Meet the Books! - Turning the Century

 Well, it's been a good while since the last Meet the Books!, and I've got two new projects (sort-of) since then, so let's get cracking. This one, previously known by the titles Divided and The World That Was, is coauthored with the Grim Writer, whose blog is here. I will mostly focus on my side of the story, as I know it better. (Perhaps Grim will grace us with her own Meet the Books! post to better introduce her side of the story...? EDIT: Grim's splendid supplementary post is here. Definitely go read it - it will make a bit more sense out of things.)

I really must redo this graphic at some point. It is so very pathetic...

What is the title?

The present title is Turning the Century, but it has been known by the above titles before now.

What is the genre? Time period?

Okay... Um. So we might have sort-of invented a genre...? I guess we'll call it a Fantasy. That works, right? It's a strange sort of Fantasy, though. It's strange because of the time period. You see, the book's world is divided into two halves, in two different period-inspired times. The first half is based on the 1920s, and the second half is based on the 1890s, I believe. 

How is it written (POV, format, etc.)?

We've gone with third person for this, mostly limited. We have stylistically strayed from limited a couple times, though, I think. We're going with a traditional novel format for the most part. Now, the one difference is that, since there are two authors, there is sort of a split of which characters/places are written by whom. In general, scenes in Bellafossa or from my characters' POVs are written by myself, and scenes in Bricklebury or from Grim's characters' POVs are written by Grim. 

What is the setting?

The setting is twofold. The first setting you see is Bellafossa, a rich, decadent, dissipated city loosely based off of Italian and 1920s culture. The second setting introduced is Bricklebury, an impoverished and war-torn fantasy village held together by a few influential patrons, inspired by Britain in the 1890s. 

Who are the characters?

In Bellafossa...

Gianni Verreni is a rich, young gentleman in Bellafossa. He is absent-minded, quiet, heartily lost in the world he lives in, old-fashioned, and perhaps a bit curmudgeonly. He is my main character and POV. He is quite fond of his younger sister,

Fioria Verreni, called Fio. She is a high socialite with spirits as bubbly as champagne and a character to match. She is quite independent, and she enjoys her riches and freedom. She's never worked a day in her life nor had to do anything harder than convince Gianni to take her places. She is Grim's main character and POV.

The suitors are a gang of high-society fellows, mostly working for Vin (explained in a moment), and all quite enamored of Fio. Those particularly worth mentioning are Addio, a fashionable sulker, one of Vin's right hand men, and the one most struck by Fio; Gerry, a fun-loving smooth talker who never misses a party or a trick, also one of Vin's boys.

Flavio Vitale is one of Gianni's best friends, but also a frivolous and somewhat nervous fellow, with good reason; he is very dangerously in debt to Vin and his boys. 

Iago Potenza is Gianni's other best friend. As he tells it, he witnessed his father, mother, and uncle, and his second cousin being shot when he was a boy. He is now an existentialist artist who believe the world is an abyss of suffering, and his only particularly real mission in life is to remove Vin's operation from power. He is always trying to do this, with the help of Gianni and Flavio. 

Vincente Vespa, commonly known as Vin, is a very rich, influential man about town who pulls most of the strings around Bellafossa. Nearly every chap from the old, rich families works for him, and he hosts much of high society at his nephew's ritzy place, the Rubino. It is well-known that he does things under the table and gets his power the hard way, but nobody can prove it. Vin and his boys - those who are admitted to his special circle - are the center of Bellafossa's society, regardless of anybody else's feelings about it. 

In Bricklebury...

Bernard Chester, later to be dubbed "Bob" by Fio for no particular reason, is one of the only pillars left holding Bricklebury up. He comes from an old, noble, wealthy family there, but doesn't have much wealth left, unless compared to the rest of the town. He is Grim's other MC. 

Anne Chester, known as Nancy, is Bernard's cousin. She is also one of my other MCs. She has mysteriously disappeared from Bricklebury when Fio arrives, and nobody but Bob and his confidantes seem to know anything about it...

