As I write The Lightless Labyrinth, I'm constantly reminded just how different it is to Jack Manley and the Warlord of Infinity. The genre is different, the tone is different, the themes are different, and the writing style is different. Jack Manley was something that I consciously approached as an "easy" first novel. I planned it in such a way that it played to my strengths, or at least my strengths as I perceive them. The Lightless Labyrinth is not structured that way, and I'm realising that in many ways it's pulling against the type of thing I would naturally write.
I'm going to run through some of the things that I feel are weaknesses of mine, that The Lightless Labyrinth will cover.
It's serious. I have a tendency in my work to go for flippancy and humour wherever possible. Jack Manley, at its heart, is a loving parody of bad sci-fi and pulp adventure. The Lightless Labyrinth has some attempted humour in dialogue, but it's a much darker work than I usually attempt. The story of a young warrior delving into the underworld to retrieve his father's corpse isn't really going to be a barrel of laughs, is it? I'm attempting to explore some genuine themes, whereas Jack Manley was mostly a process of trying to amuse myself at the keyboard every night, and hammering the result into shape later on. I'm finding The Lightless Labyrinth much more mentally taxing to write.
It gets into the protagonist's head. Anyone who has read Jack Manley might have noticed that at no point do I get into the characters' heads. (Okay, there is one bit, but that was me getting metaphysical.) The Lightless Labyrinth is all inside Jonn Greywood's head so far, and what I've discovered is that I'm much more comfortable conveying feelings and emotions by describing actions and body language. Getting inside my protagonist's feelings doesn't come naturally to me.
It has some female protagonists. Speaking of things that don't come naturally, I have a tendency to shy away from female characters. It's not something I do on purpose, it just seems to be where my natural storytelling instincts go. Jack Manley only had two female characters, and while I tried to give them strong roles Im not sure how well I succeeded. The Lightless Labyrinth is panning out in such a way that I have two female characters that will become protagonists. I'll be telling significant portions of the story from inside their heads, and I'm a little scared of it. I haven't reached the point where I need to write these scenes yet, so I don't know how well I'm going to do.
It has a lot more description. The descriptions in Jack Manley are sparse. The book has a conscious focus on action above all else. The descriptions of scenery are kept to a bare minimum; I tried to include just enough for each scene to function, so as not to bog down the forward momentum of the plot. The Lightless Labyrinth, however, is all about setting. Its right there in the title of the book, and it's the kind of story that needs atmosphere and scene-setting. As much as it's my instinct as a writer to "skip to the good bits", I need to slow down and paint the word picture. I'm already fairly sure that I'll need to go back and beef up some descriptions in the second draft.
There are too many characters. I kept Jack Manley tight in terms of characters, but in The Lightless Labyrinth I probably let myself sprawl out a little too far. I wanted to cover as many fantasy archetypes as I could, and that probably led me to include too many. On the other hand, a book like this really needs characters that I can kill off. I'll be able to thin the cast out and split some characters off into groups soon, but so far I think it's a little too crowded. I'll need to go back and beef up the presence of some of them, because I know that there are characters that I've barely touched at all.
That's all I could think of for now, but I could come up with more if I put my mind to it. I find it helpful to think about what my strengths and weaknesses are, and whether I'm avoiding certain types of stories that I find uncomfortable to write. The Lightless Labyrinth is certainly a more difficult work than Jack Manley was, and I feel like I'm stretching myself as I write it. I also think that, if I pull it off, it's going to be a better book. Only time will tell, I guess.
PROGRESS SINCE LAST POST:
The Lightless Labyrinth: 1,080 words (32,588 total)
In my defense, I've been ill.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading:
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Marvel Comics from 1965
What I've Been Watching
Game of Thrones season 4
WWE Extreme Rules (and a load of other wrestling in general)
What I've Been Playing
The Game of Dungeons (aka dnd)
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