It’s always been a dream of mine to be a great novelist. I’ve always loved the idea of creating worlds that are rich in history and unique cultures. My current work in progress “Dear Mr. Avalon” is set in a world that I’m trying to make unique and not come across as some poorly copy pasted fan version of something that already exists. This is where my struggle begins.
The world I’ve created is called Hollow Mortes. It’s a form of reality detached from ours where all manner of creature and monster live. Some stay to the shadows, forests, and mountains, while others have decided to make civilizations. I’ve made a rough sketch of my world map that’s located on my Lore page. I also have all of these ideas about the creatures and people that inhabit this world, that I’m struggling with the idea of how much is too much world building? and Is this really important to the story I’m trying to tell? And that leads me to another area I’m noticing problems with my writing; the people.
Although Hollow Mortes is inhabited by monsters, not all monsters are mindless, primitive, or lacking in culture. The creatures I primarily focus on in my writing are werewolves and vampires. Now, most stories about werewolves and vampires, at least in the mainstream, are romance stories where the romance comes first and everything else is secondary. I want to reverse that. The main character of my story is turned into a werewolf and something I want to explore is the impact that transformation has on a person. How does one maintain a semblance of their humanity where something so monstrous has happened to them? I don’t want to write about romance. And I know I can’t be the only one that wants more from the average monster movie or novel.
But this is also something that I find myself struggling with in my writing and that I need to practice and hone; I’m terrible at writing character drive story. I feel like a lot of my current writing is very plot driven and not character driven. And any character driven writing is more “tell” and not “show”. I’ve gone ahead and posted the 1st chapter of my Works in Progress page. Feel free to check that out and if you can, provide some feedback? I’d really appreciate it so I can improve. I’m deeply passionate about this project but I need to improve my skills if I’m to publish a quality novel.
Thank you for reading, and if you have any feedback, please feel free to share.
Check out my website here: About
-V.D. Flask
Welcome to Hollow Mortes! 