Reading My Old Writing | The Overlord Saga: Book Two
Hello and welcome to the second part of my three-part personal series in which I am cringing at my own past writing. If you can’t afford a chiropractor, you may not want to be here, because the level of cringe is pretty dang high. Some of this writing is really angsty and downright terrible, so you’re gonna have to brace yourself. If you were able to survive what I put out last week, though, you’ll probably be okay with this post.
Last week, as a reminder, I went over the first book in the Overlord Saga, which is a series of books that I wrote between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. That first book was filled with terrible dialogue, ill-portrayed romance, and severe issues with story structure. Today, I’m going over the second book in the series. I actually wrote six books in this series, but unfortunately have only been able to find the first two. So after I finish reading excerpts from The Overlord Saga’s first two books, I’m going to move on to excerpts from other books I wrote after this series, including my published novel How I Ruined My Life. That’ll be in the next post!
Okay, I’ve put this off enough. It’s time to start reading these excerpts from The Overlord Saga, Book II: The Perfect Storm. Yeah, we can cringe at that title, first.
The Overlord Saga II: The Perfect Storm
In the first book of The Overlord Saga saw the main character, Alec Marshall, working with a member of the Shadow Alliance prior to officially becoming a member of the evil, underground organization. In the sequel, he finally gets his first real mission with them. He has a team, dubbed Double Six, that he works with actively and he has now been sent on a mission to Louisiana. While there’s definitely plenty of cringe-worthy content in this book, you can also tell that I have grown substantially as a writer between the beginning of book one and the start of book two. I’m definitely not a great writer in this book, but the improvements are certainly present.
So, let’s get to cringing.
Opening Paragraph
Alec's gun swiveled around slowly as he carefully navigated the lobby. His ski mask was feeling a bit tight, but he had to maintain an air of authority in order to keep the hostages in check. He glanced across the room at Shifty, who was wearing the same diamond mask that he had been wearing on the night they'd met about three months before that day. A man coughed near Alec and he spun quickly, leveling the gun at the hostage's face. In as threatening a voice as he could muster, he reminded the man to keep quiet unless he wanted his brains splattered all over the bank's nice floor.
So, most of my cringing for this opening just comes from general writing issues. The double adverbs in that very first line are a strong red flag right from the beginning. The ending of the paragraph is a bit odd, too, and probably should have just led into an actual line of dialogue for Alec rather than just a description of what he said. Overall, though, I think that this opening paragraph sets the scene fairly well. I’d write it differently, but I’m glad I’m opening this book with action rather than an eye roll-worthy breakup scene. In fact, the entire first chapter is the conclusion of a heist, complete with a car chase and a few displays of the different bits of technology available to members of the alliance.
Overall, I start off the book pretty decently. With an overhaul of this first chapter, it could have been a strong opening. Unfortunately, though, the rest of the story isn’t quite as well-thought-out as my first chapter. So, here comes the cringe.
The Presentation
“Just wanted to let you know that you're giving the presentation, tomorrow. I don't know if I want to trust Cristine with it.” Shifty informed him. The man crossed over to a side table in Alec's seating area while Alec closed the door. Shifty continued while he poured himself a drink from the carafe on the end table. “You'll need to wear your show suit – that's one of the primary reasons why I needed to make sure you got it as soon as possible.”
Alec nodded. “All right. What time is the presentation?”
“Seven in the morning, sharp. You'll want to be there half an hour early.”
Alec nodded. “Okay, then. Why are we giving a presentation, again? I just don't see the point in it.”
“It's to keep everyone informed on what's happening and the progress we're making. These presentations do everything from boosting morale to inviting new ideas. You may learn something during yours or during someone else's. It's a good idea to make a presentation before major missions like this one.”
This scene is really, really terrible. I have so many problems with it. For one, I am once again displaying my complete inability to write natural dialogue. There was no reason for them to have most of this conversation. None of it is something that either of these characters would actually say. It’s all for the reader’s benefit (and, as a reader, I don’t actually feel I benefitted, so I guess it’s all for nothing). This entire scene is to tell the reader why Shifty worked so hard to give Alec his show-suit, why the presentation is relevant and what it is, and that Shifty doesn’t trust Cristine.
That does bring me to another point: Shifty doesn’t trust Cristine, but there is absolutely no indication of this earlier or later. There’s no point to it. We just accept at face value here that Cristine isn’t to be trusted and that’s that. That’s the end. His distrust of Cristine has absolutely nothing to do with Cristine whatsoever, the only reason he says this is to give Alec a reason to be the one who conducts the presentation. That’s it.
