It's been a little while since I've talked about what it is I'm actually working on, so I thought I'd mention my two major WIPs. Pardon if these summaries sound a bit like pitches. They sort of are, I suppose.
Real Stakes is a novel of psychological suspense in which an outlandish web of conspiracy ensnares an over-confident con-artist of a businessman and a legalistic investigator who holds the Law as the only ethics and morality of any meaning. The conspiracy itself is equal parts outlandish and terrifying, falling somewhere between Ludlum at his most intrigue and Koontz at his strangest. The tone and intimate portrayal of human fragility are both brutal and compassionate, in the veins of Fight Club or Candlemoth. In an abandoned pickle warehouse on the outskirts of Denver, a high stakes poker game becomes the opening foray of a battle between Smith and Jones -- a battle that the woman known to her colleagues only as The Detangler will do anything to stop. For those orchestrating the battle, it a struggle between God, the Devil, and Man. In the end, will anyone come away winning?
Ennui and Malaise is a novel of psychological suspense in which a painfully bored man who has turned to day dreams, wistful prayers to gods in which he doesn't believe, and the power of an adventurous imagination finds himself accused of murder -- the murder of a man whose death he had daydreamed. As in Faulkner or O'Connor, the contemporary work of RJ Ellory, or the cinematic work of M. Night Shyamalan, much of the real violence is psychological. His sense of self and his understanding of the world come crashing down on him, and all he has left to cling to is his own original wish that life present him with something interesting. Interesting, he now has, but perhaps at the cost of everything else.
Not truly pitches, don't worry, just done that way to try and help you get a sense of what I'm working on and where it's coming from. Each novel is is at ~ 30K words. Real Stakes will probably end up around 120K, since it follows something of a suspense thriller format. Ennui and Malaise is more like to be 80 -- 95K when all is said and done.
Rose and I are working out a system for her to act as sort of my draft manager, giving me goals and deadlines, because I really do work better when I have an external expectation to meet. We haven't gotten to specifics yet, but I am really aiming to one of the two WIP's "done" by Christmas. (Ready to look for representation.)
.Nevets.
Nevets, Thanks for the update. What I've liked about your past work are the digressions and philosophical questions you've brought up. It almost feels like I don't even care what your plots are. But then again I do like to see how it all works together. These both sound interesting. How many books have you written?
ReplyDeleteDomey, Kop Kun Kraap. These will be the first two for the bright shiny me. I have a few more strictly genre novels in my back pocket that will likely never see the light of day, at least in their present form.
ReplyDeleteReal Stakes will probably easily slide into the thriller genre because I use a lot of gross-level symbolism and the philosophy is intermixed with spy thriller tropes.
Ennui and Malaise has moments of that but it's a lot more like what you've read, which is really where I feel most at home. Something rich in voice, very stream-of-consciousnessy, and libel to tip off into deep waters at any moment.
Which is why, despite my uncertainty of my entry point for Notes from Underground, I do hope I make it past the the cut, because freeform writing and me, we're like this. ||
Nevets, both of these sound great, but the second one really caught my attention. That sounds fascinating!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Michelle, I think when they're both done they will both be pretty good, but Ennui and Malaise definitely has a head start.
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