Archive for the ‘Novel’ Category

My First Writing Experiences: A Trip Down Memory Lane

Posted: April 7, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Writing
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I woke up yesterday morning and was filled with memories of some of my old attempts at writing, the first fiction stories I ever wrote, and how they shaped and defined me over the years, and how I got to this point in my writing.. I wanted to write a post about them, but with all that was going on yesterday, I didn’t have the time. Well, better now than never, right?

The first time I tried to write anything, I must’ve been five or six, eight at the most. I had just seen Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for the first time and then read the book, which was infinitely better. My mind was blown, and I could only think to myself, “I want to write something like that”. So I did, creating a similar story to HP1 except with the genders of the characters switched (even then, I had a thing for strong female leads, I guess). I called this obvious copyright violation Amanda Robinson, I gave her a cat instead of an owl, and I planned that the cat was a prince in cat form who would be my main character’s love interest at the end of the book, but beyond that same basic plot as HP1. I didn’t finish this work, either because I had the good sense to stop before I got sued or because at that point in my life I couldn’t keep my focus on any one project for very long. But it did spark my interest in writing, which only grew as time went by.

My next major project was a pirate adventure story called Bane Nycroft and the Maelstrom Pirates (I’m not sure if this one was inspired in any way by Pirates of the Caribbean, but it’s a possibility). That story featured a lycanthropic teenage pirate with a stolen Navy ship, leading a band of fellow orphans on the high seas and stealing from rich government banks and fighting monsters and demons. Along the way the pirate picks up a rebellious princess and they discover an island where all sorts of strange and magical creatures reside, and eventually they take on a prince who’s actually a demon in disguise. This one went through several rewrites, each rewrite growing more supernatural as time went by. Eventually I lost interest, but more than Amanda Robinson, Bane Nycroft gave me a taste of what professional fiction writing was like.

After that came the Davis trilogy, a couple of vampire novels that were inspired by the movie Van Helsing. In those novels, which fused a lot of the Buffy mythology to Van Helsing and my own twisted imagination, a teenager commits suicide after seeing his crush with her boyfriend. The teenager makes a deal with the Devil to become a vampire and take over the world and make the girl his vampiric bride. The girl, on her way to becoming a vampire, must band with her boyfriend, her older brother, and her best friend, who happens to be a witch, to stop this horrible vampire from turning the world into permanent darkness. I actually got to the third book with this one, but at that time the slow realization that nobody would want to publish such a confusing story that ripped off so many works came over me. Plus as I got further along the story got more and more sexualized, which sort of corresponded with where I was at that point in my teenage years.

I wasn’t entirely finished with the vampire mythology though, and almost immediately afterward I began work on Mahiro, which in my opinion had the first inklings of the style of writing I have today. In it a teenage boy travels to an alternate universe inhabited by vampires. While there, he is found by Mahiro, the queen of vampires, who takes a liking to him and turns him into a vampire. But before she can finish the ritual and take his soul, he escapes and finds the human resistance, where he assembles a team of crack fighters to help him take on Mahiro and perhaps find a cure for vampirism. At the same time, he must deal with a romantic triangle, being drawn both to his girlfriend, whom he left on the other side of a dimensional portal, and an equipment tech with some terrific sharp-shooting skills. It was promising, but at that point Twilight was hugely popular and was gaining more fans everyday. As a consequence the number of vampire books out there was astronomical, and I didn’t want to compete with that. With that in mind, I shelved Mahiro until a time I could bring out the characters again and rewrite the story. Until then, no vampires for me.

There was also a poorly-researched caveman story and a Frankenstein-esque horror story I wrote in between Bane Nycroft and the Davis trilogy, plus some attempts at zombie literature. Other than that, those were the main works that preceded the creation of Reborn City, which I’ve stuck with up until now and I’m happy to say will be published as soon as the beta reading period is over, I can create a cover, format the whole darn thing, and get a copyright.

