Status Report (11 November 2019)

Status Report (11 November 2019)

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Not much to report from the last week or so. The Curse of Steel is still moving strongly toward its conclusion – I’ve passed the climax of the story and am now well into the denouement, setting up the next novel in the series. I might even be finished with the first draft before the end of this week.

A small surprise. Timothy Pike, the fellow who runs the Chapterbuzz website where I’ve been posting the draft, has asked me to be the subject of the cover feature in an upcoming issue of Books & Buzz Magazine.

That’s probably not as big a deal as it might sound – as far as I can tell, the magazine’s subscriber base isn’t all that large – but it should be an interesting adventure. It’s not costing me anything but a little time, at any rate. He’s sent me a pile of interview questions to respond to; I think what he’s really looking for is the kind of story that can encourage other would-be authors to push forward with their own projects. I can certainly speak candidly about my own journey as a writer. If and when that comes to fruition, I’ll post a link here.

A Change of Plans

A Change of Plans

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As I work on The Curse of Steel, I’ve become increasingly aware that my original plot outline was a bit too ambitious. I had a certain amount of the overall story arc that I thought I was going to tell in a single 120-kiloword volume. Actually writing the story, though, has worked out differently.

Right now I’m at about 72 kilowords, and I’m just getting to what I originally thought of as the midpoint of the first novel in the series. More importantly, the dramatic beat that’s coming up soon is feeling more like the climax of a novel’s story, not so much like a mere mid-second-act plot twist.

I think the solution is obvious: treat the upcoming dramatic moment as the climax of a shortened novel, then push a chunk of the original outline into the first sequel. I think the tone of each story will end up feeling more coherent as a result. The move leaves The Curse of Steel unified as a story of heroic action, intrigue, and tribal politics, whereas the next book will be almost entirely about long-distance travel on a quest.

The upshot of all this is that I’m reducing my estimate for the total word count for The Curse of Steel, to 90 kilowords. Which means I’m a lot closer to being done with the first draft than I thought.

Earlier I was thinking of using November (National Novel Writing Month) to crank out 50 kilowords of content for The Curse of Steel. That would have brought me pretty close to the end of the story as originally planned. Now, it looks more likely that I won’t be formally participating in NaNoWriMo. Instead, during November I’ll finish the first draft of this novel, start working on revisions, and also start doing some world-building and constructed-language work for the second novel in the series. I’ll need at least two more naming languages; Kráva will be visiting two new major cultures in the course of that story.

It seems even more likely than before that The Curse of Steel will be finished and ready for release very early in 2020. The working title for the second novel in the series will be The Sunlit Lands.

Two Demigods

Two Demigods

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I’m taking a bit of a break from working on The Curse of Steel directly. One of the things I’ve done is to tinker a bit with representing some of my characters in GURPS terms. A bit of a challenge, since these are clearly superhuman characters (they’re the descendants of gods, in a setting where that basically makes you a superhero). As a sample, here are what are shaping up to be my two lead characters, at least so far:

Kráva the Swift (400 points)

Age 20; Human; 6′ even; 160 lbs.; Strong, athletic warrior-woman, usually wearing fine-quality clothes decorated with raven feathers.

ST 22 [120]; DX 14 [80]; IQ 12 [40]; HT 14 [40].

Damage 2d/4d; BL 97 lbs.; HP 18 [-8]; Will 14 [10]; Per 12 [0]; FP 14 [0].

Basic Speed 7 [0]; Basic Move 7 [0]; Block 9 (DX); Dodge 11; Parry 11 (DX).

Social Background

TL: 2 [0]. CF: Tremára (Native) [0]. Languages: Tremára (Native) [0].

Advantages

Ally (Raven sent by Sky Father) (25% of starting points) (12 or less) [2]; Ally (Raven sent by Sky Father) (25% of starting points) (12 or less) [2]; Ally (Tarankláva) (150% of starting points) (15 or less) [30]; Appearance (Attractive) [4]; Blessed (Heroic Feats of ST) [10]; Charisma 2 [10]; Combat Reflexes [15]; Enhanced Move (Ground) (1/2) [10]; Fearlessness 2 [4]; Patron (Sky Father) (6 or less; Highly Accessible; Minimal Intervention) [15]; Status (+2) [5]; Super Jump 1 [10]; Wealth (Wealthy) [20].

