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Getting Back Into Snake

Posted: September 24, 2012 in ideas, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
Tags: college life, editing, novel, scary stuff, Snake, writing

Remember when I said that after I finished that short story for class, I would jump right back into the exploits of my mafia-hunting serial killer the Snake? Well, it took me a day or so to get around to the first chapter (I had classes and homework, I wanted a chance to sit down and read a couple graphic novels, and then there was that errand downtown I had to run today, but why am I boring you with that?). I took a look at the opening I’d written and I was like, “You know, this sounded so cool when I first wrote it, but now it just seems kind of…extaneous and unnecessary.” So I cut out and rewrote the opening…and a bunch of other stuff. It was like I was taking the gristle off a slab of meat.

No, wait. It was like I was taking the fat out of fresh milk. Not as elegant a metaphor, but it’s a bit more original, and I give you all permission to use it after I’ve just used it.

So now on to the rest of the chapters, all thirty-three of them. I plan on doing some more backstory on some of the more major characters, plus making the Snake much more empaphetic, because honestly, when we finally meet him face-to-face (sort of; he wears a mask) in chapters three and four, he’s more sinister and scary, and not at all the kind of guy you want to root for. I also want to include the media’s portrayal of the Snake, make him like some sort of symbol for what the police could be doing with a nearly untouchable organized crime family, because if there’s one thing that can rile law enforcement up, it’s when journalists poke at police work (no offense meant for journalists who actually cover police stories and criticize them for whatever they may or may not have done).

All this in addition to the usual stuff that comes with editing. After that I’ll get into the outline and see what I can fix up. Maybe I’ll include some brushes with death and a new ending where the Snake not only faces off with the mafia family he’s sworn to destroy, but with the police officer and FBI profiler who’ve sworn to bring him in. There will be blood, betrayal, some literally deadly fights, love, character growth, and possibly an explosion or two.

I’ll also add in chapters where we see the underworld social order changing, because when you have a serial killer who’s killing your group’s members and getting away with it, you know others, both mafia and possibly otherwise, will try it too.

We’ll see what we get, but from the description I’ve just given, and the outline I’ve already written, it’s looking like a whole new novel. Hopefully it’ll be a better one too.

The First Draft Is Done, Thank God!!!

Posted: September 23, 2012 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
Tags: college life, short story, writing

First draft of what, you may ask? Well, I’ll tell you: remember that short story I had to write for my fiction-writing class that was taking forever and a half to get done? Well, I just finished the first draft for it and let me tell you, that piece of work was a piece of work! Sixteen pages, nearly fifty-four hundred words, and more literary-style writing than I’m used to.

Anyway, the working title of this story is Doll’s Game (no, this is not the short story about the creepy doll) and I’ll probably get around to editing it in a few weeks, before it’s due. In the meantime, I’d like to get back into Snake, make some adjustments to some of the work already done and go over the outline to see if there is anything I can improve upon for the latter half of the story. I’d also like to read some books I’ve been meaning to get to, but with the amount of classes and homework I do, do you think it’s possible? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Speaking of homework, I’ve got to get some done, so I’ll talk to all of you later. Bye!

Do Stories Evolve? Apparently They Do

Posted: September 18, 2012 in Progress Report, Reflections, short story, Writing
Tags: short story, writing

I said a while back that while partying at a club near campus, I came up with an idea for a story that I could write for my creative writing class. Well, it’s been several weeks since then, and I’m still working on that short story. But let me tell you, it’s changed since the original idea popped into my head. It started out as a story about a girl who thinks she might be from the nineteenth century growing up in the twentieth century and being confused about her identity; then it lost the part where she actually was from the nineteenth century; and now the story, which was originally in first person, is now…well, it’s still first-person, but it’s the main character addressing someone else in the room with her.

There have also been minor changes along the way, things that do not really affect the story as much as these other changes have, but even as I’m trying to finish up the first draft, I’m finding myself amazed that a story still in the writing stages is changing so much. It started out as literary with a touch of supernatural strangeness, but the supernatural strangeness has been cut out and there’s just a literary story that’s unlike anything I’ve ever written before, mostly because I do not really care for literary with notable exceptions.

This makes me wonder about other stories I admire, and if they underwent huge changes in the midst of being written. I know Japanese manga and anime may have many plot changes as the story progresses, but that’s mostly because manga and anime for the most part are influenced by reader and viewer popularity, so a story arc might be added, changed, or cut out altogether in order to bring up the popularity of the story.

