Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Status update: the closer I get to finishing, the further away I am from it.

It seems the closer I get to finishing the first draft, the longer I am from actually doing it. 7 more scenes/chapters remain before the last full stop, the so painfully sought-after “The End” and yet never in these past 4 months have I felt more tired and the end further away from me than now. I don’t know what’s wrong. Perhaps I’m fed up with it, perhaps something inside me tells me that the story sucks, that there are too many plot holes or the plot points are too far-fetched (it’s a post-apocalyptic story, which means people assign it the “sci-fi” tag, thus some parts of it, should be far-fetched to a certain extent, right?). Perhaps I feel that I have often led the (potential) reader by the hand too much, instead of letting him/her think about some things, perhaps it’s because a lot of my character development is done by showing his inner thoughts (going over the top with italics, perhaps?). The point is, where at one point a month ago I could sit down and write 1700 to 2000 words in a couple of hours (usually between 10 in the morning and be done by 1 in the afternoon with a 30-45 minute total break), now I can barely write 1000-1200 words up to 2 or 3 in the afternoon. The fact that I have exceeded my originally planned word limit for the draft doesn’t help either. The uncertainty I see before me, doesn’t help either.

125,147 words. Two scenes away from reaching the climax of the story and closing the main character’s arc. Seven scenes before the draft is over.

Any of you, dear readers/fellow writers, know if having only 5 chapters left for what follows the climax all the way to the end of the story is enough? I keep having the feeling that all the key points are in the wrong place, either too soon in the story or too late. Every time I read a technical book related to structure, I see things in my book that are wrong, when the previous structure-related book said it’s ok. It’s so frustrating! If I ever get to finish this thing, I’m so going out and celebrating it with the few friends who know I’m writing.

Of course, try as I might, I can’t see myself feeling relaxed after it, ’cause I will have to find beta readers or editors who know the craft of writing better than me. Wouldn’t things be sooooooo much easier if every one of us aspiring writers had two mentors by our side? One also aspiring writer or newly published who could help with the big, eye-hurting mistakes and then another one who would be a well known writer who’s been at it for years? How helpful would that be? Both could benefit noobs like me so much.

Too much whining. If you have an answer to my previous question, please let me know. Need to prepare the synopsis for the next scene/chapter for tomorrow. Until next time, I bid you all adieu.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 1 Comment

Third short story titled “The Darkening” now published

Just a quick reminder to let you know that my third short story The Darkening is now published by Voluted Tales. The story appears in their special issue called “Darkness Internal” Issue 3. You can find it at http://volutedtales.com/issue/darkness-internal-3/article/the-darkening

It’s a post apocalyptic horror story and it’s considerably shorter than the previous one, barely exceeding 2100 words, so if you choose to pay for the magazine and read it you should be able to finish it in one sitting.

The story deals with John, one of the few survivors from The Darkening, an event that brought each person’s shadow into life and eradicated the majority of the human race. Ever since then, John had to make some tough choices about life and death, particularly that of other people. In near isolation, he struggles hard to maintain some sort of humanity but his self-preservation instinct often kicks in.

I hope you enjoy it. It’s the one that inspired me to write the novel I’m working on and it should be enough to get you into the setting and mood of living in darkness.

 

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 4 Comments

Published again!!!

So many things happened in the past week and all of them great!

I have good news my friends; I’m going to be published again. Voluted tales, a literary magazine, has honoured me by accepting a short story of mine and it’s scheduled for publication before the end of the year. I don’t have a definitive date yet but once I have one I will let you know and give you a link to the story itself. For the time being, if you are interested in taking the time in checking the magazine out, their web address is at here.

I’m very excited about this acceptance, as this story is dearest to me and also the one that sparked the novel I’m currently working on. I spoke about it here. It’s the one short story I have worked the most on and it’s also the very first one that I ever sent out to magazines, not to mention that it’s also the second story I had ever written in my life (the first one was just so I could practice some exercises I had read about and I needed a completed story). As a result it’s also the one that has accumulated the most rejections. I was lucky enough for some of them to be personal rejection letters, which had very helpful comments that I later used to improve not only that story but also the ones that followed. It was thanks to this story that I managed to be published earlier in the year by Beyond Imagination. So you can understand how partial I am to this story.