Saoirse is Miss Nancy's maid, whom Fio renames Wyo because she can't spell Saoirse. 

Lady Macready is one of the strangest old women Fio has ever met (and, yes, her name rhymes). She lives in a house that has feet, apparently her dog is her long-enchanted husband, and she knows about secret things around Bricklebury. She is one of the only people helping Bob to keep the town afloat. 

Odysseus Wilde is a long-gone inventor and relative of Bob and Nancy. Rumored to be either quite crazy or a genius, bits and pieces of his various projects litter the Chester mansion. He hasn't been heard of since the War. Nobody is really sure what happened to him.

What does the plot consist of?

The plot begins with Fio and Gianni living it up in the Bellafossa half, a world that vaguely remembers the word "war," but has no idea what it means. They are comfortable and have their own private dramas until a hungover Fio messes with something she shouldn't and lands herself in the Bricklebury's world, a place where a great war still leaves its long shadow, impoverishing and dividing the land. Bricklebury has a grave problem with malign fantastical creatures. (Heh. Grave. Methinks I made a pun for you, Grim...) This leads some from Bricklebury to propose a great plan to try and reach the other side of the world using haphazard inventions from a lost lunatic. On Bellafossa's side, there is a serious gangster problem. Vin pretty much owns the city, and he has no intention of letting the threesome who oppose him go. Gianni increasingly gets in hot water when he starts a fight with one of Vin's boys on account of Fio's disappearance, and he is very soon on the run with a mysterious stranger who seems to know what happened to Fio...

(Anyhow, I described it really badly, but it should be a pretty fun story. Hopefully Grim will do a Meet the Books! for it as well so you can get some better synopses.)

What gave you the idea?

Eh.... *searching back into the abyss of brainstorming from years ago* I think we vaguely based the idea on some fairy tale awhile back. You know, the one where the girl falls down a well and discovers another world? Well, in the original draft of this story, Fio did fall down a well, but we changed the means of transportation to an old, crashed plane. I would give credit where credit is due with ideas and all that, but it's been so long, I really can't remember who came up with what. As for the time period overhaul, I suggested it to be funny, but Grim liked it and really fleshed it out (thanks for that!), so here we are. 

Who are the favorite characters so far?

Well, nobody's really read the whole thing, but I think Fio is pretty well-liked by authors and sneak-readers alike. She really was meant to be a flapper - the medieval period was really cramping her style. 

What is the favorite scene so far?

Again, nobody's really read it in earnest, so there isn't one yet.

Any drawings? Aesthetics?

I don't have any drawings, but I have a couple aesthetics. (Grim has even more, so let's hope she does a post also, at least to show off the aesthetics.) 

Storyboard. My image.

My image.

Any themes of music for the story?

Well, we've actually had to write a song for this story. Don't ask why... It's kind of complicated. Anyhow, though, we do have an original song for the story. It... does not have a name yet. We also have a playlist for writing it too, here. (Hopefully it's accessible... I can't tell). 

Any snippets?

Here goes...

***

“Back-step, kick-step, kick-kick-kick-back…?” Two feet crashed through the stained glass window, each belonging to a different person.

Gianni lifted his foot out of the conservatory window pane gingerly. “Don’t tell me that was what’s supposed to happen.”

“No, no, no!” Fio tossed her head back and laughed. “You can’t just keep kicking 

backwards. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Don’t forget, you did it too.”

“I was just following you.” She lifted her foot out of the window pane.

Gianni frowned at the broken window thoughtfully. “I think that’s the first time the conservatory window’s been broken since I hit a baseball into it when I was ten.”

Fio grinned. “Well, then, it’s about time, honey. It was in need of some excitement.”

