KNOW THE NOVEL – Part One: Introducing Princess of the Seventh Star!

 

Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

But I’m just going to go ahead and dive right into the post. Which is, in fact, the beginning of my participation in this year’s NaNo and Know the Novel!

For those who don’t know what those are, I shall explain. NaNo is the shortest-hand for National Novel Writing Month (happening every November). It challenges you to write the length of a novel—50,000 words in all—on a single project, in a single month! It’ll be my second attempt at NaNo Official (the nice way of saying I’ve never actually won).

As for Know the Novel, well, here’s the official description!

Know the Novel is a 3-part writers linkup series, one for each of these last three months of the year. Each part will feature ten questions you can answer on your own blog (or anywhere else on social media, if you’d like!). The questions will be focusing on different parts of your novel and how the writing is going.

Anybody can join! You don’t have to be doing NaNo to do Know the Novel, nor the other way round, but if you are doing both, it’s a pretty handy way of getting excited to write.

Well, thanks goes to Christine Smith for creating this linkup! And without further ado, let us begin with the first round of questions for this year's project (and one you may have read a snippet of if you've been following my blog for... a while):

Princess of the Seventh Star

Credit for this image goes to Christine Smith, the inventor of this whole idea!

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1. What first sparked the idea for this novel?

Actually, I believe the first beginnings of it was a daydream of a possible Star Trek episode. The Enterprise would get a message for help from a mysterious girl, and when they got there, there’d be something weird going on with her. I wasn’t sure at the time whether it was a computer glitch, or there was another villain keeping the girl captive or mind-controlled most of the time, or if the girl was crazy or a monster or a ghost or what. Basically, something was weird.

When I heard about the Five Poisoned Apples contest from Rooglewood Press, I came up with several ideas, in several genres. Somehow, this one made it on the list. I was planning on writing all of the ideas, but I had to pick one to start with.

And I actually wasn’t going to do this one first, but I did end up picking it, for some unrecallable reason. I’m glad I did, because I never would have gotten to it otherwise. Plus, I think it’s cool.

I wrote the thing pretty fast, and pantsed it, too. It was a novella, of course, and while it was shorter than most things I’d attempted, it was also the longest thing I’d ever submitted. It was a unique writing experience, let me tell you.

But it didn’t win. Didn’t even place. I was kind of disappointed, with all the effort I put in. I literally wrote up to the last few minutes of the year, and joined the family just in time for the countdown.

Flash forward to that historic year, 2020, when I finally decided to get back to this project, and was particularly urged by my mom and some friends to completely finish it (and publish it, too).

At this point, “finishing” means “the final edit”, which will be a pretty huge one, since I’m kind of rewriting it. Much of it’ll be the same, but I’ll be taking the feedback I got from my contest judge and working a lot of that in, plus adding a few more scenes.

I really hope I can have it done by December, because Mommy really wants me to be published by Christmas.

2. Share a blurb (or just an overall summary if you’d prefer)!

Well, I did write a tiny thing for my NaNo page, so…

The boring version? Spaceman has concerns about spacegirl and visits. Also AIs are TIGHT!

The better version? Carter Prince - adventurer, protector of the innocent, and the first intergalactic knight - intercepts a desperate message for help from a mysterious girl. He races to find her, but light years and shadow creatures are not the only things that stand between them.

Eh, it’s not exactly a back cover copy, but it gets the idea across, I suppose.

3. Where does the story take place? What are some of your favorite aspects about the setting?

SPACE!...

SPACE!...

SPACE!...

COOKIE!...

Space!...

…

I think my echo is broken.

Anyhoo, to elaborate on the vague concept of “Space”, here are some specific places:

 - Carter’s ship, the TRiUMPh. The main thing about that is that the computer is very boring, which makes for some fun scenes. (That’s a paradox for you: boredom equals fun.) But yes, I rather like playing up the intrepid-action-hero-meets-intensely-boring-computer scenes.

- The Septimon System in general. A star system of seven dwarf-stars, with one barren planet in the middle. The coolest thing about it, I think, is just the way it works—the people of Septimon live on the seven dwarf-stars, or more properly, in them, and I actually came up with an explanation for it! (Well, this time around.)

 - Serlen, the seventh star. This one is the home of the Princess, and a bit of the story happens there (I think). I haven’t thought up much about that one, but I will this month! I can think of one fun thing about it (though it’s connected to the other six as well): the names and colors are all sort of inspired by the Seven Dwarves of Disney. I may tell more later, but that was pretty fun.

- The Silvilla Space Station. This is where much of the action takes place. I don’t know that much about the place itself (aside from the dark hallways and secret passages that sometimes show up), but it also looks like it could be a star but is too dark. That… actually sounds interesting. If it’s like a star, but with dark instead of light, and maybe it blocks out most of the light around it. You can’t see the stars from inside unless one of the seven is directly in the line of sight from a window. I wonder how that would be done—I mean, by magic? Or technology? Or is it a specific kind of metal that blocks out light? Huh.

 - Ardeena’s dreams. These change a bit, but there are multiple dreams that happen in the same surroundings. I rather like how they start out, because it’s meant to look like the cover of “Five Poisoned Apples”, with the magical forest of red-leaved trees. And I like the way the dreams technically change, but they keep some of the same qualities and aspects every time (trees being exchanged for tree-like pillars, etc.).

