Author Harry Gilleland
is stopping by today for a guest post. His short novel is called Aldric and Anneliese. Please join me in welcoming him.
The Background Story of Aldric and Anneliese
This past February I published through 4RV Publishing (http://4rvpublishingllc.com/index.html) a short novel entitled “Aldric and Anneliese”. It was about time, since I started thinking about doing so in 2004. Back in 2004 I wrote a series of seven storoems (story poems) entitled The Wandering Warrior I -VII and later published them in Gilleland Poetry: Storoems and Poems (2005). Together these storoems made an epic poem, having a total of ninety rhyming quatrains or 360 lines. I always felt these poems would make a great story if converted into a prose book.
That thought nagged at me for years, but I was busy with publishing first a contemporary novel, White Lightning Road (2006) and then Poetic Musings of an Old, Fat Man (2008), a collection of my poetry. Finally, in 2009 I started to actually write the book but soon hit a point where I wasn't sure where to go with the story. The reworked storoems were to be subject matter for the middle portion of the new prose book. I knew how to write the lead up to that part of the story but did not know how to write the final section. So, I abandoned writing on it for more than a year, but I kept mulling over the plot consciously and unconsciously.
One day during February, 2010, I realized how the story should proceed and went back to writing it with a vengeance. I revised and finished the draft in about four months of steady writing. Last June I submitted it to 4RV Publishing. Editing required more rewriting, but I think the finished book tells a great story. My original choice of title was the same as the storoems, but that title of Wandering Warrior had already been used for another novel. Therefore, I decided to name it after two pivotal characters, Aldric and Anneliese.
As a corollary issue, I have been asked why I stopped writing at 46,100 words, making it a short novel, i.e. why didn’t I write until I had at least 60,000 words? The answer is simple. When I start writing a story, I do not have a minimum length in mind. I wrote the story I wanted to tell. It just happened to turn out to be a short novel at 46,100 words. I believe an author should set out to tell the story as he envisions the plot, not to set an arbitrary number of words as the goal. I could have padded the word count by adding characters or additional scenes, but I had the story that I wanted to tell it without adding any unnecessary filler. To me it is a tight read as is, which is what I strove to accomplish. I like to remind people that Dickens' famous A Christmas Carol was only about 29,000 words, and it turned out to be a pretty great story.
It took seven years for me to take Aldric and Anneliese from an epic poem to a prose novel, but I hope readers will think it was worthwhile.
Aldric & Anneliese is a tale of nation building, kings, knights, fair ladies, battles won and lost, triumph, betrayal, tragedy, revenge, redemption, and great loves It is a story for the ages.
Thank you, Naida, for allowing me to contribute to your blog today. I much appreciate the opportunity.
Cheers!
Harry Gilleland
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Thank you for stopping by to chat Harry. I have never heard the term 'storoems'. I can imagine Aldric and Anneliese is an interesting tale, historical fiction and romance being two of my favorite things. I am also a big fan of poetry and enjoy lyrical writing.
Best of luck!