Over the years, I’ve written a lot. My writing style’s changed drastically since I started writing fiction, and I’ve incorporated new elements to my work with every author I’ve read and every experience I’ve gone through. I wonder what the kid who sat in front of the old Windows 97 computer hen-pecking out a Harry Potter rip-off would say if he saw me now and what my writing’s like (probably “Why aren’t you living in a mansion yet?”). I hope to continue to grow in my writing and to create awesome and scary works. And perhaps, unlike my previous work, the characters will be college students or even full adults instead of teenagers. That’d be a break from the past!

I’m In A Bit Of A Slump

Posted: March 31, 2013 in Novel, Reflections, short story, Writing
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You’d think I’d do something a bit more festive for my 400th post. But no, all I got is some bad news.

Truth is folks, I’m in a little bit of a slump. I have two short stories that are not coming along like I want them to, and I feel absolutely no desire to work on either of them while I’m drained. Every time I sit myself down in front of a computer with the intention of writing, I find myself instead watching crime shows online or reading or playing Angry Birds on Facebook. Not only that, but I’ve been neglecting one short story I’ve been meaning to send to some magazine or another, but when you’re a full-time student with homework and a part-time job, you sometimes don’t feel like doing the research.

What I’d rather be doing is working on novels. I’d rather write or edit them or even research them. But the only novel I’m going to write anytime soon is Reborn City’s sequel, which I won’t start on until I’ve put out RC on the Internet, and my beta reader for RC is only halfway through the novel at this point. And although I have plans for a sequel to Snake, I want to wait a little while before I even think of starting the sequel to that, and besides, my beta reader for Snake’s been busy herself, so she hasn’t had a chance to start on it yet.

So what do I do in the meantime? Work on short stories, but those are harder for me than novels. Novels I can stretch out, go deep into the character’s history and identities and personalities, do all sorts of interesting twists and turns and create a whole mythology for. Short stories are compact, usually less than 10,000 words, and we writers have to fit a whole story into that amount of space. You can see where a guy like me, who grew up on a steady diet of novels, usually novels that were part of series, might encounter problems. The joke is that the short story is the novel’s neglected younger sibling, but really, it’s the sibling that requires more skill to handle.

So I’m in a slump. I have no idea what to do at the moment, with no novels t0 write, only the occasional chapter to edit, and two short stories whom I can’t seem to fully finish. Even when I come up with new ideas for novels, which I do a lot, I can’t work on them anytime soon, so that’s not helpful.

Any suggestions would be most welcome. They could be anything from tricks or strategies to help me finish the short stories to suggestions of something else I could try doing while I wait for inspiration and chapters to edit and whatnot.

And if you feel the same as me or have felt the same as me, please let me know. It’d make me feel better.

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop–Part 2

Posted: March 24, 2013 in Novel, Reflections, Writing
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I did a TNBTBH back in February (and yes, that is an abbreviation) for The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones after being nominated by fellow blogger and author Lorna Douvaena. On Friday, my friend and fellow author Matt Williams did his own TNBTBH on his Whiskey Delta trilogy (check out the exact post here: http://storiesbywilliams.com/2013/03/23/next-big-thing-blog-hop/). As usual with these posts, he nominated several others to do this, including me. So I’m doing a Part 2 to my own TNBTBH…without Jason Voorhees behind me (anyone get the reference? If not, you need to watch the first two Friday the 13th films).

And what work am I doing this time? Reborn City, of course! Matt and I both seem to have a fondness for it.

What is the working title of your book?

Reborn City, which is the name of the city in the first book and the name of the trilogy of the whole. I wanted to do a different name for the trilogy, but guess what? Trilogies named after the first book series are on the rise. Might as well get on the bandwagon.

Where did the idea come from for your book?

I was walking home one day from the library back in high school and was listening to rap music on my Walkman (yes, I had a Walkman in those days). At that time I’d just seen and become enthralled with the movie Freedom Writers, which was filled street gangs. A stray thought went through my head that I should write a story about a street gang, and it took hold. At that moment an explosion went through my head and I went to the nearest Dairy Queen to eat ice cream and figure out how I should go about writing a gangster story. All the elements of the story–the science fiction element, the themes of racism and Islamophobia, the street gang leaders with their special powers–came later on. As they say, the rest is history.

