The Soundtrack Part One

Nearly everyone has a soundtrack of music that inspires their work. Stephanie Meyer used Muse – I’m sure they are soooooo over the moon about that. Anyway here is mine:-

Two Steps From Hell:-

Fill My Heart, Infinite Legends, Archangel.

(These are my “trailer” tracks – Fill My Heart is the romantic trailer and focuses on the early years of Nic and Ari; Arachangel is the climax trailer; Infinite Legends is a mix of these two)

Vitamin String Quartet:-

Knights of Cydonia (the original Muse version also works), Clocks (the original Coldplay version doesn’t work).

Frankie Goes to Hollywood:-

The Power of Love (Nic’s love theme – cliche for the Vampire really)

Snow Patrol:-

Set the Fire to the Third Bar (Ari’s love theme)

The Piano Guys:-

Rolling in the Deep, Michael Meets Mozart

(These two tracks are for a specific scene which I’m not discussing)

Now I’m sure you noticed that this was called Part One, I’ll post the other character’s theme’s love or otherwise another day – little by little.

Aracelle and Nic: Changing A Character in a Story

Some more editing notes….

When I started NaNoWriMo, I started with minimal notes and character history. I was going to freestyle it; build up the characters as I went. One character I am particularly hooked on was Aracelle, the Seraph. I like her, she’s a romantic but powerful character without being too sappy – I hope. However, when I started writing more about Aracelle and her relationship with Nic, I started placing them in a different setting – a modern setting – as a fledging couple.

Then arrived the magical class idea. Aracelle is a demonologist in the rough draft that is on here, now she is human and a Watcher class Mage. In an idea lifted from many fantasies, Mages have longer lives than us bog standard humans – Aracelle is capable of living about 600-700 years, and her 100 years she will be now is relatively young, but due to the backstory she will have grown up rather quick after her life was pulled out from under her.

This made me ask the question, would that automatically make her cynical. It’s a bit of a cliché that those who have had to grow up pretty quick are cynical however, she is not. Listening to her thoughts, Aracelle just gets on with what is thrown at her – yeah she can be wary but she has Nic to pull the cynical moves.

And what a cynical sod our hero is! But who can blame him – he’s been turned into a vampire by his archenemy. I think I’d be pissed too.

Backstory wise, Nic is our Prince Charming who has turned devil. He utterly adores Aracelle and this continues on after being made a vampire although he tends to keep away from her. He doesn’t trust himself around her but he does maintain his friendship with their mutual friend, Stephen. So when the story means these two have to spend time together there is a genuine concern that he will kill her such is his desire for her. As a vampire, he is bound by all the usual rules – sunlight, stakes, holy water – well blessed water. However, something is changing because he’s just walked into Aracelle’s home without any invitation what so ever.

Editing the Seraph Chronicles

In every writers life comes the editing process. Now as you know, I was writing for NaNoWriMo and although I did not finish, I did get over 22k of words out in the two weeks I committed to NaNoWriMo. I’m sure you can understand that my assignment for my English degree came first.
So I’m editing those 22k words to create the story I really want; the one that was such a loose frame when I started on Chronicles there was no way it was going to pull together – but with the help of some inspirational music (Two Steps from Hell, the Vitamin String Quartet and the Piano Guys in particular) and a pen and pad the Chronicles are slowly taking on a bit of a new shape
So here is a little shot of what one of my most recent pages looks like…

This is actually a relatively ‘quiet’ section. Some places have already had massive overhauls. 
The editing is actually rather a lot of fun for me. It’s good to see where I started and now were I want to go.