Ongoing Projects - March 2010

University still holds me in a firm writers block, and even though I start new stories all the time, I'm never able to finish any these days...

So, to get my crative juices flowing... or, perhaps just for the sake of actually writing something, here's a list of the short-stories I've started writing recently.

Working titles:

Nightmare:
Inspired by a contest over at storywrite (about writing your nightmares), this story follows Dr.Dracudian and two trainees at an asylum for the criminally insane. The asylum turns out to have a supernatural edge, as well as beeing filled to the brink with murderers and other violet lunatics. Three old sisters (two inmates and the warden?) are to be important to the story, having something to do with the supernatural events that occur (a part that was present in my dream).

Sword and Sorcery:
Another story based on a SW-contest, this one is just a description of a fight so far. A man in a shiny armor kills his brother in a ghastly way, and is joined by a wizard before they dissappear to go for their next kill... In other words, no story present yet ;p

Villain:
The story opens with a man running through the rain in intense pain. He seeks shelter, and seems to be disoriented. When he breaks glass and cuts himself accidentally, he finds that his wounds regenerate, and that time slows down as they heal. In finding another person around, he discovers that he has acid touch, and he accidentally kills the other person. He's then shot, but as everything turns dark, he's rescued. When he comes to again, he's in a room with three others, who seem to know more about him than he does himself. They talk to him about an infection, resulting powers, and... it ends there, not sure where to take it :p

The Beauty:
Boy falls in love with girl, girl already has boyfriend. Boy must come to accept that it's more important for him to see the girl happy, than it is for him to be happy himself. The outline is there, it just needs to be heavily fleshed out ;) Also, my first romantic story in quite some while, even though this one has a distinct tragic outlook (like all my stories involving romance really :p)

Running:
The working title here comes from the fact that the story is just a description of someone running this far ;p It was supposed to be a slightly erotic, very gory werewolf story... But it's hard to write classic-monster stories without ending up cliche and downright bad, so I never really put much work into this one, although it would certainly be fun to expand upon it.

WoW love:
A poem about love, written in world of warcraft related metaphors... And yes, it's a comedy piece... (inspired by the popular songs rewritten as wow-songs done by Turpster and others, though this one isn't based on an already existing tune)

"IT" or "Dragons Child":
A story about a lonely creature who has roamed the earth for years. The creature tells his story, including how he met his only friend, a blind girl. The girl called him Dragons Child, because she found him to feel like the closest thing she could imagine to a Human-Dragon hybrid. The story leads up to Halloween, the only time the creature can walk among men. Where I'm currently in the writing process, the creature is picking up its costume, helped by the girl. The story was at first intended to show how the creature takes revenge upon a hateful human race, and goes on a rampage on halloween, but as the story came to be more and more about the girl and the relationship between the girl and the creature, I'm starting to lean towards a tragic end instead of a gorefest end.

Dead like us:
The story is told from the perspective of a ghost who lives in an old mansion. As I haven't written much, there is still two ways I'm considering to take this story:
1. The ghostly inhabitants of the place have to convince a newcomer that she's really dead, and show her how the afterlife really is
2. The ghost thinks the newcomer in the mansion is a ghost aswell, and tries to communicate, but doesn't realize that she's still alive - However, what happens when he manages to break through?

House on Mars:
A man who has lived the past thirty years on Mars as part of a small crew in an experiment returns to Earth after some sort of accident or event has destroyed civilization and radiated the entire planet. He walks through a cemetary, finding his eartly friends and loved ones, and waits for the radiation to kill him. Meanwhile, he thinks about his time on Earth, his time on Mars and all his regrets.

Whiskey:
A man sits in a bar, drinking whiskey (hence the title... duh ;p), in walks an underage prostitute. He goes outside with the girl, preventing anyone else from taking advantage of her. The two talk, and as the reach the other end of town, the girl confides in the man, who seems to be a good man. When they reach the docks, snow falling, no one around, the man kills the girl. He doesn't want her to go on living a miserable life, and so he leaves her with a smile on her face, and returns to the bar and his whiskey. I have the key components to the story, but again I just need to flesh it out.

