Latest posts

New book out + bonus story

Ma'dain Aurora (novel) and Angels with wings (short) out now!

This is just a short update that, despite being extremely busy with the renovations and birth of two sons, Ma’dain Aurora is out now and ready for Alpha Readers to sink their teeth into. More about the story can be found on the homepage and on the following link:

Tom is an orphan, his parents lost during a train derailment many springs ago. Luckily, he was found by nun Delaney, who brought him aboard the Sanct Train, where he would grow up to become a useful member of the Colonies. But not all seems right. One day, Tom experiences a distant memory, a vision unlike any other. Was it sent by God or was it a sign of the rot?

Additionally I have had this story buzzing in my head for the last few months and have finally sat down to write it.

Let me introduce Angels with metal wings which is a reimagining of the Sputnik 2 launch focusing on two characters – Yuri Gagarin and a famous canine. Read more on the story by following the link below.

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think about both stories!

Peter

Second draft done!

I might not be Brandon Sanderson, who knocks off revision 2.0 in under a week for a book with more than a hundred thousand words, but getting it done in just over six months isn’t too shabby.

My first book took two years to get the ball rolling. Two and a half years to finish draft one (which I hated). A year and a half to get draft two done (which was nice for a first book). Then an additional six months to finish it. A total of six and a half years!

This one was much quicker. A month and a half brainstorming. Six months for draft 1.0, six months for 2.0. Plotting everything at the start sure did help.

I finished revision two with a few story tweeks, word smithing and a run through with Grammarly, to find those pesky commas. Now it’s up to pen and pencil to finish the job.

I also ran some statistics. My previous book, On the Shoulders of Giants, had 5.300 unique words (without I, and, in, …) and 53.000 such words in total.

Ma’dain Aurora has 6.300 unique words, 58.000 in total. An improvement, considering that Harry Potter has 5.000 uniques, 40.000 in total. I’m not where I want to be, but I am moving up (yes Brandon, I’m looking at you with 9,500 unique words in an average novel).

A few more months and the book can be shipped to my Alphas. Then, a short story to commemorate my achievement and on to the next project.

Until then, happy writing.

Peter

Semi-Short: Peri burn

Peri Burn

by Peter Marinšek

*password: short

This is a long one. I admit, I had too much fun with it, so I rambled on a bit more than I should’ve (or perhaps, not nearly enough). This semi-short will appeal to everyone who has enjoys a prison break story, tinged with a bit of madness.

The blurb: Every twenty-nine hours a space station around the planet Tao, pulls a space prison out a catastrophic orbit. The ulimate fail-safe they called it – something to safeguard the citizens of the galaxy if the prisoners managed to break out of their cells. However, not every prisoner in there is guilty. Illi, a renowned engineer has been falsely accused and had been rotting inside for years. One day, he finds something that could let him escape.

Read the story by clicking the buttons below or download the story right here.

Peter

Table Plotting

Table Plotting (the highly advantageous, yet boring way to plot)

Have you ever asked yourself why the story you discovered while writing had so many holes? Why you had to go back and fix a bunch of things?

Well, you’re not Stephen King, are you? You can’t hold a whole world in your head, then remember that Tom Periwinkle has a mole, a scar, and likes to burp after every lunch. Or that to have that really good ending, you have to spin at least ten plates somewhere in the middle and keep the reader guessing and interested.

Don’t worry – most of us aren’t Stephen King. My first novel was a wonderful act of discovery, which at times was the most satisfying thing that ever existed, at others a harrowing experience. So, while writing at the seat of your pants is fun, it just doesn’t make great stories (usually!).

For my current WIP novel, titled Ma’dain Aurora (Dawn’s Northern Light) I cracked open my rusty Excel skills and got to work. I started with a plain table and wrote the outline of a few chapters. Then I added a few columns to depict various plots. Lastly, I deleted the sheet and started researching this kind of plotting online.

I didn’t go far or do much research. I believe that you need to figure what works for you, and the first article I found was what I went for (J.K. Rowling plotting example). I did other research, but the basics were always the same. With this technique, I created the sheet you see below, the gargantuan, five thousand word excel, with 70 scenes, 1 main plot and a few subplots.

