Saturday, January 2, 2010

4 Books, 4 Genres

As I said yesterday, I am going to attempt to write four books in one year, working on a different one each week. In today’s post, I will outline what each book will be about, subject to change since one (or more) of my ideas may turn out to be stinkers. The four proposed genres are Thriller, Children’s, Science Fiction and Horror.

Book I – Thriller

The first book in rotation is a thriller tentatively titled FLAME. The story is about an alien being that interacts with outside world using fire. It crash landed near Atlantis 14,000 years ago and soon the local population was worshiping it as a god. The alien is a being composed of energy and its matter is contained with a metal sphere. It is able to read the thoughts of those around it and punishes them by burning them if it doesn’t like what they are thinking. After the destruction of Atlantis we fast forward to modern times, where a Canadian archeologically team is searching for Spanish shipwrecks off the coast of Cuba. Only they discover something else...Atlantis.

I have already written the prologue and the first couple of chapter s of this book. I have also written a chapter by chapter outline up to chapter 36. My first goal is to finish the outline so I know where I am going when I start writing again.

Book II – Children’s and/or young adult

The next book I will be working on is call NANUQ. It is a children’s story concerning a young boy living in the town of Churchill, Manitoba in the sixties. The boy’s father goes out for a snow mobile ride on Hudson’s Bay and never returns. A search party is organized and they find skidoo tracks that lead to a hole in the ice. Everyone believes that boy’s father went through the ice and drowned, but not the boy. That night, the boy is visited in his bedroom by a polar bear that can speak and tells him his name is Nanuq (which is Inuit word for polar bear).

I have also started on this book already by writing the beginning of the first chapter and writing an outline. I will revisit the outline and expand it to a chapter by chapter synopsis so I can use it as roadmap for my writing.

By the by, I was born in Churchill in the sixties, so I know a thing or two about the place.

Book III – Science Fiction

The third book idea has never made it to paper yet. It has just been an idea in my head. The title of this book is RUST (are you sensing a theme here yet?). I envision a world (or at least a setting) composed almost entirely of rusting metal wreckage, stacked layer upon layer upon layer. In this world is a young man, a scavenger, who searches for tins of food to feed his clan. The story begins when the man discovers that the rusted bridge that he needs to cross to get to a food cache has collapsed into the rusted chasm below. The scavenger needs to find a new source of food or his clan will perish from starvation.

I will need to create a rough outline first and find out if there is true, distinctive, compelling story within this idea.

Book IV – Horror

The final novel of this quartet will be a horror story. Currently vampires and zombies are very popular both in literature and Movies/Television. So I figured I could try writing a gripping tale concerning vampires vs zombies vs humans...please stop laughing. Hey, it could work! I’ve got an idea of how to kick it off, so let’s give it the old college try, shall we? As for the title...it will probably be one word...not sure what that word will be...but let’s tackle the outline first.

And there you have it, four books, four genres. Each one will get my full and complete attention (minus work and home life, etc.) for a week before I move onto the next one. If any of these stories feels like it’s not going to pan out, I will drop it like a hot potato and think up a new one. As I said before I will keep you apprised of my progress on hopefully a daily basis and any feedback you give me will be taken into consideration. Thank you very much for your attention in this matter.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

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