Monday Question: MAY I Tell You Something About Writing?
This post is going to be about my own experience with writing than writing itself. I've been sick, lately, and I'm still not fully recovered, but I'm really wanting to do Monday's "Blog Me MAYbe" question.
I want to blog about the troubles I'm having with this WIP I'm working on. One of my greatest fears as a writer is that I will be reamed for not creating a realistic enough fictional world for my characters to live and tell their story within. It's so sobering, sometimes I wake from a dead sleep with a rapidly beating heart in fear that I'm already screwing this up.
So far, my WIP is about 20,000 words long, which is barely even a quarter of what its intended length will be. I don't have to worry quite so much just yet, since I have room to fix things before they go awry, but I don't want to be one of those authors who didn't make things believable in her story. Writing any kind of speculative fiction, sci-fi or fantasy, is very difficult, especially when trying to make the fantasy aspect seem like it could really happen.
In the world of The Element Scripters, which is the name of the series of books I plan on writing (so far, Book 1 is my current WIP), the characters live in the second largest city in the United States, Los Angeles, and they have to exterminate these creatures that come to life out of the urban environment from which they inhabit. And, they have to do it in total secrecy. I'll explain:
These are normal human beings, not people with paranormal abilities, and I'd like to keep it that way. But, they know kung fu (what is referred to as wushu in my WIP) and parkour so they can get around the landscape really quickly to keep up with these creatures that crazily go around all over the city and destroy stuff and generally wreak havoc. They also have some science fiction on their side, technology they created cladestinely that is unknown by the rest of the world to help them locate the creatures whenever they spring up somewhere.
These creatures are called "Inanimates" because they are shape-shifters that started out as man-made objects of the urban landscape. A light pole, a vending machine, a car, or truck, all transformed into something robotic-looking. Think the Transformers movies. They become animated, but started out as being soulless technology, thus termed "inanimate." Because of a magical script, they are brought to life and given a "soul," and having never been alive before, they can't handle possessing a soul. This causes them to go insane and they create all kinds of problems, as a result.
The Element Scripters are supposed to exterminate them quietly, like ninjas in the night, never to be seen or heard by the regular citizens of the city. They are supposed to be able to get to the Inanimates no matter where they are, luckily only ever needing to do this under the cloak of darkness because the Inanimates are nocturnal. No one can know about The Scripters, as this has been their tradition for several decades and they intend to keep it that way until all Inanimates are erradicated, if that's possible. It hasn't happened, yet.
My fear is that I've set up the most impossible task of making it feel like these regular, although well-trained humans can even do this realistically. I try to excuse it all away by means of cameras and satellites that survey the area on a 24-hour basis, and field agents know how to run around faster than normal humans can because they are trained since childhood, etc. They have genius scientists who work only for them, never allowing the rest of the world in on their amazing technology....
Yet, it all feels so phony to me. I just know I'm going to be discovered for the fraud that I am. No one who reads this is going to buy it for a second! Have I created a story that is just too impossible to believe?
What about you? Are their things you fear about your writing that keeps you up at night?