What genre does your book fall under?

Science fiction. ‘Nuff said.

Which actors would you pick to play your characters in a movie?

If I had a choice…I’m not sure. I’ve such a firm idea of what my characters look like in my head, I’m not sure any current actors could play the characters. We might need to look for some newcomers.

Of course, I wouldn’t mind if Samuel L. Jackson played my main villain Jason Price. He’s the perfect actor for the role, and I actually based the character on some of Jackson’s best performances.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

“Street gangs in a post-apocalyptic future”. That’s what I tell people when they ask, anyway.

Is your book self-published, published by an independent press, or represented by an agency?

It’s going to be self-published. However, if a major publishing house wanted to give me a deal…well, let’s talke and see if it comes to anything.

How long did it take you to write your first draft?

About two years. I was in high school when I wrote it, so I had to take a lot of breaks for school, homework, my after-school job, the Sabbath, and just to find time to relax. I hope for the sequel I can keep it within six months, since I’ll hopefully have a lot more time on my hands.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I hate comparing one work to another, but I think that perhaps Hunger Games might be a good comparison. The government’s evil, and the fate of many rides on a bunch of disillusioned teenagers with a penchant for getting into deadly fights.. If that doesn’t sound like Hunger Games, I need to reread the books.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I think the thought that like Freedom Writers, both the book and the movie, inspired many teenagers to apply themselves through writing and words rather than fighting and guns. I thought if RC could help people, why not write it? That’s kept me going through the years, especially when I realized the book might also help combat Islamophobia.

What else about your book might pique readers’ interests?

I think that it’s a unique tale, involves street gangs in a post-apolyptic landscape, and that most of the characters have very real problems that resembles problems in today’s world might draw them in. But then again, read the book when it comes out and tell me what you think. You might like it.

That’s my TNBTBH. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you read this blog post today and you’re working on something, you’re nominated for a TNBTBH. Congratulations. Let me know when you’ve written your post!

Good night, everybody.

We Should Be Better Than This

Posted: March 18, 2013 in ideas, Journalism, Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Scary Stuff, Social Activism, Writing
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To many, rape is just this: a hand reaching out of inescapable waters, but with no one to grasp it.

Over the past two days, I’ve read about four or five stories online about the Steubensville rape trial (for those of you unfamiliar, two teens from a small town in my state sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl while she was intoxicated and unconscious, urinated on her, and then posted the damning proof of it on Facebook). The two teens who committed the act were found guilty yesterday and sentenced to juvenile detention centers till they were 21. What upset me though, and what has upset many people as well, was not only that the poor girl was sexually assaulted, but the defense attorneys for the case tried to twist the concept of consent out of order by saying that since the girl was intoxicated, she never really said “no”; that there may have been a cover-up by the local high school, whose football team these boys belonged to and which is a source of pride among the local community; that those who witnessed the crime and were responsible for the photos on Facebook were not charged (though that might change pretty quickly, according to the Ohio AG); and that some of the coverage of the trial, which has gained nationwide attention through the Facebook posts, were actually in favor of the two boys charged.

The two rapists in question. They have no one to blame but themselves.

Yes, in favor. ABC News first reported the case not too long ago by saying the boys “took liberty” with the girl, which is definitely a new one if ever I’ve heard one. And yesterday, CNN seemed only able to lament the fact that these boys had promising futures stolen from them, that they could’ve made names for themselves at Ohio State and then in the NFL, that now they have to register as sex offenders, possibly for the rest of their lives. Underneath the spoken words, the silent implication: that the “good boys” weren’t to blame, but the victim for getting drunk and presenting an all-too-appealing oppurtunity for these boys to have a little bit of fun.

The same day, a story broke out about another gang-rape in India, where a camping couple from Switzerland were attacked, beaten, the wife raped, and then robbed. Arrests were made hours afterward (a record for India), but some public officials have blamed the couple for camping in that area. More victim blaming? I guess after the initial outrage of the bus gang-rape, some people still don’t know when to shut their yaps.