Disadvantages

Bad Temper (12 or less) [-10]; Code of Honor (Tremára) [-5]; Enemy (Servants of the Dark God) (medium-sized group, some formidable or super-human) (9 or less) [-30]; Vow (Hold and defend the Thunder Blade unless its rightful owner should appear) (Minor) [-5].

Quirks: Chauvinistic; Headstrong; Proud; Vow (Shield-woman’s oath) [-4].

Skills

Animal Handling (Equines)-11 (IQ-1) [1]; Area Knowledge (Ravatheni Lands)-12 (IQ+0) [1]; Bow-15 (DX+1) [4]; Broadsword-14 (DX+0) [2]; Climbing-13 (DX-1) [1]; Current Affairs/TL2 (Ravatheni Lands)-12 (IQ+0) [1]; Hiking-13 (HT-1) [1]; Intimidation-13 (Will-1) [1]; Knife-14 (DX+0) [1]; Leadership-14 (IQ+2) [2]; Navigation/TL2 (Land)-12 (IQ+0) [2]; Politics-11 (IQ-1) [1]; Public Speaking (Oratory)-14 (IQ+2) [1]; Riding (Equines)-15 (DX+1) [4]; Running-13 (HT-1) [1]; Savoir-Faire (Tremára)-12 (IQ+0) [1]; Shield (Shield)-15 (DX+1) [2]; Spear-13 (DX-1) [1]; Stealth-13 (DX-1) [1]; Survival (Plains)-12 (Per+0) [2]; Swimming-14 (HT+0) [1]; Teamster (Equines)-14 (IQ+2) [4]; Throwing-13 (DX-1) [1]; Tracking-12 (Per+0) [2]; Wrestling-13 (DX-1) [1].

Kráva is very much a physical hero – very strong and fast, with a bit of Extended Move (Ground) and Super Jump to make her very mobile. She’s by no means stupid, but her talents mostly involve punching (or cutting) her way through problems.

A couple of notes about her Allies: I’ve drawn up her raven familiars as characters, and they both come in well under 0-point characters, so they’re fairly cheap.

I’ve also drawn up Tarankláva, her sword, as a character. As a practical matter, it works as a fine-quality broadsword with a bonus to skill rolls, but it also has certain powers of its own, which it uses to feed her information. The “curse of steel” has to do with the fact that it doesn’t feed her all the information it could in theory gather for her. On the sword’s character sheet, that’s set down as Reprogrammable and Slave Mentality, with a Divine Curse that prevents the sword from telling its bearer everything it sees.

Lóka the Clever (400 points)

Age 25; Human; 5′ 7″; 150 lbs.; Well-built man in a white vaita‘s robe.

ST 11 [10]; DX 13 [60]; IQ 15 [100]; HT 12 [20].

Damage 1d-1/1d+1; BL 24 lbs.; HP 11 [0]; Will 15 [0]; Per 15 [0]; FP 12 [0].

Basic Speed 6.25 [0]; Basic Move 6 [0]; Block 7 (DX); Dodge 9; Parry 9 (DX).

Social Background

TL: 2 [0]. CF: Tremára (Native) [0]. Languages: Lake Country (Native) [6]; Sea Kingdom (Native) [6]; Tremára (Native) [0]; Vaita Script (None/Native) [3].

Advantages

Appearance (Attractive) [4]; Blessed [10]; Cultural Adaptability [10]; Detect (Divine presence and children of the gods) (Rare) [5]; Eidetic Memory [5]; Magery 2 [25]; Modular Abilities (Cosmic Power) (Per point of abilities (+6); Trait Limited: One specific trait (Languages Only)) [30]; Musical Ability 2 [10]; Patron (Kórsata) (6 or less; Highly Accessible; Minimal Intervention) [15]; Social Regard (Respected) 1 [5]; Vaita Rank 1 [5]; Voice [10].

Disadvantages

Secret (Child of a god) (Utter Rejection) [-10]; Sense of Duty (Friends and companions) (Small Group) [-5]; Social Stigma (Second-Class Citizen) [-5]; Vow (Never admit his divine ancestry or the name of his divine parent) (Minor) [-5]; Xenophilia (12 or less) [-10].

