Tuesday, July 27, 2010

A little about the book

(This is not my official book blurb thingy; those are supposed to sound good.)
"The Left Hand of Memory" (working title) is a horror novel (mostly) exploring themes of memory, volition, and identity. The book follows two narrators, both of whom have been displaced from their everyday lives and thrown into the machinations of strange people with strange powers. Most of the characters in the book happen to be vampires; please don't hold that against them.
Right now, the book is a little over 115,000 words long. In other words, it's too long for what most publishers want out of a new novelist like myself. One of my main goals is to make it a little bit less chunky-- I'm hoping to at least get it under the 100k mark by the time I am done editing it.
It's written in multiple first person, which is the main reason why I will probably have to come up with another title. I found out recently that "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. LeGuin is also written in multiple first person, so... yeah, I don't really want to set my book up as a counterpoint to hers. I have nowhere near that amount of hubris (or stupidity).
One chapter in the book is set in the late 1800s; the rest is set in the recent past. In the long term, I would love to write more historical stuff in the same vein, as I am a total dork for history, and we all know that vampires can fit right into basically any era. (Am I right or am I right?)
I will write more about what the story is actually like once I figure out how the hell you go about summarizing fiction. I am new to all of this and it is a lot harder than it sounds.

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