I know there aren’t many followers to this site, but I’m hopeful I’ll get more. I hope to build a strong platform that might catch the interest of an agent that they’ll consider offering me representation. Representation for what? Well, to those of you who’ve read my bio, you might have noticed that line where I claim to have written a novel and yet, nothing about that novel is on this site. So, there lies the question of “You claim you’re an author, but where’s the novel?”
I love stories. I love reading them, watching them in movies and tv shows, and hearing them through word of mouth. I was definitely that kid in class who was daydreaming about different stories (whether fanfiction or original) instead of paying attention to what the teacher was saying. If you go through the notes I took throughout my schooling, you’ll find tons of doodles that corollate to one of the stories in my head. I just love stories! I love the escape from reality that they offer and the adventures into unknown lands that they take you on. I love the lessons they teach, the characters involved, and a tension-filled plot. My favorite types of stories are fantasies with knights and mages, elves and centaurs, magic and heartache, so on and so forth. So, naturally, my novel is a fantasy with brave and questionable knights, headstrong mages, and elves with keen senses. If you want to imagine a setting for the story, think of a land inspired by Narnia: a beautiful landscape with dwarves mining in the mountains, fairies and fauns dancing through the forests, centaurs standing guard on the plains, elves in tuned with nature, and, yes, your typical human too. The capital of this magical land is bold and majestic and harbors a castle as mighty as the castle in “Hyrule Warriors; Age of Calamity” (before it got destroyed, of course).
Now, you might be thinking: “this sounds cliché. Knights, Narnia, and majestic castles have all been done before,” but the setting doesn’t make a story–think of all the novels out there set in New York or a small midwestern town. My novel has far much more than just a beautiful setting, and if you ask me, the most important thing it has is its characters.
Well, duh! All novels have characters! However, when it comes to my novel, the characters are the ones who drive the story. Sure, the plot is a bit “Lord of the Rings” like with some ancient artifact needed to destroy the big bad guy, but it has taken a lot for my characters to finally put that plot in place. It took me ten years to complete my novel and I have experienced it all from my characters. They’ve made me laugh. They’ve made me cry. They’ve stabbed me in the heart and have stabbed me in the back. They’ve been there for me when I was down and I’ve been with them through every part of their lives. Years ago, I had to do a complete revision of the whole novel and it was hard. I didn’t want to accept that my precious novel needed work and that some of the characters just weren’t making the story the best it could be. Yet, like the growing author I am, I sat down and had a “conference” with my characters. We figured out what was working and what wasn’t and how things could change for the better (and it certainly gave me some new ideas for later down the road). Then, I started writing the novel all over again from the prologue to the end and I couldn’t be happier with how it all turned out. It is definitely a story worth reading.
Yes, I know. I’m bias. As the author, I think my novel is the greatest in the world, but I’m not so foolish to not ask for feedback. I’ve had a few alpha readers (nonwriters) and one beta reader (an actual writer) read it so far and I’ve had only good reviews. Now, with how busy life is, my readers can’t always get a chapter or even a paragraph back to me, but what feedback I’ve had has helped me tremendously. I’ve rewritten scenes based on feedback and those new scenes have only improved the story. Like I said, I’ve yet to have someone tell me the story isn’t interesting or the writing isn’t good (at least, no one will admit that to me if that’s what they really think). So, I’m going to continue to push forward with my novel and all the novels I want to write in the future (the next one I have planned is a sci-fi). I’ll keep querying my agents in my free time and I hope all of you will help me by promoting my website, stretching my author platform, and showing interest in my novel. If anything you’ve read so far has prodded at your curiosity, feel free to like this post or comment down below (you may have to have an actual WordPress login to do so. I’m still working out the kinks of this site). I’ll post updates about my progress and give more sneak peeks into my novel later down the road. So, stay tuned!
nikki diekemper 