Quirks: Congenial; Despises slave-owners and slavers; Likes to show off his cleverness; Proud [-4].

Skills

Current Affairs/TL2 (Ravatheni Lands)-15 (IQ+0) [1]; Diplomacy-15 (IQ+0) [1]; Esoteric Medicine-14 (Per-1) [2]; Fast-Talk-16 (IQ+1) [1]; History (Tremára Lands)-15 (IQ+0) [4]; Knife-13 (DX+0) [1]; Law (Tremára)-15 (IQ+0) [4]; Literature-15 (IQ+0) [4]; Musical Influence-15 (IQ+0) [2]; Musical Instrument (Harp)-16 (IQ+1) [2]; Occultism-15 (IQ+0) [2]; Performance-18 (IQ+3) [4]; Poetry-16 (IQ+1) [4]; Politics-16 (IQ+1) [1]; Public Speaking-18 (IQ+3) [3]; Religious Ritual (Tremára)-14 (IQ-1) [2]; Riding (Equines)-12 (DX-1) [1]; Savoir-Faire (Tremára)-15 (IQ+0) [1]; Singing-18 (HT+6) [4]; Staff-12 (DX-1) [1]; Swimming-12 (HT+0) [1]; Teaching-14 (IQ-1) [1]; Theology (Tremára)-14 (IQ-1) [2]; Writing-14 (IQ-1) [1].

Spells

Analyze Magic-15 [1]; Apportation-15 [1]; Counterspell-15 [1]; Create Fire-15 [1]; Cure Disease-15 [1]; Detect Magic-15 [1]; Detect Poison-15 [1]; Dispel Magic-15 [1]; Divination (Oneiromancy)-15 [1]; Enchant-15 [2]; Extinguish Fire-15 [1]; Find Weakness-15 [1]; Great Voice-15 [1]; History-15 [1]; Identify Spell-15 [1]; Ignite Fire-15 [1]; Know Illusion-15 [1]; Lend Energy-15 [1]; Lend Vitality-15 [1]; Light-15 [1]; Loyal Sword-15 [1]; Major Healing-15 [2]; Minor Healing-16 [2]; Rejoin-15 [1]; Relieve Sickness-16 [2]; Repair-15 [1]; Restore-15 [1]; Seek Air-15 [1]; Seek Earth-15 [1]; Seek Fire-15 [1]; Seek Magic-15 [1]; Seek Water-15 [1]; Seeker-15 [1]; Sense Danger-15 [1]; Sense Emotion-15 [1]; Sense Foes-15 [1]; Sense Life-15 [1]; Shape Fire-15 [1]; Simple Illusion-15 [1]; Sound-15 [1]; Thunderclap-15 [1]; Trace-15 [1]; Truthsayer-15 [1]; Voices-15 [1]; Ward-15 [1]; Weaken-15 [1].

When I was developing this story, and considering how to represent magic, I messed around with a bunch of different models. In the end, I decided to go with bog-standard GURPS, at least for now. Some characters will have superhuman powers that are innate to them, represented by very high Attribute scores and Advantages. Other characters will be able to use “charms” or “spells” that are learned, powered by personal resources – hence, standard GURPS magic. So far, that seems to be matching the story I want to tell pretty well.

One note about Lóka: in the story, it’s a plot point that he seems to be able to understand, speak, read, and write any language he encounters. That’s kind of difficult to represent in GURPS, but the Modular Abilities trait used here seems to be the best way to proceed. As it stands, Lóka knows two or three languages by natural means. He can also “miraculously” use other languages that he’s never encountered before, although it takes him a few seconds to switch to the new script or tongue (he has to “get the trick of it”). At the moment he could get native-level fluency and literacy in one language at a time, or speak two strange languages like a native and act as a translator (without being able to read either of them), and so on. Useful!

More characters to come, I think, and I may make a post or two about world-building assumptions. This setting wouldn’t make a bad GURPS world-book, actually.

Some Map-Making Techniques

Some Map-Making Techniques

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Having produced the continent-scale overview map for Kráva’s world. my next step was to produce a narrow-focus map for the region in which (most of) the story of The Curse of Steel takes place. After a fair amount of tinkering – and a remarkably timely suggestion from my wife – I’ve developed a workflow to do that.