As an ardent supporter of women’s rights and of human rights, I’m abhorred, appalled, and disgusted. This victim blaming turns every woman out there who is the object of unwanted sexual advances into sex toys and shames them into being quiet, tells them they should accept what they get or they will be the ones at fault, that they will be scrutinized for their clothes and behavior and will be called sluts forevermore. Meanwhile, men can wear whatever and drink whatever and screw around as much as they want, and they’ll rarely be called a “man-whore”. This double standard mystifies me as much as it makes me ashamed to be a man. Yes, ashamed! I’m ashamed that my sex gets away with so much while the other half of the species is put down and turned into objects so much.

It also makes me think of a novel I plan to write in the future. I first came up with it by thinking to myself, “What’s the worst event that could happen to a singular person and then use whatever happens to them in the story to help them at least begin to heal?” Being so influenced by Law & Order: SVU (for better or for worse), my mind went right to rape. Only the victim can feel that terror and trauma that comes from rape, they often suffer in silence, and when they do come out, they are often at the recieving end of brutal victim-blaming and stigmas and questions about what they experienced that are never about clarifying the events as they happened. It fit what I was looking for to a tee.

At first though, I considered changing what that tragedy would be for this character. I mean, even I have my limits for what I’ll write, and that’s a lot for a horror writer. But I decided to stick with rape, though at the time I wasn’t sure why. But when I see articles in the news about victims of rape being blamed for what happened to them, even just subliminally, I’m reminded of why I kept rape as that character’s tragedy. Just like Reborn City has themes of the evils and lies of Islamaphobia, this novel of mine and this character can be a way to encourage women to come out about their attacks, to show men that rape, under any circumstances, is rape and their own fault, and perhaps a wake-up call for many readers that rape is a problem and our attitude towards it needs a major change.

I’m not sure if I’ll write an actual rape scene when I do end up writing this novel, but I do know that when I do write this novel, I’ll be channeling my rage, my disdain and my disgust for rape and rapists into it. Perhaps some will feel this underlying rage and learn something from it, like rape is never the victim’s fault. Or that the rapist is the only one to blame. Or there are no circumstances where rape is okay.

Savannah Dietrich was raped last year, but spoke out on Twitter and named her rapists when she felt the plea deal they got wasn’t enough. Sadly, she was nearly charged with contempt of court for naming her rapists.

And perhaps then, the world will change for the better. Because you know what? I shouldn’t have to be writing about this! I shouldn’t have to be telling people on my blog that I find rape and the double standards surrounding it disgusting, or that I plan to channel my rage over this insanity into a novel! I shouldn’t have to check my email and then see that another girl was raped, or that someone in an important position insinuated that the victim had no one to blame but herself. I shouldn’t have to, and neither should anyone!

But we live in the sort of world where all this happens on an all-too regular basis. And you know what? I’m not going to stop raging about it until it does stop, until change does happen, until that novel’s heroine is able to break free of her chains and start the move towards healing. Because I know the world should not be in this state, and I see a moral and an ethical duty to try and make it better. If what I write here does end up helping someone, then that’s great. In the meantime though, I have a lot of work to do, and I’m getting started right now.

For the victims who are blamed. For those who live in fear. And for those I can help before it’s too late, and this dark culture gets them into the wrong mindset.

What about you?

A Welcome To My New Followers

Posted: March 17, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting a lot of new followers over the past month or so, and especially during these past two weeks. So with that in mind, I’d thought I’d extend a welcome to my new followers and thank them for deciding to follow me and read my blog. And to my returning followers, welcome back and thanks for continuing to read my blog.

Also, I wanted to clarify some things for the newest readers. Occasionally on this blog, you’ll see words and phrases such as The Quiet Game, Reborn City, or Snake. These are my works-in-progress that I’ll be self-publishing hopefully within the next year or so. Each is very different from the other, and are at different stages of getting ready for publishing. I’d like to take this oppurtunity to tell you all about each of them and to let those who are already familiar with the works in question how progress is coming along.

