WIP it up-Out of the Machine; Into the Heart

In an earlier post, I wrote about a few pieces I was working on and mentioned that I would go into further detail on each story later. I’ll give them all their own post that way I can go as in-depth as I wanna.

One of the pieces I mentioned was a novel that I wanted to edit up and submit to the James Jones Fellowship (update 5/29: I did not get it). It’s a novel that right now sits at about 42,000 words, so it’s at the smaller end of a novel, and feels more like a novella due to the fast pacing, sci-fi-ness, and pulpy nature of the whole piece.

It takes place in “the city” a setting that I’ve visited a lot in my short fiction. ‘Unwanteds‘ takes place in said “city”. Like with all my stories, it came to me all in a rush–story, world, characters, beginning-middle-end, and title all at once. And it’s one of those stories that when it came, it felt like something real. Something that could be, dare I say, great.

‘Out of the Machine; Into the Heart’ is meant to be “the city’s” biography as well as a gritty detective story. I want to explore all parts of the city and its subculture while the characters try to get to the bottom of the truth behind “the city’s” growing missing population.

The main plot is a detective story told from several different points of view. One is the father of the missing person. The other is a suspect in the disappearances and heir to ‘the city’s’ largest movie theater. And a character that is a part of the company and group responsible for all the disappearances.

I wrote the first draft over a year ago and knew I wanted a lot of space and growth before returning to edit it up for submitting. I’ve grown a lot as a writer since I first put this story down and as I read through it and prepare it for a thematic and structural edit, I can tell how differently I view the text, characters, and world.

For now, that’s all I have time or brain space to share about the project, but as I go through, I want to share more about the individual sections of the city and people. I’ve considered making a separate website for these larger works so that I can let my creativity go and build whatever it wants without limit.