So, the next story (which will be split over two weeks, because it’s long) is done. I’m as shocked as you are.
There’s a reason for this, though! I’m starting to novel today! I may not get too far today (I’m doing other stuff too, unfortunately or fortunately) but it’ll begin! Personally, I’m excited. I’ve figured out how most everything will work, and it’s just a matter of putting it into about 75,000 aesthetically pleasing words. Or, you know, three times the length of the longest piece I’ve ever written. But I’m confident in it. I’m dead confident in it. I’m so confident that I want it to be a trilogy and I’ve already planned out the second one (admittedly, by necessity, since plot carries over). I feel like Nic is a good character, and he can carry his own piece. He’s smart, and he has a number of flaws which I can exploit throughout the book. And he’s paired with a cool supporting cast. It’s very balanced. There’s a lot of people in it, but I feel like they’re all very important.
The few decisions left to make involve whether I should have a central villain. I think so. I mean, it’s not very much a “villain” novel, but I feel like I need some number of invisible antagonists to make it work. Antagonists are important, even if they aren’t central to the plot. Like, I know the beginning and end are solid, but I need to buttress the middle.
My goal, my artist’s statement with the work, so to speak, is to write a fantasy novel that is much more literary in execution. I’m not going for fantasy heroes fighting evil. I don’t think there’s even anyone in the novel who’s evil. That’s kind of how I want it to work. There are just commodities, and people who have them. But that’s for another show, and you may, one day, read it.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for a good read, Lev Grossman’s The Magicians is fantastic. Like, I got it because it was advertised in Barnes and Noble as “Harry Potter for Adults”, and…I wanted to laugh at it. I got it out of the library, with every intent to hate its guts, and…you know what? After an awkward first twenty pages where he tried too hard (or I noticed) I realized it was fantastic. That, Neon Genesis Evangelion (which we’re finally watching!) and random video games have take up my time. Along with, you know, writing a long short story about private investigators.
In full! The riveting, focusing changing epic novella.
In addition, as a prelude, an introduction to the affairs of one Quentin Gray, Private Investigator. Recently sent to the Expanse under order of Carrenza based crime boss Bernie Pierson to retrieve a certain item from the Sorcerer Tower of Kemmeth, the old City of Dreams, now resting in the secluded, Expanse-locked fishing village of Dorlington.
It’ll be a 2 part short story, with a much greater horror focus than Jimmy had.
So, enjoy. The excerpt comes first, before the cut, where the full story comes. If you’d like it in a better selection of formatting, I can set you up with that.
—
Quentin Gray woke at four thirty in the morning, cold sweat down his back. His room at the Poplar Hotel was spinning in darkness, the moonlit shadows spinning on the wall. The smell of the sea air filled his nostrils. The bedsheets were claws scratching at him, calling him back. He couldnât escape. He had to escape.
Quentin Gray shoved himself out of bed and threw his gray trenchcoat over his sleep clothes, grabbing a tin of tobacco, rolling paper, and a small, half empty bottle of vodka from his bedside table. These in hand, he stumbled into the thin oaken door of his room.
The ocean greeted him, roaring to his left, the tide approaching its zenith. The Poplar had five rooms, and they all opened directly to Lowe Street, one of five streets in tiny Dorlington. Outside the air stank even heavier; the weight of sea salt combined with the sweetness of rotting fish. A fog had rolled in, and the streets were just illuminated by the twin moons, Sanus and Ebech, light red and white.
Quentin rolled a cigarette. He swore there were shapes swirling about him, ducking down Ocean Avenue and Middle Street, the two north south arteries the village had. He knew no one was out at this time. How could they be? It was four thirty, and he couldnât even see ten feet in front of him, so how could he see shapes.
He had to be cracking up. Had to be. It was one of the perils of private investigation, but it had to go away. It was all planned out. Heâd spend a couple days in Dorlington, calm, relaxed days, steady his nerves with tobacco and alcohol, maybe some fresh fish, and heâd be on a boat to Carrenza by the weekend, back in his office by Quothday, at worst. He lit a match, and set it to a rolled cigarette.
Then came the scream. Middle pitch, piercing, probably a road over.
He passed it off as a prank, or something, but then the screaming continued, and he could hear a sound, like a loud squish. He dashed down the street, away from the Ishmaer Ocean, full tilt with a bottle in one hand, a cigarette in the other. He turned the corner onto Middle Street, running fully tilt into the fog; it didnât dissipate as he went inland, which worried him. Meant it wasnât oceanic. He couldnât see anything, but the screaming continued, a bloodcurdling cry heâd only heard once before, and then a dozen more times in his nightmares.
He turned onto Main Street and there he was. Quentin stopped dead in his tracks. The man was in his thirties, beard and fishing overalls. His spine had been cracked in half like a twig, and blood was pooling in the cobblestones.
Running down the street, the other way, was a tall, thin humanoid.
âHey! Hey!â Quentin shouted, breaking off into a run after the man, but the thin man was quick, and faded into the fog. Quentin kept running after him, stopping only after his footsteps grew louder on the wood of one of the townâs two piers. He couldnât have gone this way, and the fog made it impossible to see the edge. He didnât want to fall in. Quentin wasnât the best swimmer.
He turned around and walked back to the man. A crowd had appeared in the streets, two men in their night shirts and a Nar, a short, scaled, snouted humanoid, all peering over his body.
âHey! Mister!â one of the men shouted. He had short cropped red hair and pasty skin, his gut sticking out underneath the nightshirt.
âI saw the guy who did it,â Quentin said, âchased him down to the pier, but he disappeared. Damn fog.â
âWait, you saw him?â the Nar said with a high pitched voice.
âYeah, I just said-â
âThatâs impossible. This manâs been dead for six hours, at least,â the redheaded man said.
Quentin Gray passed out.
And now, your feature presentation.
Read more…
What’s going on here!
Anyway, novella is finished and will be posted this weekend (as both a combined form post and a “just the new bits” post). It is slightly longer than my Division 3 at Hampshire was (lol) and about half the length of a minimum length novel, which is how long I think it should have been.
I feel like I’ve gotten closer to how I want Nic as a character (honest, if a criminal, competent but also prone to panicking, basically, a good guy in a tough business who’s got everyone’s best interests at heart). Jimmy the Smoke was just a novella character, though now I’ve found a way to work him into the novel-type work proper, because I like him. He has to be important, somehow.
My plan for the next story: I plan to write a 10,000 word or thereabout story (this is 26,000 words, btw) story about Quentin Gray, Private Investigator, also set in this world, but instead in the northern fishing village of Dorlington. I feel I need to get out of Carrenza: it’s a nice place, but other places will give me different avenues to look at main characters through.
I also have a couple other story ideas, which I’ll write at the same time as the novel, mainly literary fiction to enter contests with n’ stuff. I tend to write highly unpublishable things, like long novellas and pointless short fiction, and I’m trying to write things which might actually be publishable (also that I want to write). Best idea right now is famed Japanese author Haruki Murakami and famed Japanese everyman Shigesato Itoi getting together and being awesome, though I imagine names will be changed, and it’ll be more serious or something.
Check back on Sunday for full, complete story! 101 pages total! xD
The Book Burner 