So, that's it for this time... Hopefully I'll be able to finish one or more of these stories soon =)

The Poor Sequel

A lot of my stories get a sequel, and a lot of those turn into a trilogy, or are supposed to do so. Those who still have a story to tell after three entries, can become larger pieces of work, though this seldom happens in my world of writing. One thing I find, is that the bloody second part, the first sequel, is often the place where everything goes wrong. Let me tell you about some of my sequels, and intended sequels, and how they turned out compared to the first (and perhaps third) entry.

Sanguine 2:
Back in 2007 I wrote a story called Sanguine. It's about how the wife of the devil and a friend of the devil goes to earth to wreak havoc in order to have a good time. I felt that the story is alright, presenting several interesting gore-scenes, and an all-over okey idea for a action/horror story. The ending basically said that the devil himself would like to come with the two others the next time they were going to earth. This is where the idea of a sequel enters. I started writing this sequel, trying to come up with more gore-filled scenarios where the devil would mess around with humans. However, the devil turned out to be to powerful a being for me to really write about in this way, as the story just turned into a series of scenes where the devil brutally murdered people in less and less inventive ways. Of course, the sequal was scrapped, and is still hidden away somewhere.

Chemical Wedding, Part 2:
This is the second part of a finished trilogy. However, the second part is really just leading to the third, and little actually happens to further the plot, which is the greatest problem of nr.2's in a trilogy. This isn't as good or as well written as part 1 and 3, and it doesn't make as much sense.

The Unholy Trinity, Part 2: The Antichrist:
This is also the second part of a finished trilogy, but is also mostly a filler. And besides, the ending is awful, really =p

The New Mask 2:
I once wrote a horror/slasher/comedy/spoof thing that I called The New Mask. It wasn't very good, and so when I started writing a second part, it was (of course) really awful, and I didn't have to write more than a couple hundred words to realize that I would never finish or post a second part to the story.

Departed - Part Two:
This is the second part of an unfinished series. The third part hasn't been finished, and I don't know if it will be. Really, the first part of this gave closure, and I think people would like the story better if they only read the first part. This second part isn't crappy though, just confusing I think, and it sets the scene for a larger story that might never get written. This one luckily has an ending that can sort of give closure to the whole thing, and therefor doesn't seem like another filler to a third part, and I'm glad.

Buccaneer Sky - Part 2: We Sail The Jolly Roger:
This second part in another unfinished series really didn't feel the same way as the first part, and is definately filler, without really leading to something serious, or anything at all that the reader can expect from the third part. A third part was started, but hasn't been finished yet. I really liked this series, and enjoyed writing it, and I still like the first part a lot, but this second part hasn't got anything to bring to the table, and isn't particularly good. It's a shame, cause I think the series could have turned out alright... Oh well.

Kain, Hunted:
This is the follow up to Kain, Nightunter. It has a few ideas incorporated that I've been working on, and that I wrote about earlier. However, this one also feels incredibly like a filler, as it definately serves the purpose of leading up to the third part. In the third part, I plan to try introducing an overarching villain, as I wrote about in an earlier post here. I don't think this story is bad, but it certainly left out some of what I think made the first part good. Focusing more on action, this part has neglected a lot of detail, like the description of characters that destinguished the first part. This one has a lot of gore, but little of it is fleshed out, and this one also lacks the sexual content and foul language of the first one, resebling some of my early work more than the first part of the series. With the third part, I want to get back to the feel of the first one, and make a good sequel, trying to ignore the crude style of the poor first sequel.

