Watch a Novel Come into Being from idea to publication

With the new year, I decided on a resolution -- to get a new novel underway, and while it is an idea I had visited in the mid-eighties, I wanted to revive it and start anew.  It is a mix of historical suspense and a futuristic tale. This on the surface may seem a bit odd, maybe strange, and certainly ambitious. In fact this title idea is quite ambitious, so ambitious in fact that it may never see completion--especially if I start thinkikng of it in its entirity rather than in controllable pieces and parts like the varied pieces of an enormous puzzle.  Imagination has me going back to the Titanic -- the infamous Titanic, a subject so many readers can never get enough of.  I have myself read extensively about the night the Unsinkable Ship slipped below the waves, and due to some disturbing facts without answers, I have long wanted to "explain" these facts--odd behaviour of Captain Edward Smith in particular.  And so the book begins with a huge questioning WHAT IF?  What if Captain Smith, a man with a stellar seagoing record, a man on his last voyage who had never so much as put a dent in a ship in his entire career, how he could on Titanic's maiden voyage CAUSE the worst maritime disaster in recorded history--and WHAT IF he did it on purpose?

What would be Captain Smith's reasoning?  What could cause this stern, steel-spinned captain, admired by all, to intentionally ram Titanic into an iceberg field at full speed, an iceberg field he knew was out there thanks to the Marconi messages recieved in the radio room and placed in Smith's hands?

So what came first, the What If premise or the research?  The research suggested the idea of involving the captain in a "benign" conspiracy to destroy ship and all aboard.  The plan was in fact that no one survive--and that the plague spread by some evil force let loose aboard not survive and not reach land in New York or anywhere else. Smith went down with Titanic along with thousands of souls, but he fully expected those in lifeboats too would die of the elements and exposure, accident and the pull of Titanic as it went down.  His instructions to his crew were meant to snuff out all life aboard in order to contain a horrendous disease-spreading MONSTER.  Yes, my intent is to put a monster aboard the Titanic in an effort to answer the inconguities of the circumstances found in the history books.

So my first efforts have been to READ, then read, then read.  Read everything I could find on the famous shipwreck down to where the ore in the ship came from.  Second job is to pull from the reading and research a pivotal and exciting premise via an imaginary leap.  These two jobs--research and flight of fancy get the novel underway.  I have done the reading over years and years.  The premise has been living in the back of my mind since the mid-eighties when I started to once before do this book.  Pulled away by other contracts and considerations, I have leaped back into what I am calling PlagueShip Titanic.  It will take me months if not a year to complete the book as I am working around a job, four children, a wife, a dog, a cat--all of whom require pampering and attention, not to mention the visitudes of life and things like flat tires.

So like Julia-Julia -- I aam propsoing you follow me here and I will report a couple of times a week on how the manuscript is shaping up.  I will discuss openings, beginnings, scene-building, chapter building, point of view, time shifts, point of view shifts, setting shifts and juggling the historical chapters (story) with the futurisitic chapters (plot).

This past week, I somehow managed to craft some 30 pages.  I hope to run the novel to some 400 pages at minimum but am not at all sure I can make it that far.  I hope you will wish to follow me in the progress of this "monster" tale ground in fact.  The challenge--one of many--ist to get the reader to believe in the viability of the monster and its disease carried with it.  How does the writer convince the reader of the IMPOSSIBLE?  One important technique--detail, detail, detail.

Using examples from the ongoing work, I will discuss every aspect of the art and craft and science of the writer and the process.  Do hope you will find this of interest and come along with me to the Writing Zone.

Next DIRTY DEEDS mystery/suspense blog will soon follow.