As a reminder, here’s the overview map:

It’s important to note the projection this map is in. It’s in an equirectangular projection, with the standard parallels both on the equator. That means the scale only works along lines of latitude and longitude, and it only consistently represents degrees of arc. What you cannot do with this map is to assume that it has any kind of consistent distance scale.

That’s a problem for any local map, where I might want to conveniently measure off distances to estimate travel times, or the size of occupied territories, or some such thing. What I want to do is “zoom in” on a much smaller region, then change the map projection so that a flat map with a constant distance scale can at least approximate the real situation.

I spent a few hours on Saturday messing with Photoshop, trying to approximate the coordinate transform that would take me from an equirectangular projection to (say) a gnomonic projection. Much frustration followed, with several pages of trigonometric scratchings and a great deal of button-punching on my calculator (hooray for my reliable old Texas Instruments TI-83 Plus, which has been a standby for twenty years now).

At which point my wife, bless her, looked over my shoulder, listened to my explanation of what I was trying to do, and said, “Why are you messing with all of that? Hasn’t someone developed a tool to do it?”

At which point I (figuratively) facepalmed hard enough to give myself a concussion. Because, indeed, someone has developed a tool to do that.

Witness G.Projector, a Java-based application developed by NASA at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), available for free to the public, which is all about making quick seamless transformations from one map projection to another.

Turns out that it’s trivial to load any map or image that’s in equirectangular projection into G.Projector, after which it will begin by showing you, by default, an orthographic projection of the same image – as if you were off at a distance and looking at the image spread across a globe:

Now, that much I already knew how to do – G.Projector has been in my toolkit for quite a while. What my wife’s suggestion drove me to do was to see whether the tool could do the rest of the job – move in on a specific region, and then change the projection to one more suited for making a flat map of a small region.

Turned out, that wasn’t all that difficult. A very few minutes of directed tinkering, and I was first able to zoom in on the region I wanted, and then change to a gnomonic projection instead:

From there, it was just a matter of saving that result as a JPEG image, then importing the JPEG into Wonderdraft as an overlay. A few hours of work later, and I had a very fine map to track Kráva’s progress on:

I took a few liberties in the translation, of course – added a few rivers and a terrain feature or two that weren’t on the continent-scale map. Hey, this is my world, I can fiddle with it if I want to. I suppose I might go back to the large-scale map and add in a few details, but that’s not going to become necessary unless – by some miracle – the novel actually finds a substantial audience.

More importantly, I now have a workflow I can use to produce useful, consistent maps for the expanding story, with just a few hours of work and no painstaking mathematics. Thanks, sweetheart!

New Map for Kráva’s World

New Map for Kráva’s World

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Stayed home today with some kind of ick, which let me catch up on sleep . . . and also gave me a chance to play with Wonderdraft a bit more. Lo and behold, with a little work, I’ve been able to finish the top-level reference map for The Curse of Steel. Here it is:

If you’re interested in more of the technical details, or a more high-resolution image to look at or download, here’s a link to the pertinent page on DeviantArt.

This will be my primary reference map from now on, while I work on the story. I plan to produce some regional maps too, so I can keep locations and distances straight in my head. With Wonderdraft that should be a snap. The only trick will be converting from the plate carrée projection here, to a more conformal projection for the little local maps. I think I’ll be able to do the requisite transformation, or at least approximate it, in Photoshop.

In the meantime, I’m very pleased with the results. This map took a lot less time to produce than similar efforts using only Photoshop, and the result looks better. Wonderdraft is an excellent tool for this kind of work!

Status Report (15 October 2019)

Status Report (15 October 2019)

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After a week of reading other people’s work and providing feedback on the Chapterbuzz site, I’ve swung back to working on The Curse of Steel. The feedback I got was a little thin, although three or four people did offer at least a few suggestions apiece. I’ve already gone through and done revisions in accordance with those, and now I’m back to writing new material. As of today, I’ve reached the projected half-way point in the draft – over 60k words!

Meanwhile, over the weekend I picked up a new map-making application, called Wonderdraft. This is an indie production, designed as far as I can tell by a single coder. It doesn’t have nearly the feature list of my usual toolset (Photoshop), but it’s geared almost entirely toward drawing fantasy maps, and for that purpose, it’s pretty slick. The fact that you can “paint” areas of the map with things like mountain or forest icons, and the tool will automatically change up the current icon and make sure there aren’t any collisions with other symbols? Good Lord, that’s useful. I can’t begin to count how many hours I’ve spent in Photoshop, laboriously clicking through mountain or tree icons and placing them one . . . at . . . a . . . time.