***

It was swinging at the Rubino that night. If Fio hadn’t been thoroughly used to it, she might’ve felt a bit blinded walking in, the room glittering with champagne and diamonds. Just past the bar area, the open silver floor was barely visible through the many dancers. Every one of Vincente Vespa’s boys was there every night, and every rich doll, and just everybody who was anybody. Nobodies simply didn’t come to the Rubino. And judging from the atmosphere, it was going to be a killer diller night for everybody that did. Fio fluffed up the feathers on her dress excitedly. 

“Oh,” said Gianni dubiously, glancing around as they entered the floor. 

“What do you mean, ‘oh,’ you old grump?”

“The entire string of victims is here.”

***

Strangely, though the squirrels had quieted and the only birds singing were doves, as Fio kept walking, she had the distinctly unpleasant notion that she was not alone. Somebody was watching her.

“I’m just crazy with hangover and worry,” she said to herself, with a nervous laugh. But she started walking a little faster all the same.

There was the ravine ahead of her—but where was the path down? She walked to the edge and paced up and down a moment, trying to determine where the path had gone—but it seemed that years of weather had worn down the earth and rendered the cliff too steep to be traversed. 

“What a bummer,” she said aloud, pouting her lower lip in an attempt at humor, but in reality, she was close to tears. It was very silly of her to see that ravine and that old plane as the key to fixing her relationship with Gianni, no doubt, but she’d almost begun to believe her little daydream in her short time walking. She walked back the way she had come a bit, and stood peering over the ledge, trying to make out the details of the plane’s dark form on the bottom of the ravine. It was covered in leaves from all the autumns since she and Gianni had last visited it and brushed it off, but it was still there.

***

Gianni and Fio’s father had successfully got the machine to start when they had first found it. However, as he was not a pilot, and it was so old, he had determined he would never attempt to fly it, nor sell it, nor give it away. The children love playing on it, so there it shall stay, he had said. 

But that didn’t mean Fio couldn’t give it a go. With difficulty she managed to get herself into the seat, despite the years of forest debris within it. 

The key was in the engine—but when she reached for it something clinked to the floor of the cockpit. She reached down with a grunt—another key? Yes, a silvery one, with an odd shape, and a tiny face etched into the key’s end. There was a half-rotted string loop that had attached it to the other key until it had broken at her touch. 

Fio frowned, and, slinging her purse tighter over her shoulder, she stuffed the key into it and zipped it closed. 

Then she turned the other key in the engine.

“Well, here goes nothing.”

But the engine roared to life, and as she pressed her high heel against the accelerator, unbelievably, the plane began to move, crackling slowly through dry leaves, picking up speed—and then time seemed to freeze for her. 

Would it take off?

In that frozen moment, she smelt something peculiar—something marvelous—something far more pleasant than antique engine oil.

She didn’t have time to determine what it was before the plane took off—and she was rising up—up—through the trees, into that lovely sleek blue of the sky. 

Fio couldn’t help but whoop with delight at the sheer adrenaline high it gave her—

And then the engine stalled—and stopped.

With a bloodcurdling shriek, Fioria Verreni and her antique airplane plummeted to the earth. 

***

And, appropriately, I think, I'll leave you there at the end of my part of things...

Strong point in the story?

Well, the strongest point right now is probably Grim's energy for it, haha... But on a more serious note, I think we've been okay about making the fantasy and storyline and such fairly creative and not too reliant on any stereotypes. 

Weak point in the story?

Eh, my part, haha... In the original draft, my part was a little boring. My people just traveled around looking for something and never finding it. I think my part might still be a little boring unless I figure out another plotline to set up in it. 

What are your plans for it?

That is a good question... Unfortunately, I have no answer. Other than finishing it at our leisurely pace, I don't think we really have a plan. 

Any particular writing habits for it?

Not particularly, but it seems an almost universally true rule that if we both get on there to write, very little writing gets done... 

If it were made into a movie, what would be your ideal cast for it?

Okay... So, I spent way too much time trying to think of some good castings, but, really, just look at the face claims on the aesthetics. I think those are pretty good. (Grim has more face claims as well...)

Well, this post is ridiculously long, so I will end it without further ado. Have a good weekend, all!