A Little too Crazy.

As promised, this is an entry about the book I wrote last month.  Said book doesn't have a title, which is oddly appropriate, since one of the characters is the one whose name took me forever to find.

The story is, essentially, a godpunk portal fantasy.  The world is littered with dead gods, most trapped in stone or similar.  People from all across the multiverse fall into the world, and there's no way back, so it's a bizarre place filled with all kinds of beings.  The story starts with one of the main characters, a guy from Earth, having his surfboard disappear from under him.  He then realizes that he's in a different ocean, one that actively hates him.  He's quickly captured by the Evil Empire, who finds people as soon as they show up and forces them to bond with the dead gods so they can serve as power sources.

Much of the rest of the book is spent freeing people from the Evil Empire and gathering them together, leading up to a final conflict at an ancient elven city, complete with one of the ancient elves newly awakened by the presence of people bonded to the dead gods.  It was fun to write, quite crazy at times, and deliberately over the top - one of my goals on this one was to turn everything Up To Eleven as much as I could.  In some ways I succeeded, as shown by the flying motorcycle, fifty-vs-three battle, and the aforementioned character who showed up in the ocean that hates everyone deciding that the best course of action against the thing trying to capture him is to kick it in what he thinks is its crotch.

I'm sure I could make things more ridiculous in editing.  But I'm not sure if I ever will.

Here's the thing: the world I've created for this book is bizarre, but in a more subtle way than this story conveys.  There's more to it than anyone in this story suspects, a greater purpose behind the place that could take half a dozen books to truly explore and figure out.  Granted, most of this is in my notes in extremely vague terms, but I know I can get a lot more out of it.

In other words, I'd be better off with a story that's not deliberately crazy.  The empire's machinations have to be more subtle and hidden for it to truly work - less Borg, more 1984.  A story about people within the empire figuring out the secrets behind both the empire itself and the world could work very well, as there's a lot of room for espionage and trickery in a setting where no one but those at the very top truly know how things work.

Also, I'd like to see some dark reflections of the characters.  A character who can exist as three of herself would make an incredibly good spy and infiltrator.  A man bonded with a god of the hunt would make an impossibly good sniper.  The sheer amount of personal manipulation you can do with someone bonded to a goddess of love is ridiculous.  And while brainwashing someone to use them as a weapon is cliched, I really think I need to do that with the raging berserker elven princess.

As I said last entry, I don't hate this book after finishing it, which is a minor miracle.  I had fun writing it.  I needed to clear my head by working on other things, and it did the trick.  But I don't think I'll go back to this specific tale.  This world is worthy of so much more than a fun, violent romp that ends with our heroes triumphant.

Besides, writing someone with a god-granted power based on Cupcake Ipsum was just a little too silly.  Though clearing a hallway of guards with a wave of marshmallow creme was fun.

I've already begun taking down notes on how to make a new story work.  Part of that will involve better-defining the parts of the world where the story takes place, so that I know all the wheres and whys and hows of it right from the start.  There's a great deal more I can do with this, and it's time to figure all that out.

...eventually.  I'll add it to the other dozen plots-in-progress.  I really need to win the lottery or something so I can do this full-time...