It’s been a crazy last 7 to 8 weeks, but I can finally say I wrote down those magic words: The End. Back in October I started with a new document and a total of 4 notes as an outline. Now, many writing sprints, bottles of wine and 121,037 words later I have FINISHED my first ever novel-length manuscript. First thing I did was pop open a cold one I had standing next to the laptop for the occasion. This is by far the hardest mental exercise I ever did and I’m glad this first step is now behind me.
The Blurb for Night Demon
I’ve written this blurb a couple of weeks ago and updated it today. This too is a work-in-progress as blurbing is a skill in and of its own.
Lilian, a thirteen-year old living during the industrialization, is afraid of the murderer who terrorises the town she lives in and who targets children her age. When one day a classmate turns up dead and her best friend Elisabeth goes missing, she takes it on herself to find out what happened. Lilian carries a dark secret, however. She can see demons and the more she investigates, the more apparent it becomes that these demons have something to do with the murders.
Can her ability to communicate with these creatures be used to solve the crimes? Or will her connection to the Netherworld prove to be her own undoing…
– Night Demon Blurb
So apart from the blurb, what else do I want to tell you about Night Demon? Well, it’s a Horror Fantasy of the Grimdark variant. Like I said in my previous update, this allows me some liberties with common fantasy and horror tropes. I wanted to delve deep into the mind of the Main Character, Lilian. You’ll follow her and experience what she experiences. That was a challenge, not in the least because her world has supernatural elements in them. I’m not just talking about a scary moment, a ghostly apparition or a run of the mill folklore, Christian or Lovecraftian “demon”. In Night Demon, I intended for the narrator crawls inside your head and have you experience the impossible, like our MC experiences it.
Next to claustrophobic dread and scary moments, you’ll find a (I hope) unique take on the demonic. I’ve mixed in a lot of Western-European, Lower-Saxon folklore to my plot and character arcs. Take the Wight Women, for instance. In other parts of the world they are known as “Will’o’wisps”. They are what the rural folk over here call the shards of mist travelling over fields and hills. They lure weary travelers off the beaten path and into bogs hidden inside forests for them to drown.
I could go on, but this is where I must leave you when it comes to the plot for Night Demon. It’s not a lot, I know, but even with a finished draft it’s too early to say any more.
What next?
Christmas, the New Year. Early 2022 I’ll start doing the first developmental edit of the manuscript. That involves reading the whole thing, transcribing what happened to an edit document line for line and then fixing those plot holes if there are any. Not just the obvious plot holes but also pacing and character arcs need a good taking look at. I’ve already got some ideas and I know of some areas which need revising (looking at you Act 1). More on that, later.
In the meanwhile, I’ll be working on some other stuff. I’ve again taken an interest towards pencil drawing, for instance. But, knowing how I fared with that in the past you shouldn’t expect any samples here. Maybe.
Merry Christmas.
