Tuesday 2 December 2014

The Talent Trilogy

The Talent trilogy has played a major part in my life for some time now. 

I like to think of it as my first mature attempt at writing a novel. And indeed it includes the first novel I ever finished. First draft, anyway.

The truth is I've developed somewhat of a love-hate relationship with the series. 
On the one hand, I love writing many of the characters, and the city of Daragoth. 
On the other, I've been wrestling with other elements, trying to make them work.

The series involves the titular character, a street juggler named Talent, being caught up in a war between the thieves gangs in a city called Daragoth. And soon after, learning of a conspiracy that threatens the stability of the realm. Nothing groundbreaking, I realise, but I feel I inject elements of fun and intrigue that overshadow the more traditional plot.

I love the book, but every time I try to continue writing, I'm brought down by my inability to craft it into something I feel truly proud to show to others.

But I think with more feedback, and some brutal editing, I can bring the series back on track. 

My real concern here are the characters and the plotting. Motivation is something I've been struggling with, and bringing extra dimensions to some of the side characters has also been tricky. So any ideas on how I can improve the characters, plot and setting will be well appreciated.

Since my final intention with this series is to self publish at least the first book for free online, I have no qualms with linking you to the book here in several formats:

PDF / MOBI / EPUB / RTF

The RTF is probably best for reading on the computer or printing out.
The MOBI file should work on kindle, and I believe EPUB works on kindle and other devices too. Just copy them onto your devices in the relevant folder and they should come up.
The PDF version has a tad large font, so I'd recommend using it only if the others don't work. It should also work on any e-reader.

Feel free to send it to your friends, pass it round, so long as you send them back to this blog, or get them to e-mail me at: ade625@hotmail.com 

My biggest concern right now is building a group of intelligent, discerning beta readers who can give me some good quality feedback on my book - or any feedback at all! I hope that might be you.

You can also catch my early redrafted chapters right here.

My first attempts were focused around trying to make the character of Arterus less irritating, improving the magic system (i.e. actually create a magic system, rather than just making it up as I went along) and making the various side characters less one dimensional.

So that's it for today - remember to check out the links above to read my novel!

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