So without further ado, here’s a look at my WIPs:

The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones

TQG cover

This is a collection of short stories I’ll be putting out soon. I wrote these short stories over winter break and the beginning of spring semester, and it’s almost ready for publication. I’m just waiting for the US Copyright Office to get me my copyright and then I’ll be ready to upload this onto the Internet. Since the Copyright Office takes about two and a half months though, we’ve still got a bit of a wait to go before it comes out. So please be patient, and in the meantime you can read the description for the book on the page “Books by Rami Ungar” or watch the trailer below:

Reborn City

This is a science fiction novel about street gangs in a post-apocalyptic future I wrote in high school and that’s being reviewed by a beta reader before I prepare it for publication. The beta reader, Matt Williams, also happens to be a published writer and blogger, so you should seriously check out his blog here: http://storiesbywilliams.com/. Currently Matt’s halfway through the novel or thereabouts, and since he finished his latest novel Pappa Zulu, he’s been able to get the chapters back to me that much faster. I can’t wait to see what results from our collaboration.

Snake

This is a thriller novel I wrote over six months from June to December 2012 and follows a serial killer in New York who is hunting members of a powerful mafia family, his reasons for doing so clouded in mystery and in murder (how’s that for a description). I recently finished the second draft and have sent off the first four chapters to a beta reader I trust. Hopefully she’ll be able to let me know what she thinks very quickly. In the meantime, there are a few excerpts of Snake on this blog, so if you get bored you can probably go looking for them and find them.

Well, that’s all I’ve got. I hope this piqued your interest in some of my work. Once again, thanks for reading and agreeing to follow my blog. It really means a lot to me. Have a nice day, and I’ll post again soon.

Rami

Snake: The Second Draft Is Finished!

Posted: March 12, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Well, isn’t today full of editing pluses! I edited a chapter of my science-fiction novel Reborn City, and I just finished the second draft of my serial killer thriller Snake. I’m not going to go into word counts or anything, mostly because I’m waiting for a phrase or two to be translated into Russian so I can add it in before I add up the latest word counts. However, I will tell you that I took away a few words and I added some, and still I think this novel got a little longer!

Anyway, I’ll be calling my beta reader for Snake tomorrow, tell her that she’s got a new novel to put on her computer tomorrow. I hope she likes it. Wish me luck, and let’s hope she gets through it quick. Wish me luck and if there are any updates, I’ll let you know.

Reborn City: Zahara the Expatriate

Posted: March 12, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Reflections, Writing
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Merriam-Webster.com: expatriate–to leave one’s country to reside elsewhere

I’m about to edit another chapter of Reborn City (yes, I’m still editing, but my beta reader’s schedule has freed up a little, so the chapters are coming faster than before). Before that, I read a blog post (read here:http://stevenglassman.de/2013/03/11/grokking-expatriates-in-sci-fi/) about how certain characters in science-fiction are considered expatriates and what category of expatriates they are (yes, there are categories. Read the blog post if you doubt me). The post covered everything from Superman to Futurama to Star Wars to even Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters, and it got me thinking: Zahara Bakur, main character of my own science fiction novel, is an expatriate, or expat for short.

For those of you who haven’t read the novel–which is basically everybody but me and my beta reader and fellow author Matt Williams–Zahara was born and raised until her elementary years in Cairo, which in the RC universe is one of the last remnants of the Egyptian state (don’t ask me why, just read the book when it comes out). However Zahara’s father moves the family to New York City, which is now its own independent city-state, to attend NYU’s law school, and the poor girl has to adopt to a much more liberal and sometimes very Islamaphobic culture. Over the years she gets used to New York and finds friends that don’t judge based on a person’s religious affiliation, but things shake up horribly for Zahara when she’s fifteen.

What happens? Her father has to relocate to Reborn City, which is the Las Vegas of the strange world of RC. There Zahara has to adjust to living in a city that is worse than New York City in how Islamaphobic it can be. When Zahara finds herself coerced into gang life, she finds the whole gangster culture mind-boggling, especially the taken-for-granted hostility between the various gangs and the equating of surviving violence and conquering enemies as being tough and cool. Zahara has to live with this sort of culture and try her best to adjust to it while also integrating the gang culture with the culture of New York, her Muslim upbringing, and her naturally peaceful nature.

