10 December, 2013

#GuestPost :: Book Process of A Tail’s Misfortune: Maturity by Scott Edwards

I’ve been coming up with universes for more than six years and have three solid physics covered plains.  When I mean physics covered I mean they have set storyline boundaries.  While two of these universes take place in our own A Tail’s Misfortune and Shadows Communicate, Helena’s universe is completely imaginary (I still don’t have a universal name for it). 
My life over the past six years has been devoted to researching, studying, and creating these histories, which is very fun.  I found that once you have a physical law and basic historic background that coming up with characters, events, and lands becomes easy.
Mind that the story never ends since you can pull tales from any point in that fabricated history, but that’s the glamour of it all!  A character’s story may end, but their actions (if profound enough) will inspire future characters to a whole new journey.  Plots later on in history that you know of are complete mysteries as they were covered up, but you may see the results where the character cannot. 
That is how I love to write, everything is built upon something else.  Look for those bricks and foundations; look for something hidden and you’ll find it.  I hope I can forever live up to those goals I’ve set and gather a reader base that learns to subliminally look for the unseen, the silhouette beneath the shadows. 
Inspiration is something that comes naturally, you can’t force it.  Let your mind mold to the story as it takes shape and don’t try to break it to your will.  You’ll find phantasms hidden behind the mists that whisper into your mind and spark a new path for your adventures.  Be a servant to your world, not a conqueror and it will lead you to a place so marvelous that you’ll hardly believe you created it.

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Book Process (Some Spoilers):
As I’ve stated, I have two other universes.  However, A Tail’s Misfortune is by far the most recent.  In fact, I only came up with the idea behind a mythic and legendary historical planning about two months ago (from writing this).  I’ve shocked myself with how deep and broad I was able to create this universe.  It’s a far cry from the Helena Chronicles, but I’ve spent six years of my life on that project so that’s not surprising.

When creating a new universe I first have to consider my main character.  I consider it like a blank page and I need to plan what I want from that page.  I start with a dot, an idea.  From there I move onto broader topics.  With Misfortune I started with Sora, which was originally named Kairi (I’ll admit taken from Kingdom Hearts).

Now let me be clear about this start, it wasn’t from the character Sora, but what she is.  I started by wanting to create a Kitsune character.  I didn’t know where I wanted to go with it or what kind of personality I wanted her to have.  That was it, the beginning.

From there came the long hours of study!  Literally, I spent tens of hours looking up myths and legends all about Kitsune (everything I could find about them).  Finally a plan started forming.  I already did a fair bit of study in the Miami area for the Shadows Communicate universe and thought I might as well use what I knew (shifting a lot of local study out of the process).  As any writer would, I wanted to come up with a story that drew people in and someone being bullied is a very good place to start (most of us have been there at some point).

From there came the study of what I wanted in this developing universe and that’s…very vast for the amount of time I’ve put into it.  The backstory, shadow stories, and futures are very interesting (does any author think their ideas aren’t?).

Finally after coming up with the historical portion through our own human historical records and myths, I started on the story plot.  A girl that’s bullied goes through some changes, and fights back.  However, she finds that things are a lot deeper than she could have imagined and working through her problems during her change makes it all the more challenging.  She doesn’t think she can trust herself at times and others she finds that she’s being too conservative and releases stress.

Finding the characters that would filter around her wasn’t that big of a deal…except for Eyia and Jin.  Finding the rolls that they’d fulfill and what they had to be to do that…took some research and internal debate.  There were several other different contenders.

After that…I just let the story flow as I wrote.  I had a few events that I didn’t know the path I’d take, but my trusty flow process worked its wonders and this is the product.  Two months of work to create this (plus a little Miami back study).  I hope you enjoy!

ASIN: B00GRL70KY
Word Count: 64k

Sora is a fifteen-year-old half Japanese/Irish girl. Her life will be turned upside down as myths begin shrouding her mind with uncertainty, while her birthday nears.  Ten days till her time of birth and it's her second day of high school that if everything goes as planned, will be the second to last semester of her high school life. 

The school bell rings and that's Sora’s cue to jump out of her seat and race down the halls to the nearest exit. She has to get out of school before the exits are blocked and the pack closes in. She has to make it out before Kari's gang of girls can drag her to their leader. 




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