WORLD CREATION 101

At this time of the year, when everyone is thinking about family and hopefully peace on earth and good will to man, it's important to remember how horrible war truly is. 

American soldiers are fighting in different parts of the world. And unfortunately it seems like there will always be one war or another.

That's an important theme in "THE MOONBEAM RIDER," the Young Adult novel I'm writing. Which brings me to WORLD CREATION. You hear this term a lot in Hollywood. But what does it really mean? 

World creation is when you create a wholly unique world to populate with your characters and their quests. It could be, for example: a world overrun with zombies who answer to their undead vampire masters, set in a post apocalyptic Tokyo (actually, that's something I'm planning on writing in the not too distant future). 

I want "THE MOONBEAM RIDER" - which is a world only a few days into our future - in a setting reminiscent  of World War II. I want it to be a real good verses evil story. Hitler and the Nazis attempting to take over the world kind of evil. And since this is a science fiction tale, what would be better than aliens from another world attempting to take over our world? I want this story to be complete with traitorous human collaborators, selfless patriots, and all the nations of the earth joining forces to become an Allied Earth.

This world is a world where you're no longer allowed to be a kid. When you turn eighteen - male or female - there is a mandatory draft in effect. It's a romantic vision of war with acts of cowardice and heroism. This world contains occupied territories, ground fighting across war-torn lands and people living in ruins, under the harsh rule of aliens who use humans to do their dirty work and put the humans who won't submit into work camps. 

And... we're fighting for all the marbles. Because if the aliens win, they will decimate eighty percent of the human population and use the rest as slave labor, while they colonize the Earth.

This is the world my protagonist NOA ASH -  a powerless sixteen year old girl - finds herself in. Then, by a twist go fate, she is given the keys to unimaginable power (my secret for now) and can have an impact on this war. The question is, can she rise to the occasion?

I'm moving slowly but surely forward on the novel and plan to have the cover art and an audio recording of the first three chapters produced for your entertainment in early 2015.

Please keep following my exploits writing what can best be described as THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK meets WAR OF THE WORLDS.

  

FINDING YOUR HEROINE'S VOICE

Well, I'm currently a little shy of 13,000 words on THE MOONBEAM RIDER novel. I'm about fifty pages in and starting on chapter three. The complete book should come in at around 70,000 words. That's about 260 pages. 

Once you have a strong grasp of the story you are writing, the beginning of any undertaking to write a novel is mostly about finding your hero's - or in this case heroine's - voice. 

I'm writing about NOA ASH, a sixteen year old adolescent female, a very complex personality to scribe about. I am also writing my first novel in the first person. So I am literally writing in my heroine Noa's own words. 

It's a good thing that I've spent a lot of time around teenagers (I'm a former gymnast who still spends a lot of time in the gym working out and working with young gymnasts). When people become adults, they often forget how young people think and perceive the world. 

But, like writing any character, it takes a certain amount of fumbling around before you dial in on who that character is and what they will and won't do. I've now gotten to the point where I feel I truly know Noa Ash.

I'm also trying to be careful to make Noa a genuine girl. I've flipped through some Young Adult novels written with female leads and often I can tell when a male author has penned the book.

For a genre novel (science fiction/action adventure), Noa is a very unique creation from many of the characters in other genre fiction novels. She is biracial (the product of a Black father and white mother). Noa also starts out overweight. After the death of her parents, she is sent to live with a grandmother she has never met on remote and scary SHADOW BEACH,  where Noa begins to surf the dark waters. By the end of the second chapter, she sees her reflection cast in the water and realizes she has not only lost weight, but become fit.  

I still have a long way to go. But I promise to start moving forward on the book cover art, so that I can have something visually dazzling for all of you. 

Plus, once the first three chapters are tightly polished, I will have a voice actress do a audio recording of them, so you can hear Noa Ash in her own words.

Aloha.

Carlton Holder

RE-ENTRY

As hard as I've been trying to get to the pages of THE MOONBEAM RIDER, forces have been pulling me away. 

Scheduling has been tough for me lately.

Therefore, I've decided to cancel my holiday plans. I'm not a Thanksgiving or Christmas type of person to begin with (Halloween is my holiday of choice). My family is on the East Coast and, although I love them, the thought of flying back in the cold doesn't exactly excite me. For Thanksgiving, I was going to visit an old college buddy who lives in Vegas. I thought I would get some good writing in at the Hard Rock for three or four days. For Christmas I was going to take a seven day cruise (it would have been my first) down into sunny Mehecco. 

But dammit, I want this book written and I enjoy getting lost in this world I've created. A world that harkens back to the old pulp science fiction magazines and World War II, while remaining firmly planted in a contemporary world which could be tomorrow.

So I'm just going to write through the holidays.

I have become fully invested in the main character NOA ASH and her plight being recently orphaned in a world at war with another world. Which is what happens when you write. The characters start to come alive for you and inhabit your life. Then the only way to purge yourself of these ghostly inhabitants is to get their story out of you. Even though it's a long hard road, there are few joys as great as finishing a novel.

I'm in the middle of the second chapter and around 7,000 words. I'm already planning the book cover and I'm going to hire a voice actress to do an audio recording of the first three chapters, when I have them finished. Since the story is written in the first person of our heroine Noa Ash, I figure this is the best way to introduce her to all of you.

I'll keep you posted.

FIRST ENTRY

Welcome to my first entry into this brand new blog, which will chart the evolution of my new novel as I write and promote it. 

The novel is "THE MOONBEAM RIDER."  It's my third novel and first young adult fiction book, so I'm very excited. I'm just as excited to be sharing my experience with you.

My target audience is teenage girls. Although the tone and storyline for my novel are very different from "THE HUNGER GAMES," I hope to attract that same audience. With the superhero-esque element of the book, I'm also hoping to capture teenage male readers and young adults as well.

The story deals with the alien invasion of earth as seen through the eyes of our main character. It also deals with a long lost metal superhero from World War II and the main character's relationship with it. So, yes, UFOs and robots.

Like "Hunger Games," my protagonist is a teenage girl. Her name is NOA ASH. The story starts out in the first chapter with Noa a few weeks away from her sixteenth birthday. Her parents are killed in an act of violence in the first chapter. Noa turns sixteen in the second chapter while she is remanded to a tough group home for teenage orphans, waiting for a grandmother she has never met to take her in.

Also like the "Hunger Games," this story is told in the first person by my heroine. I want this novel to have an in the moment feel. I also want it to be as if Noa Ash is recounting her adventure as it happens out of her private journal with insight into her emotions, hopes, and fears. So basically, this novel is "THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK" meets "WAR OF THE WORLDS."

Unlike "Hunger Games" however, Noa doesn't start out as a statuesque heroine with a perfect physique. In fact, in the first two chapters, Noa is short and chubby. She grows in physical stature and inner strength through her discovery and subsequent love of surfing in the black waters of the meteorite-covered SHADOW BEACH.

Lastly, Noa Ash is biracial, the product of a Caucasian mother and an African American father. This is very important to me because my publishing imprint which I will be releasing this novel through was created to bring diverse fiction to the multicultural audience that is more a reflection of America today than what is portrayed on TV and in Hollywood movies. 

The other thing I will be doing differently from my previous two novels is that I will be building awareness for this adventure tale as I'm writing it. I've already come up with a number of ideas, which you will be discovering in the upcoming months.

I want to involve the audience in the writing of this book.

So, I hope you tune into my blog from time to time and share the adventure. For me writing a novel is like creating a whole new world, full of wonderful voices. I often learn things about myself from my writing.

And after all, isn't that why we've been put on this earth? To learn.