But did J.K. Rowling, who made me want to be a writer in the first place, make certain characters more or less prominent than she originally intended, or did Stephen King want to make Randall Flagg the leader of a whole cadre of demonic villains in The Stand? Did Thomas Harris originally intend for the Red Dragon to be a singer with a dark past instead of a sufferer of a cleft palate with a history of abuse and violence? And did George Lucas originally intend something more steampunk than regular science fiction when he first concieved Star Wars?

In actuality, other stories I’ve written in the past underwent huge changes (Ripple had a different ending in the first draft and Zahara Bakur of Reborn City was one of several main characters before she became the main character in my mind). But the scale of the short story I’m working on now (it’s title, for now, is Doll’s Game) is something I’ve never encountered before, so I’m wondering what this will lead to later. Is more change in store for me? Will I ever get a finished first draft? And what else do I have to discover about this story, what hidden tricks will I uncover next while writing it?

Tell me about your experiences. Did a story you wrote change a lot during the writing process? And how so? And did you like this change? Please tell me, I love to hear from others, especially those with more experience than me.

Snake: Part II Done

Posted: September 17, 2012 in Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, Writing
Tags: editing, novel, scary stuff, Snake

Creepy Mayan snake god gobbling someone up. I have a feeling my character would find some connection to this image.

Well, I finally did it! I finished Part II of Snake, though truthfully it’s coming about four days later than I expected.

Part II deals a lot not only with the main character’s quest for revenge, but also with the circumstances that caused him to take up serial killing. It totaled about twenty-one chapters, eighty-six pages, and twenty-two thousand and thirty-three words. Add that to the prologue and Part I, and you have a total of thirty-four chapters, one-hundred and thirty-eight pages, and twenty-five thousand, three-hundred forty-six words for the rough draft of Snake. Several times chapters were added together and split in two in order to keep the story flowing and the tension high. I have to say, at certain points it was an arduous process writing out this section of the novel.

Now that I’ve got Part II done, I’m going to wait a little while before I start Part III, which is probably the longest of the parts in Snake, take some time to finish a short story and edit a couple more. I also plan on going over the outline of Snake and see what I can do to make the plot more exciting, because as it is it’s a good story, but I want to make it great. I plan on doing some more character development with the Snake and some of the people close to him, which will probably mean going back to previous chapters and doing a few additions. I also plan to add some scenes showing the fallout of what happens when a serial killer goes after a mafia family and not only evades the family but the police itself. And lastly, I want to change the climax, see if I can change the setting so that not only does the Snake face off against the mafia, he faces off with the police too, and does it in front of everyone.

Sounds more exciting that way, anyway.

I’ll let you know when I begin Part III. Wish me luck.

Translating “Snake” Into Russian

Posted: September 13, 2012 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
Tags: novel, Snake, writing

Chinese symbol for “snake” surrounded by a snake. Pretty cool, huh?

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve written about the Snake. Like, several weeks, at least.

Oh, for thsoe of you who don’t know, I’m working on two novels. One, a science fiction novel titled Reborn City, I’m trying to market to publishers write now. The other, a serial killer thriller called Snake, is in the middle of its first draft. Currently I’m working on chapter thirty-three of Snake, which isn’t very far in considering thrillers are notorious for having many chapters with less than ten pages per chapter.

One of the things I’m doing for Snake is that I’m also working on some Russian transliteration, as my main character speaks Russian throughout the novel. I’m working with one of my university’s Russian professors on this (and if he’s reading this, thank you so very much for your help), and he’s been a big help. It’s not always easy, though: according to my professor, getting phrases and words I’d normally use in English translated and then transliterated into Russian can be difficult, as I not only have to get across the meaning, but the intention as well. It’s like getting down on one knee and saying “I love you, will you marry me?” to a foreign girl in her native language, but you actually end up saying “love marry you” or “marriage me you” instead. The effect’s just lost.

Still, I think a pretty good job’s been done, and every bit of Russian up to chapter thirty-two has been transliterated. Hopefully when I see my professor again, I’ll have some easier phrases to translate. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we? I know where I want to go with this story, but how I’m getting there and what happens in the meantime is still up in the air in some ways.

All for now. Talk to you later.

Aasif is Published in Mobius Magazine!!!

Posted: September 1, 2012 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
Tags: entertainment, Kony 2012, online magazine, publishing, scary stuff, writing

Oh, happy first day of Septhember! The Buckeyes are preparing to kick Miami of Ohio’s butt, the sun is shining, and a certain little short story got published! The web address for Mobius Magazine is down below. Once you get to the website, you’ll find my short story on the left under fiction. I hope you enjoy reading it.