4. Tell us about your protagonist(s).

I’d say the mainest main character is Carter Prince. He, as he explained in the first scene, is an adventurer, protector of the innocent, and the first intergalactic knight. My judge in the contest compared him to “the intrepid, cheerful heroes from books of the early 20^th century.” Which is perfect, because that was exactly what I was going for!

He’s Buck Rogers. He’s Flash Gordon. He’s John Carter of Mars. He’s that kind of hero my judge described—courageous, confident, and optimistic, always looking out for those weaker than himself.

I rather like him. I don’t have many heroes like that, at least not main character heroes. It’s kind of cool having a cheerful hero. Most of mine are always very serious. I can only think of one other central chap that I’ve written that’s confident and optimistic like that, and he’s… well, he’s pretty bizarre. But I like him. I like them both. (Hmm, I wonder what would happen if they met…)

(And yes, I do imagine crossovers between my stories a lot.)

5. Who (or what) is the antagonist?

Basically Invidia. She’s the Evil Queen character. She watches Ardeena through a bit of magic-tech, and she’s looking for something. I don’t think I’ll say too much about it, since it might be a spoiler. However, one thing about her this time around is that I actually know her motive, why she wants the things she wants. Imagine that! So that will probably play into my writing this month.

There are a few others that sort of function in a villainous capacity, but they’re more of the evil army or monster type. I mentioned the shadow creatures in my blurb-summary, also known as the Klisarree. They’re kind of scary.

Invidia was also written as having a droid army as well, but I may have to think about that. Maybe not to change it, though. It’s just that I have a lot more about droids and AIs and computer things this time around, so I may do a little expanding on the droid army.

6. What excites you the most about this novel?

The first time around, I loved how fast-paced everything was, how much action and high adventure was packed into it. It was the first time, really, that I’d written a story like that. Before, I’d only ever hinted at it in stories. Well, except that one chapter. That was pretty fast-paced.

And of course, Theron. Because Theron.

This time, though, things are definitely not going to go quickly, seeing as I’m editing and rewriting, not writing in the heat of the moment.

So what excites me about it this time around? Well, I’d honestly say it’s probably the idea of getting to go deeper. Finding out new things about the storyworld, and especially the characters. I have relatively fewer characters to focus on in this (only four central ones, really). There are some new scenes that need to be written that do that, that zero in on the characters themselves, getting to see more of their lives, giving a little more depth to them than what was there.

And of course, Theron. BECAUSE THERON, DANG IT.

7. Is this going to be a series? standalone? something else?

As I have it now, it’s just gonna be a standalone. Still, it is in a format that could easily lend itself to serialization, like the old pulps of the 1930s and 40s. I may build on that someday? Possibly? But as it is, it’s definitely a standalone. Not a series.

8. Are you plotting? pantsing? plansting?

I pantsed plenty in the first draft. That’s pretty much the only thing I did, actually. I had the basic idea, then I just wrote and wrote. I don’t think I stopped to make notes much at all. Yet another thing that made this a unique project for me.

Right now, though, I’d say I probably will be plotting a great deal, since I’m in rewrite phase. I hope I can get it done.

9. Name a few unique elements about this story.

Ooh, let me think.

The basic idea is “Snow White meets Star Wars”. Or maybe “Snow White meets Buck Rogers” would be more accurate. So that's rather fun.

I feel like the Mirror is fairly unique, and all the dream elements. I mean, it’s not exactly Inception. It’s pretty different, and I’m not sure anybody’s had these ideas before.

It is strange, too, because the Mirror Moment—the Midpoint, the moment of reflection upon the main character’s own self that leads to a turning point in his character—doesn’t actually involve the main character at all! It’s one of the side characters (one that I absolutely love). It is a very vital moment (possibly the most emotional scene in the book, and I LOVE IT), and it leads to the rest of the events of the book. But it isn’t the main character.

(Of course, I knew none of this Mirror Moment stuff when I first wrote it. I just looked back on it earlier this year, tried to find the middle, and there it was! I knew it was my favourite scene for a reason.)

I’ve been told that, as an adaptation, the element of the Seven Dwarf-Stars is unique. I guess it is. The fact that people can live in them is kind of strange, too. (I’m so glad I figured out a way that that can be possible, because it makes so much more sense now.)

10. Share some fun “extras” of the story (a song or full playlist, some aesthetics, a collage, a Pinterest board, a map you’ve made, a special theme you’re going to incorporate, ANYTHING you want to share!).

I did make a playlist, which is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjG7U9JS-sm9k0azMeBp6gXnUSm7RHo2q

But the cooler thing is the collage I made for it! It was quite a while ago, and it was literally made in Word, but I still kinda like it.

None of the images are mine. I just put words over a few of them.

Ahh, it’s not the greatest, but I really do kind of like it. Maybe I should make an updated version sometime.

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Well, that’s about it for this post! For those who actually follow my blog, I am so sorry for vanishing for forever. Still, I am interested to see what happens this next month. (Hopefully, Atlas will keep me on track with writing every day, unless they decided to switch drill sergeants on me. Yes, I am being very cryptic.)

Ah well. In any case, let me just wrap this up by saying, thanks for reading, hopefully expect some new content in the near-ish future, and of course, a very happy Halloween to all!