AKA – My CP’s Rock Like Pop Rocks

As promised – real post today. Though I’m tempted to say in the blog title again today that I’m giving away free manga, because apparently that drives epic ammounts of traffic to my blog. Not that I got any new followers, but who needs them? You all are awesome.

I have no idea how anyone writes without feedback. When I wrote my first novel I asked a friend to read it, and she was actually really honest and constructive about the whole thing, but I was sooo not ready to hear it. Since then, I’ve discovered the support and feedback of this awesome writing community is the perfect accessory to writing.

For anyone who doesn’t remember, a couple of months ago I had a Loki sad. And I received some fantastic input on my dillemma. Did I keep my story set on earth, with earth gods as the main characters, or did I move it to an entirely new universe and change the names so I could more freely work outside the confines of the gods I’d modeled my characters after?

When all was said and done, the votes were fifty/fifty. Including an even split from my critique group, and just as even and distinct a split between two people in real life whose opinions I trust implicitly.

I think I only ever told one person what I decided: to do both. Both may never see the light of day, but the stories will become two separate entities. The original will go back to what it started as – paranormal romance. The new will become something more like high fantasy. New universe, new rules, new names, new everything. Except I get to keep my core characters.

Which means world building, which I loathe, but my Sweetie is awesome at. So…easy for me. But it also means I have to fix another issue the story has always had. I’ve never been able to summarize it. I go to write a pitch or a query and there’s so much I think is important, that I can’t keep it short or clear or comprehensive.

Something I’ve started doing with my other novels is before I write them, I blurb them. It doesn’t always end up the way it started, but the 1-2 paragraph summary reminds me what the main focus of the novel is and keeps me on track. So I decided I needed to do that now, before I started rewrites. I needed to figure out what the number one most important aspect of this story was, after all the sub-plot was stripped away.

Turns out it’s not Loki (Kii, as he’ll be called in ‘new-land’). I sketched something out yesterday, asked for some feedback, and this is what I have now:

Elle is a penumbra – a shadow servant of her god – tasked with separating errant auroras from the mortals they possess. Her work takes a toll when she begins to hear voices no one else can. Based on whims of the gods who have answers, Elle must separate fact from fiction. If she can’t discover the truth about the auroras and the voices, her spiral into madness will become a one-way trip.