers are left wondering how the team in modern times (2054 AD) will deal with their problems while we're also following Kivrin's adventures in the 1300's.
In The Madonnas of Leningrad Marina, Debra Dean's main character suffers with Alzheimer's so she spends her time switching back and forth between the life going on in the current time and the memories of the life she led during World War II. Nicholas Sparks used a similar device in the The Notebook although he was writing for a very different audience.
In my own novel, Motherless Soul, the characters experience multiple lives through regressions into their past life memories. There is a plot going on during the American Civil War while there is also a plot going on in modern times. Each one of my characters has a presence in both plots, with different roles. The past influences the course of the future.
There are many other cases of novels with this plot feature. The first one that comes to my mind is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain, but there are many others. Sometimes in novels such as The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje the plot exists almost entirely in the second life, but the idea is the same.
Although I like to call my book a “Past Lives Mystery,” there is no official title for this genre. Since most books I enjoy mix mystery, adventure and romance rather than existing exclusively in one category, I believe “plot features” would be a better system for categorizing fiction.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Six Unsynchronized Souls on Feb 24th
I'll be on Monica Brinkman's blogtalk radio show on February 24th at 8:00 PM EST. Click here for more information.
I'll be talking about my novel, Motherless Soul, but this time I'll be focusing on the theme of Mother/Daughter relationships. The core of the story is about a woman who is in her eighties who lost her mother when she was two. She contacts a hypnotist to recover memories from those early years so she can learn about her mother. In the process she discovers she's had many past lives and experienced the same tragedy each time. She needs to use what she learns from the past to prevent her next incarnation from going through the same horrific occurrence.
By incorporating the concept of past lives into my story I was able to approach Mother/Daughter relationships in a unique way. For example one character has the opportunity to instruct her next mother on how she should treat the child she will have someday. In another situation two friends were mother and daughter in a past life and have behavior patterns that stem from that relationship.
But the program won't be exclusively about Motherless Soul. I've invited some friends to join me. These are women who are each daughters and mothers and sometimes grandmothers as well. There won't be definite answers, just lots of opinions and stories. It should be fun.
You can call in to (213) 769-0952 on that night to join in on the conversation or you can listen in at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/monicabrinkman/2011/02/25/six-unsynchronized-souls-motherdaughter-relationsh. The show will be archived so you can hear it later if you prefer.
I'll be talking about my novel, Motherless Soul, but this time I'll be focusing on the theme of Mother/Daughter relationships. The core of the story is about a woman who is in her eighties who lost her mother when she was two. She contacts a hypnotist to recover memories from those early years so she can learn about her mother. In the process she discovers she's had many past lives and experienced the same tragedy each time. She needs to use what she learns from the past to prevent her next incarnation from going through the same horrific occurrence.
By incorporating the concept of past lives into my story I was able to approach Mother/Daughter relationships in a unique way. For example one character has the opportunity to instruct her next mother on how she should treat the child she will have someday. In another situation two friends were mother and daughter in a past life and have behavior patterns that stem from that relationship.
But the program won't be exclusively about Motherless Soul. I've invited some friends to join me. These are women who are each daughters and mothers and sometimes grandmothers as well. There won't be definite answers, just lots of opinions and stories. It should be fun.
You can call in to (213) 769-0952 on that night to join in on the conversation or you can listen in at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/monicabrinkman/2011/02/25/six-unsynchronized-souls-motherdaughter-relationsh. The show will be archived so you can hear it later if you prefer.
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