Here’s an example – this is the current partial draft of the main continental map for The Curse of Steel, which I’m using to plan out the back story and plot on the largest scales.

Not nearly finished, obviously – I’ve got a ton of layers to paint onto this yet. But the above took a lot less time than it would have in Photoshop, and the tool is doing a nice job of freeing me from drudgery so I can concentrate on being creative. Those mountain ranges, for example, took only 15-20 minutes to plan and paint onto the map. Looks like a hard recommend from me.

Status Report (6 October 2019)

Status Report (6 October 2019)

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Well, I chained myself to the computer this weekend and breezed right past my 10k word-count goal for the first week of October. As of right now, I’ve put down 11,970 words on the first draft of The Curse of Steel since Tuesday.

Meanwhile, real life has been building up a head of steam, so it’s just as well that I’m ahead of my goal. This week at the office, I have a pile of work to do and deadlines to meet, so my writing pace is likely to slow down dramatically over the next few days.

Still, there are now nineteen chapters posted over on Chapterbuzz, and the story is rapidly approaching its mid-point. Every day I’m more confident that this will eventually be my first published novel-length original work. About time I broke that creative barrier!

Status Report (3 October 2019)

Status Report (3 October 2019)

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I’m in the middle of the 10k Challenge week on the Chapterbuzz site, and at the moment the plot is thickening as nicely as I might have asked for. One more big fight scene, the introduction of a new character, the addition of a new mystery and the resolution of a few old ones, and I’m going to be ready for the big Wham Moment at the halfway point of the novel.

Taking a few days off before the beginning of October really helped me think through a few plot points and get all my tools set out. Since Tuesday I’ve managed to put down 5,900 words without too much trouble.

At the moment, eighteen chapters of the first draft of The Curse of Steel are up at Chapterbuzz. Go, read, “buzz” the chapters if you’re enjoying them, and feel free to leave any feedback that comes to mind. With, as always, my thanks.

Status Report (25 September 2019)

Status Report (25 September 2019)

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Whew. Last few days have been kind of unpleasant – I’ve been fighting some kind of sore-throat-and-intestinal-crud combination that’s kept me home from the office.

On the other hand, in the few hours here and there that I’ve been awake and lucid, I’ve managed to finish polishing up the existing partial draft of The Curse of Steel. That includes a few kilowords of new material that wasn’t in the very first rough draft. Those sixteen chapters are all up on Chapterbuzz now, so if you’re interested in a bit of gritty Iron Age heroic fantasy, go have a read, “buzz” and comment on the chapters.

Plan now is to take a break for a few days. Honestly, I need to get back to the office, assuming this crud is finally gone, and put in some long hours on a couple of projects there. Not to mention that I’m starting my first course toward a graduate degree next week too.

Come the beginning of October, I’ll be participating in a challenge on Chapterbuzz that will involve cranking out 10 kilowords (about four chapters) in the first week, and then polishing and refining and adding to the draft over the rest of the month. Then November comes, and National Novel Writing Month – 50 kilowords in one month. If I can keep up the pace, the novel should be finished in the first draft well before the end of the calendar year. Here’s hoping.

Status Report (21 September 2019)

Status Report (21 September 2019)

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I’ve done some polishing of the partial draft of The Curse of Steel. At this point, the first eight chapters have all been posted to Chapterbuzz for reading and feedback. Here’s a link to the book’s page there.

Right now, my plan is to finish micro-revisions to the first sixteen chapters – that is, everything I’ve produced thus far – and post those to Chapterbuzz before the end of this month. That should clear the decks for the novel-building challenge they’re going to hold over the month of October.

The biggest reservation I have right now is that the section I’m writing is subject to major revisions in the plot. The first arc of the novel is basically an action-adventure story, but this second arc is mostly about political intrigue and a couple of mysteries. I know how it’s going to end, but how it gets there isn’t entirely fixed in my mind. Entirely possible I’ll rethink how the plot goes and need to go back for major revisions. But we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.