My first novel: The Redemption of Wesley Kracken
My first novel is about this dude who travels to the Kingdom of Garion across the ocean to rescue their king who has been taken away by a magical and evil being known as a skeliphon. The main character is from a country comparable to the U.S., while the land where his adventure takes him has technoledgy only slighty above a medieval level, and any more is forbidden and forgotten. One this different from this book and other similar-genre stories you'd think of when you read the first sentance of this paragraph, is this that there is nothing special about my main character. He has no special powers or skills, but must find something or someone else to rely on which is more powerful than he is.
I began writing it when I was fifteen and finished the first draft when I was eighteen and have been revising it off and on ever since. It is loosely based on a short story I wrote when I was eleven or twelve called "Monster World," which was what the Kingdom of Garion was called before it was renamed.. One thing I never changed was the name of the main character Jax Jackson. It is my first novel, but I think it's pretty good for a first novel.
I removed the chapters from the website because I glanced at them and remembered how terrible the book is. (Pretty good for a first novel can still be pretty bad.) I've started rewriting it and the new version is better, but I don't know if it's enough better. I haven't gotten very far with the rewrite and haven't worked on it in awhile.
By the way, if you read the book of a beginning writer, no matter how terrible the book is, don't just tell them it's terrible. Someone did that to me and it hurts. It was a a while back, and I've forgiven the person, but I can't forget it. Don't lie to the person and tell them they're a great author either. Tell the beginning writer instead that it's not that bad for a first novel, but it needs a lot of improvement, rewriting, and stuff.
My second novel: A Step Up.Eleven years later, Jax Jackson has another adventure this time to a fairyland. He now has a wife and two little children who are part of the adventure. The story begins with two gargoyles who want something different from their monotonous life in the Rixsan Mountains. One of them also finds his way across the sea to the fairyland called Remmie and learn the ways of the fairies. Jax and the other gargoyle find themselves in a dimmer, foggy land, known as The Silver Land, where they are tempted to forget everything and everyone they know. Those who do arrive to Remmie successfully must rescue them and are opposed by demons, the silver grepse, and an elven warlock.
This novel, noticably better written than the first, was begun not long after the first was finished and the first draft was completed when I was 23. It is less straightforward with its message and probably more effective that way. Only a couple characters from The Redemption of Wesley Kracken return in this story (More will return in the third book of the series). When I was 14 and 15, I wrote half of a novel which was going to be the sequel to The Redemption of Wesley Kracken. It was never finished, but A Step Up is very loosely based on it. Looking back after finishing the first novel, I realized it had to be completely re-written. So it was replaced by A Step Up.
This book has some good stuff in it, but it's still not worthy of getting published. I might eventually get around to rewriting it, but alternatively I can write something else which might be better..