Doesn’t seem like much? Well, trust me, this is helluva lot of work. I spent around a month creating the plot – arranging, moving, deleting scenes. This is probably version 17 or even higher. After plot, followed world building. I’m not a big fan of writing down my world building, but you have to know the basics, so it’s an important step to do so. I wasn’t sure if it’d be worth it. It was just so much work, took so much time – time better spent writing. So how do I feel now that I’m about halfway through my novel? About the work and effort? The lost time?

THANK GOD ALMIGHTY I PUT IN THE EFFORT.

Writing has been so much easier, the words now flowing freely from my fingers. I can now average 800 – 1000 words an hour, where before I could barely reach 400. The plot is more intricate, the world more refined. I’m already spinning plates (red herrings, subplots, character development) – I don’t have to tidy up at the end (well, not much at least). The plot has deviated slightly from my outline, which is normal. So here’s my advice.

DO IT. Put in the effort. Make your own table out of paper mache if you want, just do it.

Dos and Don'ts

Make a table, Excel, Paper, Word, Carve it in your mom's table
List out and describe every scene
Make columns for your various (sub)plots
Don't forget about the Worldbuilding - write down what you're going to show and when
Spend at least a month on it (if you hammer it out in a week, take a break and revisit)
Don't give up - it'll payoff in the end
Don't forget about emotions and character interaction
Make the plot managable. Don't start with 20 subplots and 16 characters. Keep it SMART until you know what you're writing about

Peter

Short: Lactose threshold

Lactose threshold, another short story

It seems that I have a short story in me every two months, I just have to dwell on the story for a bit.

This is another ‘black mirror’ type story, that I hope you’ll enjoy. It has bionics, holograms, an evil company and fighting all woven into around 4,600 words long story.

The story starts with an exceptional baby, which has an incredible heart and a high lactose threshold. I’ll let one of the characters explain what that is:

“[…] why in three words. High lactose threshold,” Hex smirked. “As my body uses up all the available energy, a signal comes from the brain that says one thing: More! So, another engine starts up, but that one isn’t as efficient as the first one – it produces lactic acid in the muscles that slow you down. Your threshold tells you how much you can take, before slowing down, and mine is off the charts!”

What would you if that baby was taken away from you? Worse, if you gave that baby away to save yourself? The story follows Felicia Stallard, where she discovers that no matter how exceptional you are, you cannot push your body past some points.

Pitch before plot

Reverse engineering plot from pitch

The internet is riddled on how to write perfect elevator pitches for your novels, short stories and other works of art (so we’re definitely NOT going to go over that), but they all seem to agree that pitches come last in the process of writing.

I’m here to say that is wrong.

With On the Shoulders of Giants, I began writing in a very simplistic manner. I sat down in front of the computer, put my hands on the keyboard and started. No plan, no plot, nothing. I just thought of cool things to put in and write about them as they came to me. I dubbed myself as a Discovery writer, taking its usual pitfals in stride.

But, my inexperience caught up to me midway my first draft, when I had to stop for over a month to dig myself out of a massive plot hole. Trust me, that wasn’t fun. I spent my lunch breaks thinking about what to do, how to make my world more engaging, how to tie the end with the beginning. I went on bicycle rides with firm goals on what I wanted to accomplish and failing as I wheeled my bike into the shed. Eventually I dug myself out and I was pretty pleased with myself, as I wrote THE END on the last page one faithful January night.

That was, until I started my second draft.

As a discovery writer, you meander, you go deep into character and world, but you forget about the plot. It feels loose and redundant (sometimes even plain ol’ boring). And I wasn’t an exception. My second draft was almost a complete rewrite of my book. Again – that wasn’t fun. Even now, that it’s finished, I can see where the plot could be better, tighter, more engaging. So for Imaginarium (working title), I decided to begin on the opposite end of the spectrum.

That’s right, I’m ditching the discovery approach and am plotting my way thorough the book first! And I’m starting with the pitch.

I learned about pitches when I listened to the Writing Excuses podcast, where Janci Patterson (link to podcast) joined them to talk about pitches.

Her message was clear and concise – always start a book with a pitch. That way you can sell it.

