Last night I began querying my scifi novel GOD FACTORY.
It’s been a long road for this little book. Six years, possibly seven. It’s changed shape so many times and so radically that, looking back at the earliest drafts, I can barely see the outline of what it would become.
It started around 2013 as a fantasy novel, a prequel to The Ragged Blade in which one of TRB’s villains was a young man exploring the Fortress of Locks. In this adventure, the protagonist would accidentally unleash a terrible evil and, in containing it, be forced to make a lose-lose decision that would set him on a path to becoming the villain of The Ragged Blade.
In 2015, sitting in my grandparents’ back yard in Devon, I admitted to myself that the story I was developing didn’t fit into the world of The Ragged Blade. It was either a completely new fantasy universe, or not fantasy at all.
By 2017, after four complete redrafts and intensive edits, I had what I felt was a damn fine scifi adventure novel. I began querying, and agents liked the pitch. They liked it a lot! And yet, no bites.
I collected their feedback. Stared at it for another two years.
Gave up.
In early-2019, one hour into a seven-hour road-trip from Melbourne to Canberra, I turned to my wife and said, “I don’t want to walk away from God Factory.”
She said, “What’s not working?”
“Well. Well.”
We worked through structural problems for the next six hours. I drove and talked. She provided insights and took notes. By the time we arrived in Canberra, I was mentally exhausted. I looked at pages upon pages of relationship diagrams, arrows weaving in and out of worldbuilding notes, insights on theme and motivation.
The ones that mattered most were circled.
MC’S AREN’T JUST PARTNERS IN CRIME. THEY’RE BROTHER AND SISTER.
THEY’RE NOT GOING TO A STRANGE PLANET. THEY’RE GOING HOME.
CONFLICT AND THEME: RESTORATION VS EVOLUTION
That was it. The core of the book. The core of a better book, one that’d been hiding just around the corner since 2014.
There wasn’t much of the old MS to save. The opening scenes, kinda. About 2000 words from the closing act. Everything else was fresh. I took the manuscript through another two complete drafts before Christmas, and a third in the opening months of 2020.
I cut mercilessly. The MS slimmed from 120k to 100k (and then expanded back to 102k, because I’m indulgent). I added a fresh cast of characters, additional complications, character arcs, heartbreaks, conflicts, and catharsis.
And it felt good.
It all wrapped up last night. The first emails have gone out to agents. It’s the first time I’ve queried anything since late 2017, and I’m scared.
I’m also hopeful.
Fingers crossed, friends. Good luck with all your projects, and keep an eye out for THE RAGGED BLADE 2 in late 2020/early 2021!
Abel Gedeyon, by Fenris13 (https://www.deviantart.com/fenris31). Commissioned in 2015 to help me better visualize the protagonist of GOD FACTORY.