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jovialwilliams
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28 Sep 2011, 12:19 am

I am currently writing a fantasy-(hopefully)comedy novel called "Black Mittens". It's centered around a particular dwarf in a race of coffee dwarves. The elves drink tea. The wizards drink their own special brand of egg nog and have their own parody of the iphone with magical apps, and the pixie fairies are little magical drama queens that live off of sugar. And the trolls..well the troll interests are knitting and shiskabobing children, but the story is centered around a particular coffee dwarf named Sweetakins, an unusually eccentric wizard named Mason, and their struggle against an elusive individual called Black Mittens. What do you think?


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FrodoLlama
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28 Sep 2011, 3:25 pm

I find it satirical, although I don't see much element of conflict in the outline. Could be successful along the same lines as Terry Pratchett's fiction, although it would likely encompass a smaller audience. I'd suggest Kindle-Direct-Publishing it for $2.99 and seeing how successful you become.

Also, here.


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jovialwilliams
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29 Sep 2011, 7:11 pm

the reason you don't find much element of conflict is because i haven't mentioned the plot. i only told you the premise, but yes it will have a terry pratchett resemblance. but there is a reason i am titling it "Black Mittens" One of the characters is black mittens


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FrodoLlama
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29 Sep 2011, 7:25 pm

That's true, but the problem is that I see very little potential for a conflict relevant to the premise.

Also, I'd advise that you later revise your title, as a novel called "Black Mittens" might draw the memoir/biography readers rather than the humorous fantasy ones, and because naming the book after a character doesn't tell any potential readers much about the story, setting, plot or other interesting elements, except that the name will become relevant at some point.



computerlove
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29 Sep 2011, 11:18 pm

Check Vonnegut diagrams:

http://sivers.org/drama


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jovialwilliams
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30 Sep 2011, 6:50 pm

Frodollama, as I said, I haven't told the plot yet, and when I said premise, I meant it to be much of the premise of this novel as is Narnia for Chronicles of Narnia, Middle Earth for Lord of the Rings, and Discworld for all those Terry Pratchett books. Thanks a lot for the title advice. black mittens was working title anyway. Black Mittens was one of the top 4 main characters though, but I would probably revise the title anyway. I didn't think about memoir/biography readers when i made the title. Computerlove, thanks for the diagrams, but i already had something around those lines.

The main reason why I am not really telling you the plot is because it's meant to have suspense to it, and I am not sure how to give a proper summary of the whole thing. Here's an excerpt from the very beginning:

Black Mittens


One night, an elven librarian received a note signed “Black Mittens” The next morning saw the elf dead.

Sweetakins heard the grim news from the rest of the dwarves. Now, Sweetakins didn’t belong to just any dwarven race. He was a coffee dwarf, and that filled him with pride. The grim news was that he was being replaced by machines. The news made him wish for the old days when machines were made to help instead of replace. Still, the old days had died of old age. Now he had to seek a job with the wizards. The dwarves were wary of the eccentric wizards.

The wizards were noted for their iVices and their own special brand of egg nog. They usually hired gnomes to do their more ordinary chores, but for some wizard, Sweetakins was to do that line of work. A gnome was being literally thrown out the door right before Sweetakins walked in. Sweetakins looked up to see the wizard who threw the hobo gnome, and it was Mason, the most eccentric of wizards! Now if you have heard an atom of what I have heard of wizards, you would realize how much that is saying. So this was Sweetakin’s new employer, a wizard so eccentric that no storyteller can give justice to his eccentricity.

The first chore that Sweetakins received was to clean out the egg nog machine. The next chore was to clean the magical shower of Mason. No one was ever curious as to why it was magical.

I could go on forever about the odd chores that Sweetakins performed, but I would rather tell you some of the achievements of Mason. Mason was a pioneer in beard products and marketing. Every hair product made by Mason or improved by Mason was declared worth all the commotion, and this had a very good reason behind it. Mason used every one of them, and his beard was said to stun anyone out of his wits. However, in the wizard community if you can call it a community, Mason was an elderly teacher of logic who never seemed to live by intelligence, but he lived by intelligence almost entirely.

Mason on this particular day wasn’t up to anything unusual which was rather unusual for him. As an inevitable result, everyone was worried about his health. The most unusual thing that day was throwing out the gnome, and that is a common enough wizardly act.

While Sweetakins was dusting the floating bookshelf in the library, Sweetakins noticed an even smaller midget hooded in black, and the midget’s hood revealed only two glowing green cat eyes staring at our particular coffee dwarf. Sweetakins had seen this kind of thing before, and knowing what the cat wanted, he opened the window.

“Cat, if you want the job, you will have to talk to Mason.”

“I already knocked, but he didn’t answer the door.”

“So you want me to tell Mason that you want the job.”

“Yes. Oh, don’t forget to give him this.” As the cat said this, he handed Sweetakins a letter in a cream-colored envelope and decided to wait where he was. When Sweetakins handed it to his employer, Mason recognized it and turned pale as the dead. Mason also said to give the cat the job.

When Mason saw the cat, he said “Show me your paws, cat.” I know what you are thinking but Black Mittens will come again into story soon enough. All four paws were white. Mason looked at the letter and then looked at the cat, but all the cat did was give an unpleasant type of grin


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jovialwilliams
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01 Oct 2011, 11:20 pm

what do people think?


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