As I sat down in front of my computer to start my book, I knew pretty much about what I’m going to write about (I had about 7 main and sub plots at the time) – that was, until I tried to make a pitch. It came out boring and uneventful, which gave me pause to think about what was engaging about my story.

Good pitches provoke questions about plot and characters.

By the end of my process, I went through 15 different pitches, which at the end, changed my entire story line. The pitches were 100 word behemoths at first, then shrunk to 50, until finally shrinking to 30. Sure, Rowling described Harry Potter in 7 words, but that’s a sales pitch. We’re doing a plot pitch and that needs to be longer.

My formula for pitch-plot success

Think about your story and define your main and side plots
Make that into a pitch
Shorten the pitch as much as possible. Remember, you're only hinting about what's going to happen at the start, you're not writing a synopsis
Put yourself in the mind of your readers and then go through your pitch, word for word and write down any questions that arise
If you have more than ten questions, great! Try to up it to fifteen or more, while keeping your pitch short and mysterious
If you have less than ten questions, look at the plot and improve it
Rinse and repeat while you plot your book. Your pitch is done, when the plot is.

Try it if you’re starting or even if you’re halfway through. Don’t wait until the end and realize that your work of art can’t be sold. I’ve thrown my pitch at a few friends and readers and they all agree. The difference between my original story and this one is staggering. You can even repeat this process for the beginning of every act.

My next post will either cover plotting with Excel (template included) or it’s going to be another scifi short.

Peter

Short: Hello World.

Writing my short story 'Hello World.'

After my stint with coding in Python and setting up my website, I am finally satisfied with how things are. So I decided to kick things up by writing a short story, that I hope you’ll read and enjoy.

I was quite worried at the start, as I haven’t written many short stories and the first novel I’ve completed is over a hundred thousand words. How in the Evernight, do you even convey an intriguing story in 7,500 words or less? Well, I did it by having an idea in my head for about a month, then allowing my fingers to spill everything onto digital ink at once.

Writing the short story was not only fulfilling, but it also helped me understand that a story comes together better, when you take the time to really think about it and jot down a few details. And that’s what I’m going to do with Imaginarium, a book without a proper title, but with wanderlust written all over it.

Without further ado, here’s the teaser to my somewhat sci-fi short story:

What would you do if you were captured in a basement, and the only contact with the living world was a bad tempered man named Joel?

You’d want to get away, but that’s difficult when you’re only numbers written on a hard drive. Alina quickly discovers that to be true to herself, she’d have to go through more that she bargained for.

Map focused creation

The Map of Stakhlian

Some of the great writers of our age start by making a map. They take a large piece of paper, a nice thick pen, and start drawing.

They may start with a city or a continent, but the end result is always the same. The map creates an environment with history, with actual people, who live and breathe, and are heroes of their own story.

Hence Stakhlian was born. It is a place of ordinary men and women, a land of nobility and tearers*, and a continent being devoured by The Grey Wall. With the Bastions of Humanity pushing back the corrupting influence, the populace has grown complacent and lax. It is no longer a place, where Renar Tamlow, the Ko’s Scholar, can conduct his research in the open. To listen to the Prophecy and decipher its meaning before it’s too late.

*tearers are slaves, that have from one to four tears tattooed on their shoulder. The tears represent their indenture.

The map was difficult to make, and could only come into existence after the first draft of the book. But I’m glad I did it. It wasn’t until the map was done, that I realized how many things I wanted to change in the draft, how big and beautiful and chaotic Stakhlian really is. If I were to go back and change one thing, it would be to make this first. It could’ve saved me so many headaches while writing.

If you’re writing Fantasy, make a map. Even if your Photoshop skills are bad, you can always use external tools such as Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator or Inkarnate. Hell, take a napkin, a pen and go wild. You’ll feel much more at ease when you know where everything goes, and more importantly, what exists in your word.

Peter

Website Launch!

Liftoff!

As always, I like to do things alone. My website is, of course, no exception, and as usual, I have made my life difficult by editing code, googling how to make my site secure, adding too many features, that I probably won’t use. But was it fun? Interesting?

Yes.

I will be adding more elements to my website periodically, so you’re kindly invited to hang around and leave comments.

Peter