Even without all the science fiction elements in this story, you can see how much conflict Zahara has to go through.  But as the story progresses, I hope Zahara can find a new strength that she didn’t have before. I’ll see where the two sequels go with the story and hopefully things will get better for Zahara and her friends.

But before that, I have to see the first book out on the digital bookshelves. I’ll let you know how things go as I get updates. Blog on you later.

Snake: Finished Rewriting A Chapter

Posted: March 11, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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I had to rewrite most of Chapter 91 of Snake, which is a part of the climax of the story. Why, you ask? Because the original scenario for this chapter, and for most of the climax because of this chapter, didn’t make sense in my head when I thought about it during the three months between the first and second drafts. So I rewrote most of it while still making sure that the story ended up going where I wanted it to go, which would be a final battle on the beach near the boardwalk in one of the Russian sections of New York City.

How’s the chapter look now? Well, I added a smidge more Russian to this chapter, I managed to keep some of the elements of the story I really liked (including a chase with a produce truck), and there’s still some battle and some bloodshed. Overall, I like this chapter, though I may add some more fighting and punching and kicking and whatever when I get this chapter back from my beta reader.

Well, I’m almost done with the second draft. Perhaps tomorrow or the day after the whole second draft will be done. Oh, and before I forget, I want to tell you guys that a few posts ago I messed up on how many chapters I had left. Snake has 98 chapters, not 92. So when I said I had 27 to go, I should have said 33. My bad.

I’ll let you know when the second draft is over. Wish me luck and good night.

Snake: 65 Edited, 27 To Go

Posted: March 7, 2013 in Novel, Writing
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I think this might have been in Harry Potter. What do you think?

I always think the editing process is going to be longer than it actually is. And yet I’m already done with Part III of the thriller novel Snake, which means I’ve only got a small stretch of the novel left to edit. I could be done by the end of the weekend if I don’t let myself get too busy or too distracted (though my homework could lead to some busy-work or distraction, so that’s something to calculate in).

So far, most of the editing has been taking out unnecessary words or changing certain things grammatically so that the story flows better. Also, I’ve noticed sentences that made sense to me three months ago at the end of the first draft make no sense to me now, so I have to do a lot of rewriting when I encounter those sentences, occasionally adding to my word count.

But I’m enjoying rediscovering the story I wrote from June to Decenber 2012, and seeing how fast-paced and at certain times shocking the story can be. I’m going to try to keep this up, and rewrite the final battle scene to be more exciting and less unrealistic, at least to me. But first, I have to get through Part IV, which has sone of the longer chapters in the story (and that’s saying something, considering the longest chapters are between 8 and 10 pages).

I’ll have more updates as time goes on. Wish me luck.

Snake: Editing the Prologue Through Part II

Posted: March 6, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Since Saturday night I’ve been working on editing Snake, my serial killer thriller that I wrote over a period of six months last year. I took a break from it after I finished the last chapter in December and worked on several other projects, including The Quiet Game, in order so that when I returned to Snake again to edit it, I could look at it with fresh eyes.

So far I’ve been happy with the eyes I’m looking at it. For example, I”m seeing some things I wrote last time that I’m not too satisfied with, particularly in terms of phrasing. I’ve had to rewrite a few sections just to make it sound right in my head. I’ve also realized how disturbing I’ve made that novel, as last night’s post proved. And I also learned how fast-paced my novel is. I mean, the novel takes palce over several weeks, but it seems to be going so fast, going from event to event to event with a rabbit-like swiftness. If you have the free time, you could probably get through Snake in a couple of days.

So far I’ve gotten through thirty-five chapters, and I’m onto Part III, which is the longest part of Snake with twenty-nine chapters. If I can get through it in the same amount of time as I did with the first thirty-five chapters, I might be done with the second draft by the end of spring break, give or take a day or two. After that, I’ll hand Snake off to my beta reader, who’ll hopefully have the time to get through all the chapters in a timely fashion.

I hope.

I’ll let you guys know as things develop. Wish me luck.

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