This story was inspired by the Kony 2012 video that came out back in April, and you can definitely see the influence there. The story itself may have taken me a week to write, but I credit the fact that I had great inspiration behind it that it didn’t take longer.

Please feel free to tell me what you think of the story. Did you like it? Hate it? Was there a particular part that stuck with you? Did you think a certain character may have been a racist caricature of some ethnic group or another? Whatever your thoughts, please leave me a comment and let me know.

So, without further ado, here’s the address for Mobius Magazine. Hope you like what you read.

http://mobiusmagazine.com/

200 Comments!!!

Posted: August 30, 2012 in Living and Life, Progress Report
Tags: blogging

This evening I reached the 200 comment mark! For me, that’s a big deal, as it means people are actually stopping by this blog to read it and give me their thoughts. Thanks to everyone who’s been with me all this time, a special thank you to everyone who’s ever given me their thoughts, and a very special thank you to my dad, Rabbi Michael Ungar, who gave me my 200th comment when he commented on my hair. Abba, you’re the man.

“The Street Urchin’s Gift” Is Getting Published!!!

Posted: August 27, 2012 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
Tags: online magazine, proper decisions, scary stuff, short story, writing

Okay, so I’m logging onto my computer with the aim of getting alittle homework done before lunch. But what do I find out? That a short story I wrote last year, “The Street Urchin’s Gift” is going to be published by The Writing Disorder next June, sometime around my birthday. Can I just say one thing? Awesome!

The Writing Disorder is an online magazine that caters to a wide variety of interests, including poetry, fiction, art and reviews, and does everything from literary to genre. I found them while looking for a magazine to send “The Street Urchin’s Gift”, and thought they’d make a great match, and I sent it in. It took a while for them to get back to me, but it was well worth it: today I got the email, and you cannot imagine how excited I am!

“The Street Urchin’s Gift” started out as a story I wanted to write for another magazine, one that dealt with Victorian and Edwardian England and liked scary stories. The story itself centers around making an impossible choice when neither one benefits you, and the moral problems of that. When I found out the magazine I had in mind went defunct, I decided that “The Street Urchin’s Gift” deserved another chance. Seeing that I decided right off the bat to go with the Writing Disorder, I’m very happy with the choice I made.

I would like to thank The Writing Disorder for accepting my submission and will try to send a little business your way. In fact, here’s a start: if any of you have a short story or poem that you’d like to see published, here’s the link to the website of The Writing Disorder. Hopefully it’ll be a match for your work.

http://thewritingdisorder.com/

Developing Backstory

Posted: August 22, 2012 in Progress Report, Reflections, Writing
Tags: editing, novel, scary stuff, Snake, writing

Every character we meet in a story has a backstory, even if it’s not always elaborated on at first. Voldemort has a history, though we don’t get the full grasp of it until around the sixth book or so of Harry Potter. Han Solo had an entire career and a few debts to Jabba the Hutt before he and Chewbacca met Luke and Obi-Wan, though we only find out about it in the Expanded Universe. And before Alex Cross battled his first psychopath, he had lived in Virginia, grown up in DC, and gone to college to study psychology and psychiatry. Heck, James Bond probably has a full history, though I’m not sure if Ian Fleming ever went into great detail about it.

This evening I wrapped up a major part of the Snake’s history, and how he went from a regular–okay, not-so-much regular, but still relatively regular compared to what he became–teen into a serial killer who hunts members of a certain powerful mafia family. It was probably the longest chapter yet in Snake (which is saying something, seeing as thrillers have very short chapters), and I had a lot of fun writing it and exploring the Snake’s disturbed psyche. I’ll probably go over it again before I move onto the next chapter, but it’s still a chapter that’s very important to the story and a chapter that, if all my dreams ever come true, will be reviewed by future generations as a memorable scene in the development of the Snake.

Now that I think about it, the Snake’s modus operandi was the first thing that I created for the Snake and his backstory, including why he’s kiling (which is the major driving force of the plot, if truth be told), came afterwards. At first he was nothing more than the archetypal bloodthirsty killer, but when I gave him backstory he seemed almost like a character that, while most people would condemn his actions if he were a real person, would identify with him on an emotional level. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed writing his character so much, and why I think as people read more and more about the Snake and the mystery of his is peeled away, they may come to enjoy the character more.

That’s the hope anyway.

For my fellow writers out there, how do you develop character backstory? Do you create the character first and then create a history to match? Do you think the backstory influences the character, or the character decides the backstory? And what sort of backstories do you like to create? Let me know if you don’t mind sharing.

Rami Ungar The Writer

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