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Wed Mar 19, 2014 10:49 pm
Tenyo says...



So, I'm working on a novel right now that starts off quite romance-heavy, and I'm not talking my usual passion and flame romance either. This is a cheesy romance involving a pair of fourteen year olds, and a lot of those cutely awkward moments. Then it descends into blood and betrayal and magic and all forms of wonderful sinisteries.

But first, there are two kids. Both were abandoned by their parents to live with a friendly old guy (girl's mother's best friend and boy's uncle,) and the two fell in love.

Boy wanted to do it properly even though they lived together so they arranged to go on a date. On their way back a stranger randomly appeared in the road, and Boy had to slam on the breaks of his uncle's motorbike (yes he was driving illegally). There was a crash and a flash of light, and the last thing he saw is girl getting dragged away into the darkness.

Her fate lies in some other world full of those aforementioned sinisteries. He doesn't make it over there for a while. He called the police, ambulance turned up, and now he's on trial for her murder and the disappearance of another girl two years ago in the same area.

The problem I have is that my novel starts with this giddy romance and it lasts for at least 10k worth of plot. I don't want to pre-empt the rest so much that I give the plot away, but at the same time I don't want whoever reads it to get the wrong impression of what kind of book it is.

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Thu Mar 20, 2014 9:57 pm
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crossroads says...



You know how I said I don't really have a smart advice to give about this? Yeah, well I'm here to prove it xD

Your problem is actually not unfamiliar to me, not at all... The first book I wrote (which is waiting for me unedited and untranslated), the truth about how much magic-ish things there actually is wasn't revealed till around page 300 (and we're talking font 10, single spaced). Before that, there was a bunch of strange characters, lots of creepy dreams and occasional appearances of a man who was pretty obviously more than a simple man to anyone who ever reads ( :mrgreen: ), but quite a few thousand words of plot, there was nothing remotely related to magic. So, for that reason and because it worked well with some other things, I gave it a shiny little prologue which, without giving away the whole idea behind the story, set the tone for it and made it quite clear for the reader that they can expect more than realistic/depressing mystery/YA/teen rivalry cliche love story.

So I guess writing up a prologue which would somehow announce those wonderful sinisteries you're talking about, could be one solution.

Putting in some kind of a dream or vision also can come in handy, if it would make any sense. He could get a fever because of the whole on-trial-for-double-homicide thing, and have a vision/dream? It doesn't actually need to be related to anything magical, it could be just him dreaming about her and something somewhat creepy (like, that she's actually held by someone who's dead and locked in a mirror /random) - it would trigger the readers' imagination automatically, and make them wonder if there might be some supernatural element to it. That's how dreams automatically affect the readers, even the ones who hope there will be nothing supernatural and it'll stay a cheesy romance xP And there's nothing too weird about it, so it's not telling too much - he's not having an actual vision, he's just dreaming, like all of us. It's just setting the tone.

Another solution could be, perhaps, to start it in medias res, and then bring it back a little - maybe in the beginning he could be in jail, or in some random bar as he's running away, or in a hospital or interrogation room or whatever, and then remember how the whole thing started and got him there? This would probably work the best if your point is to prove there's something more than cheesy teen romance, but really don't want to introduce anything even hinting at magic yet.

Also, along the lines of dreams I mentioned above, maybe just the language and style would serve the purpose here. It means a lot how you describe things, or what kinds of thoughts you have the characters think, even what their surroundings are like. Drawing dragons in clouds, mentioning how someone they encounter has some mysterious tattoo or having the MC describe something by comparing it to a fairy tale, as well as using some other motives, will all be something that the readers would associate with something mysterious and possibly magical, because it'd get them curious and automatically trigger the childish/imaginative sides of their brains.

Of course, there's always the one I mentioned once before, give it a title with a subtitle "an actually amazing dark fantasy story which is just waiting for you to discover that aspect of it" ;)

Hopefully, some of these will actually work. As a reader of dark fantasy stuff, I can tell I'd sure hope there'd be more than cheesy romance, and I'd cling to those more or less subtle clues if you put any in. And well, people who like fantasy are your targeted audience, right? So if someone really wants a cheesy romance and nothing more, they'll ignore the clues and get either disappointed or enlightened as they finish reading it (or toss the book away).. so you can't really lose, right? c:
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Sat May 31, 2014 12:32 am
Prokaryote says...



AA has some good ideas; I would particularly like the use of style to hint at an otherwordly element. Too, you might drop slight brushes with the supernatural throughout, little inexplicable happenstances that point towards something larger than the domestic.

It's an interesting problem. I'm generally a fan of Tarantino movies, but one, From Dusk 'Til Dawn, pulled what you're trying without even attempting to prevent whiplash. The first half of the movie was a great kidnapping thriller; the second half, without warning, turns to a tongue-in-cheek vampire-slaying horror flick. It comes as a complete shock to the viewer, which I'm sure was intended, but as someone who was very much enjoying the grounded first half I was severely disappointed. You're right to be concerned. It's usually important to keep a consistent tone throughout a story, for the reader's sake if not for aesthetic unity.
  





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Sat May 31, 2014 1:54 am
Hannah says...



Yeah, I would say the biggest thing you'd need to worry about would be just keeping the same tone. Write the piece consistently -- the same voice -- and we'll follow you anywhere.

I think the bulk of the difference in different "genres" so to speak is generally the way they're handled at the sentence level. Fantasy has to explain more things, action wants to be more direct, etc. If you keep a writing style the same over both sections of your book, I feel like it would lessen the difference between the sections and let us gently slip into a new skin. So pay attention to the same sorts of things to describe in BOTH sections. If you wanna talk a lot about, for example, the way society acts in the second part, you wanna talk about the way society acts in the first part as well!

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Sat May 31, 2014 10:30 am
Tenyo says...



@Prokaryote
From Dusk Till Dawn. That scene where the woman randomly turned into a vampire made me laugh so hard XD I'm not sure if that's the effect they were going for. But I completely get where you're coming from, and that's what I'm most worried about. Dropping in supernatural occurrences should work, I think.

@Hannah
As a fantasy writer I think my romance probably reads like a fantasy anyway, but that's a really good point. I think the part I'll struggle with most is dialogue. In the beginning there is plenty of dialogue, but in the second part she's in an environment where she can't understand the language so most of the communication will be non-verbal. This is going to be harder than I thought >.<
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