"Unsettling Differences" - Planning (Part II)

It’s been one heck of a fantastic week for yours truly, both on the writing front and personally also. Found out at the beginning of the week that my contract for work has now been made permanent after four years, so obviously I’m absolutely over the moon with that! It’s also meant that I’ve been as positive as anything, and that’s impacted greatly on the progress of this upcoming story.

What’s new then? Well, the themes and genre are all set, as well as the base characteristics for all of the characters in the story. The roles of protagonist and antagonist have finally been established, and the core of the story has been developed, including the narrative style with the journal/diary entries and social media updates, as well as the email conversations. The three-act structure is firmly in place with a pretty solid blue-print written up. All that’s left now is the small details before I can begin work on my first draft.

One of the small details is the names of the characters. Names have always been my Achilles heel when it comes to my writing. I’m just not very creative when it comes to picking names, and more often than not, my inspiration for the names of my characters come from movies. The character of Vincent from both 45 Days and Descent Into Madness? Named after John Travolta’s character in Pulp Fiction. The character of Dean Moxley from Descent Into Madness and When Justice Comes Calling? Named after the actor James Dean and WWE superstar Jon Moxley. Numerous other names and even surnames have come from popular names in television/movies, or the names of friends and family. To put it simply, I’m never going to be writing a book on creative and original baby names! I’m going back and forth on a few names at the moment, but for now they’re being referred to as “Person A”, “Person B” and so on.

Speaking of names, whilst I know I said in the last blog entry that the name of the story is the last thing I think of, I couldn’t help but think that Unsettling Differences had one hell of a ring to it. It rings true and fits for the dynamic between the two lead characters (and the story is told from both of their viewpoints and nobody else’s) so it turns out that I likely will actually call the story Unsettling Differences when all is said and done. Would be a nod to the song I was listening to during the previous blog entry also, which has helped me greatly in preparation for the upcoming task of writing the damn thing.

I contacted my front cover designer Chris Seaman this morning also, who did the amazing work on 45 Days, Descent Into Madness and When Justice Comes Calling, and gave him a brief heads up on this project. By the afternoon, he had sent me a very, very rough draft of an idea he had that seemed to fit with the details I gave him, which you can see below:

Chris will probably send me around 15 to 20 more ideas/drafts before all is said and done, each one different to the last to match how the project itself is going. Guy just loves to work! Eager beaver is a term I’d use, but I can’t fault his passion and productivity, and he’s been great to work with on previous projects, and I don’t doubt this will be any different.

Onwards and upwards, as they say. Plenty of hard work ahead, but that’s half the fun. Currently a good way through the planning stages, may start scribbling down some bits here and there to get back into the flow. I might use none of it in the eventual first draft, or it may wind up being something that survives right until publication. Want to make sure I’m prepared this time round, but don’t wanna’ become stagnant on the actual writing front either, so just trying to the balance the two. Watch this space.

Thanks for reading.

Will