Over the past months that I have been trying to find a home for it and ending up getting rejected, I very often thought about hiring an editor to help me pinpoint the mistakes I was unable to see. It would have been of great help to me to see how proper editing is done and see the small details he/she would add and make the story shine. I think it would have helped me considerably, cause I would have learned something new. Guess I’ll have to wait a little longer for that to happen but at some point down the road (not too far down the road, mind you) I hope will have the chance to work with such a professional. I think I can learn things from it.

In other news, the novel I’m working on progresses somewhat slower but hasn’t stopped. Writing on a cellphone is not easy (my eyes can testify to that, lol). I finished two more scenes, so that’s about 6200 words in total. It’s not great but it’s not bad either. Currently I’m stuck because of my nemesis, the dialogues. I can never seem to get them right or at least good enough. If you have any insights to offer with material on how to write good dialogues, please share šŸ™‚

I also came up with an idea for another story (whether it will be a book or short story or something in between is something that I haven’t decided yet). Never before had I ever felt the need to wake up because of an idea getting lodged into my head (no, it wasn’t a dream), but it was enough to get me out of bed and start taking notes about it, while my eyes were still closed. To be honest, I hadn’t had a new idea for a while (I have taken notes on many things and ideas since I started writing) and this one was god-sent. The only bad thing is that I can’t (or rather, I shouldn’t) work on it any more, until the current project is finished. Otherwise I’m risking not finishing anything. I am very excited about it though. Seems promising but only time will tell if it will be good enough.

Finally, a friend I came to know through this blog that has supported me considerably during my darker mood swings or when I got discouraged by rejections, has just published her first novel. Her name is Dee King and her book is a YA novel. The author’s blog is here. You can find all the necessary information about the book there. If you have the time or the curiosity, stop by her blog and check her book out. I’m really proud of her. Finishing a book is not an easy thing to do, as I’ve now come to understand šŸ™‚

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 3 Comments

The story I’m currently writing

A few weeks ago I had mentioned that I was working on two novel-length stories; a medieval fantasy and a post apocalyptic one. I had also mentioned that the medieval one was going to be a very long one, since it dealt with 6 different POV characters and a great deal of things happening.

Since then, I’ve read a fair amount of articles written by agents on how easy it is for a newcomer to break into the industry with anything longer than 100k words. I have yet to find one article that says it can happen (if you have read one, though, and you happen to remember it, please send me a link. I’m interested in things like that). The reason is that even if the agent likes the story, they have a hard time convincing a publisher to back it up financially, since the writer isn’t an established one. They fear (and it makes sense, to a certain extent) that without an established audience the book will fail financially.

For this reason, I decided it was time for me to focus on the post apocalyptic story. That doesn’t mean that I have discarded the other one; far from it. I still come up with ideas and take notes whenever I can. When the times is right, I will tackle that behemoth of a story but probably not before I have managed to have some novels under my belt.

So, what’s this post apocalyptic story about?

The title will most likely be “The Darkening” and it will deal with the difficulties one particular survivor faces, his isolation and the madness that creates and hidden secrets from his past that will slowly emerge as the story goes one. So far, there are two twists in the story, one of which is directly related to the main character. Oh yeah, I should probably mention this: the shadow each person casts is alive and it kills the person that created it. So, humans have to live in darkness. Interesting setting, don’t you think? šŸ™‚

The story started off as a short story, no more than 2000 words in length and it’s one I’m still trying to find a home for in a magazine. It’s difficult though, since editors so far insist that it opens too many arcs and it feels to them like the part of a book. I didn’t get the idea to make it into a novel until long after I had finished it. In my eyes, the short story is complete and I’ll be extremely happy to see it published somewhere, since, as far as short stories go, this is my favourite one. It’s also the one I have worked the most on and the one that has gotten the most rejections so far.

So, this is what I’m working on at the moment.

Would you be interested in reading a sci-fi novel like that? Comment below and let me know what you think.