Gunpowder Fantasy

So after doing a little bit of research, I have discovered that I'm not the only person writing "Gunpowder Fantasy." That is: fantasy set in a world that includes gunpowder and it's associated weaponry but does not focus on steam-power or other elements typical of a "steampunk" novel.

Some previous work in this area includes Winter Wolves (Amazon link) and The Black Prism (Wiki link).

It doesn't seem to be a particularly expansive sub-genre (a google search really only turned up these two links). However, I'm definitely going to continue on my current path and work in this sub-genre with my Yet-To-Be-Named-Novel.

And as for YtbNN, it decided to throw me a curveball and adjust the plot-line, leaving around 30,000 words that need to be adjusted to fit the new pace of the plot. And as I was reworking the plot I realized that the way that my world was set up wasn't going to work either. So I've remapped the world, twice.

On this current world, I've added another two major nations and a handful of city-states that are currently just going to be secondary background work (who knows, maybe they'll play a major part later).

My overall plot for Book 1 is still intact, however, and as I work through it I will be working on the overall plot for the series and on Book 2 as well.

What's In a Name (Content)

A little while ago, while working on my current universe, I came to the realization that some of the names I was using (primarily for the nations of my newborn world) didn't really roll off the tongue.

I've noticed that alot of authors tend to make their primary characters and the nations and worlds that those characters exist in have easily pronounced names. The two authors that I have read the most (David Weber and George RR Martin) have made their primary worlds and characters such.

So as I was rereading through the first few chapters of my new world, I decided to change the name of a few characters and the names of a few nations. Not only so the name of the nations themselves but also the name of those nation's citizens. For example, originally the main nation was going to be called Bradig. But I realized that the citizen of that nation would be what? A Bradigite? A Bradigian? So I've renamed my nation to something easier.

When reading, or writing, how important is it to you to have names that you feel are easily pronounced?

Cleaning Up the Ending

Now that I've worked through my first draft, editing and then applying those edits, I'm going to pay attention to the ending.

While I was reading through, I realized that the ending was rather rushed and didn't give appropriate detail to the ending of all of the characters.

I think part of this arose from how the particular story was built. I originally wrote the core of "Live! At the Front" as a short story, focusing almost entirely on the main character's story. It only rounded out at around 40k words.

So when I decided to convert the novella into a true novel, I decided that to bring the word count up and further develop the story I would add in a secondary storyline that would follow a naval officer.

When I got to the end of the novel, having converted the original novella to the new novel's universe, I hit a wall with the new storyline and decided to just cut it out in order to get the novel into first draft edits. Lazy, I know.

I think I've got the path I need to clean up the storyline, though, so I should be able to get the novel into 2nd Draft pretty soon. And I already know where the focus is going to be there: increasing the level of detail in several sections.

First Draft Editions

So I finally finished applying my first draft edits for "Live! At the Front"
I want to flesh out the end of he novel a little bit before I got to second draft.
I think I can do a lot to add details throughout during my second draft so it really looks like it's going to be my third draft that I'll be looking for beta readers.
If you're interested in beta reading this Sci-Fi Space Opera, leave a comment or you can reach me on twitter @stealthvoodoo
I'll post my blurb for "Live!" such as it is later tomorrow.