“With any luck, we'll be able to obtain an invitation to the Governor's gala, which is being held for his son's engagement.” Alec noticed a change in Shifty's expression. The man wasn't even looking at Alec, now. Was he doing something incorrectly? He started to stumble. “Ah, if we're, ah...” Alec closed his eyes and regained his composure. He couldn't be distracted. He was almost finished with the first portion of his presentation. “If we are not able to receive an invitation, our other option will be to sneak into the gala unnoticed and get close to the Governor. Being invited is a preference because it will allow us to avoid suspicion while we work with the Governor.”
The goal in the second book is similar to the goal in the first. There’s a powerful, rare mineral that is in the possession of someone else and the Shadow Alliance wants it. This time, instead of it being in the possession of a museum, it’s in the hands of the governor of Louisiana. Their plan is essentially to get close to the governor and persuade him to relinquish the stone. First, they’re going to use the threat of blowing up part of the city. If that threat fails, they’re going to add blackmail into the mix. Both of these are threats they’re able to deliver on. The problem is that, just like the first book, this plan is incredibly convoluted and doomed to fail.
Halfway through the first book, I realized my entire plot was pointless and retconned it. Then I went and wrote this entire second book and, once again, didn’t realize how much I had overly complicated everything for the sake of the book’s plot. Their entire plan is completely ridiculous and there were many, much simpler ways to go about getting the mineral.
Additionally, Shifty is very clearly uncomfortable with something pertaining to this plan. I’m foreshadowing it here, but in time we learn that Shifty and the governor’s daughter were once romantically involved, a long time ago. This causes huge problems later on and Shifty absolutely had no business whatsoever being part of this mission. This is especially true considering that the alliance would definitely have known about Shifty’s past and would have tried to keep him as far away from the mission as possible. He’s only there to create conflict and it could easily have been avoided. It serves no one’s goals.
Oh, and also, the number of times I wrote “the Governor” not just in that paragraph of dialogue but throughout this entire scene is utterly insane. It’s grating.
The Demon Stone
Alec knelt down and looked Kay in the eyes, never moving changing the direction of the pistol. “We know how dangerous it is. That's why we want it. If someone else gets it, what do you think they'll do with it?”
“It doesn't matter what you want to do with it, though. It can't be controlled. Something horrible is going to happen regardless of who ends up with the meteor.” Kay looked up at Alec and grimaced as she pulled the short bolt from her arm, tossing it aside. “I'm an agent that's been assigned to ensure that the meteor never leaves its current location. I've seen what that thing is capable of, and it isn't pretty. The Demon Stone is a ticking time bomb, Alec Marshall. The radius of its explosion could wipe out more than just a portion of the sand floor. It has the potential to wipe entire continents off the map – to cave in our planet, potentially.”
Alec smirked. “So you're trying to convince me that the meteor is a doomsday device, then? Some kind of natural stone that could be the end of the world?”
Kay nodded. “Actually, yes.”
I’m copying and reading this word for word, so the most obvious and glaring problem here is that I wrote moving changing instead of just picking one word. I’ll gloss over that to get to the big picture, here: the doomsday meteor that is unambiguously called The Demon Stone. This is what the Shadow Alliance is after and this is what the governor has. I never explain why the governor has it. I never explain what the governor wants it. All that I ever mention is that it’s in the governor’s possession. Heck, I don’t even explain why other forces aren’t after something so incredibly dangerous. Why does a governor have it, of all people? What can he do to keep it protected? Seriously?
Also, this is the book where I really overcomplicate things by introducing a time travel element. Spoilers, because this was never going to be revealed until the last book. Kay comes from the future, specifically the end of the last book, and is here to prevent the Shadow Alliance from getting the Demon Stone and using it to essentially destroy the entire planet. However, she does not use this information to her advantage at all and the whole thing is just a terribly thought out way to both destroy the world and not have the world’s destruction be how the series ends. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too, with time travel being the only way this was possible.
I’m also confused as to why Alec wouldn’t believe that the Demon Stone is a doomsday device. Why would he need convincing? The Shadow Alliance’s primary method of operation is to gain escalating leverage that they can use to barter for a higher position in the world until they become an unstoppable world power, overseeing everything across the globe. That’s what they do. They’d absolutely want a powerful meteor that’s capable of wiping out most or all of earth’s life. This isn’t surprising and he shouldn’t need to be convinced that it’s true.