(I'm not the only one doing this. Dracula 2: Ascension. Pirates of the Caribbean 2. The Matrix 2 and 3. AVP2. The new Indiana Jones movie. Ghost Busters 2. Saw 2. Movies are a great example of poor sequels, and I guess the same often rings true for written works)

The Names Are In The Music

A lot of my inspiration come from music, as I am always listening to music when I write. Sometimes I listen to heavy metal, sometimes it's 80's pop, and sometimes it's irish and celtic music. I listen to a lot of different music, and I'm usually able to draw some sort of inspiration from most of it. However, I do find that I also like to draw character names from songs that I like. If I find a characters name in a song, I can often get other inspiration for that character from the same song or the same band. Here's an example of characters I've named after songs, or fund inspiration for in songs:

Mephisto - The main character of my unfinished novel was not named after a song, but after hearing the song 'Mephisto' by Moonspell, I incorporated parts of the song in the character, such as the line 'I am an angel who dresses in red', leading to the idea of him wearing mostly red and black clothes. (The fact that he was a fallen angel however, I established earlier).

Cassandra - The titular character of my short story 'Cassandra' is named after the song by the same name by Theatre of Tragedy. In the song they sing 'She hath no life but the one he for her wrought', which led to the idea that the character had no life, but the one 'he' for her wrote, the whole basis of the story.

Messalina and Nightwing - These two characters from Kain, Nighthunter are both the titles of songs by Inkubus Sukkubus, and alongside the song 'Sanctuary' by the same band, they helped establish several ideas I incorporated into the story.

Characters from Mephisto - In mephisto I had a character named Cassandra, named after the same song that named the short story. I also had a character named Lillith, partially inspired by the song 'heart of lillith' by Inkubus Sukkubus. Another of their songs inspired the character Atrocity from Mephisto, and made me create a backstory based on the song. The character Beltaine was also inspired by one of their songs. A character called Luna/Lisa was named after the song 'Luna' by Moonspell and 'Lisa' by Lita Ford... And yes, in the story it makes sense that she has two names. The idea for this novel was that I'd pay homage to some of my favorite bands and authors by naming characters, locations and such after them or their work, without copying of course, so I mainly stuck to first names. Some characters however, like Azrael, Lucifer and Lucifierra were harder to link to any particular piece of work, but all of them were in turn inspired by pieces of music I was listening to while writing. I could probably make a soundtrack for each character and chapter at the time of writing =)

So yeah, to sum up, I use a lot of music to inspire my writing, and in particular my characters. I've found that Inkubus Sukkubus is a great band to look at when I want a character-name that suits the sort of mythology I'm going for in works like Mephisto and Kain, Nighthunter. And yes, the picture on top is of Inkubus Sukkubus. I thank them for all the inspiration they have given me so far when listening to their albums, and all the inspiration they will continue to give me in the future =D

Tavern of the Storyteller - Trying to write

I would guess that everyone that comes to this blog will know me from storywrite, where I go by the name Drac. If you're not from storywrite however, here is a link.

So, let me try to explain this blog to you, I bet you're confused ;D

Often (read: all the time) I sit around and try to write something. Sometimes I sit for hours browsing pictures, songs and writing-contests trying to find some inspiration that suddenly prompts me to write, and sometimes I just sit down and try to write regardless of inspiration. Many of those times (read: most), I end up writing nothing at all, or merely a paragraph or two that are eventually discarded. Sometimes I end up with an idea or the outline of a story, without having any idea how to finish it.

So, this blog is really just here to let me share some of my ideas and tell everyone about my works in progress. I just need something to do with all that material that never goes anywhere. Maybe someone will read about my unfinished ideas and comment on them, giving me tips and suggestions as to how I should continue. Maybe just having written down that I'm working on something makes me try extra hard to finish it. Maybe I can post my sources of inspiration, and share them with the anyone that wants to see.

All in all, this is just a blog where I'm going to whine about not getting anything written, and so it is a great way for me to actually get to write something, even though it's all just for the heck of it :p

Anyway, let me rather show you what this is by posting something else, and let me welcome you to my tavern ;)