Oh, and that last sentence… I said potential twice. That’s horrible. It’s something that would have been caught with another editing pass and isn’t a glaring story problem like the rest of the content I’m cringing at, but it really stands out to me.
The Vow
“He was referring to the vow I took when I became a member of New York's Dread Council. Every councilman has to take one.”
“What was the vow?”
“Now it's getting personal, so can it.”
Alec was confused. “What do you mean it's personal? How can a public vow be personal?”
Shifty sighed. “For someone that's now a member of a sect in the largest division of the Shadow Alliance, you sure don't know a lot about us, do you? Each vow that an individual takes when he or she joins the Dread Council is personalized. It's designed to ensure that said individual doesn't suddenly have a change of heart. Essentially, the Dread Council determines exactly why it is that you are who you are, then finds a way to ensure that this never changes – it's designed to prevent betrayal.”
“So, then, Eric Holden would have taken one?” Alec said.
“Yes, he would have.”
“What was his vow?”
So much of my dialogue is just a wealth of unnecessary exposition that feels horribly unnatural. This conversation is completely directionless. I start off with Alec asking about Shifty’s vow, then Shifty insults Alec for not knowing that vows were personalized—which was completely unnecessary—and exposits to him what the vows are. Then, when Alec’s follow-up question should be asking what Shifty’s vow was, which is what he already wanted to know, he instead changes the question to ask about a completely different person’s vow.
The book is riddled with conversations that flow this terribly and make no sense when you really break them down. I was terrible about getting information to the reader in any form except for exposition-heavy dialogue delivered through conversations that simply do not flow at all. None of this feels like something the characters would say to each other and it does nothing to develop them at all.
Okay, I’m going to pull one last excerpt, here, and then I’ll be done with this book.
The Long Con
Alec did have another concern, now, however. It was apparent that Councilman Keys wanted Cristine to take control of Double Six, not Alec. In light of that, there was a good chance that Keys would try to kill Alec, perhaps make it look like an accident. That would probably explain why the man had volunteered his own sect to join Double Six on the mission for the seizure of the oil tanker but had then returned to New Orleans instead of remaining with his own team. Alec had to be on the lookout. He no longer had any allies – even Shifty was an enemy, now. Everything depended on the man's inevitable failure.
This entire paragraph is part of a slew of paragraphs that constitute Alec’s internal monologue as he figures out an entire plot to conspire against him. He learns that everyone is ultimately holding him back from promotion to replace Shifty as the leader of Double Six. The whole puzzle-solving scenario as Alec exposits what’s really going on to the reader through his own thoughts takes place while he is holding Cristine at gunpoint. I can’t help but picture how much time he must have spent in silence realizing all of this while Cristine just sat there wait for him to finish his internal monologue.
I have a really bad habit throughout this book, I’ve noticed, of saying things like “that would explain” and “that’s why”. I use this phrase over and over again to make sure the reader understands something that didn’t make sense earlier but should make sense in light of my main character’s sudden revelation. The real problem with this is that I didn’t actually think of things like this until later in the writing. So, once again, I am trying to go back and explain the reasoning behind something that took place pointlessly earlier in the story. It is an absolute mess.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it… another cringe-worthy set of excerpts from some of my writing. I actually had a pretty hard time finding solid examples of cringe-worthy writing in this book. Not because the book itself was anything great or the story was excellent, but because for the most part, the cringe just wasn’t as glaringly obvious as it was for my prior story. Instead of permeating every paragraph and chapter, the problems with this book were more fundamental--things like the overall plot and character development. It’s harder to find excerpts that show that off flaws in those areas than it is to find excerpts that just show off poor style and writing as a general rule.
Anyway, I hope that you had a good time reading this post! I’ve got one more that I want to do in this series, which will be coming out next week. We’re going to look at Elegance and Slaughter, Edwin, and even How I Ruined My Life, my published novel. All three of those will be combined into that final video, so I hope you’re looking forward to it.
In the meantime, if you’d like to support me, the best way to do so is to subscribe to my new YouTube channel. You can also follow me on social media! I’m @tlbainter on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, with the latter being where I’m most active. I’ll have links to those at the bottom of this post.
Thanks so much for sticking with me through this post! Until next time, bye!