So, this is kind of tumbling around in my head:


It started in California.

The elders would say it started in New York, or New Orleans, or even Chicago. Cities steeped in tradition and lore. The historians might even trace it back to Eastern Europe, or the jungles of Haiti. The places where traditions begin.

But this? This started in California. Specifically, it started in San Francisco, home to transients and romantics, most vibrant at night, where no one will look twice at anyone else, no matter how lurid or outlandish. It spread through the underworld and spilled up into the bars and clubs, places packed with beautiful people looking for the next fun thing.

It's so easy to disappear in San Francisco. Easier than you think.

No one knows how it started. It could have come from the Jiang Shi, from the mandurugo, or even from Camazotz. It could have been here all along, in the form of Jumlin. San Francisco’s history as a port means that many origins are lost in time. All that is known is that they are faster, stronger, better than their Eastern brethren. The first time the children of the East came out here, they were laughed at for their weakness, for the effete way they feared to walk abroad on a foggy day, for their single-minded view of humans as prey.

Ohh, that is excellent! Very evocative.

Ohh, that is excellent! Very evocative.

Thanks! It's been rolling around in my head for a while. I think it'd actually be easier to write as a script, because that's how I think, but eh.

The slick prompt is now closed.

This week's prompt is by the book.

Oh, FUCK.

I just read the review of Victory of Eagles over at the Dear Author blog...and I'm really afraid I'm going to have to stop writing my alternative history, because it's just too damn close to what Novik did, only mine doesn't have dragons.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I knew this could happen, and I've been fretting over it ever since I saw the teaser blurb for VoE at the back of the last Temeraire book...but, dammit, I had no idea it would be as close as it is. I mean, I'm also using Scotland and Wellesley in pretty much the same way she is, and....dammit dammit dammit dammit DAMN IT.

I love my story. I love my cranky snobby brainy blue-eyed general of a protagonist. I've already given over a year of my heart and soul and energy to this story, and I want to give it more. I don't want to stop writing it...but why would anyone buy the same damn story only without the dragons!?

t cries

but why would anyone buy the same damn story only without the dragons!?

Maybe they don't like fantasy or dragons. Maybe they don't like Novik's writing. Maybe they love the period and are happy to read anything set in it.

I hope you're right, but at this point I can't imagine an editor saying anything but, "Already read this," and if no editor will buy it, it doesn't matter what readers will think.

Sigh. I should've known this would happen. I love my story, but I don't know what to do. And, damn it, I wasn't trying to be derivative of Novik, except insofar as I'm writing Napoleonic-era alternative history. I have no delusions of being perfectly original--I completely admit that at least one major plot line in my story is hella derivative of the Sharpe series, to the point I actually wrote Bernard Cornwell to make sure he'd be cool with it (and he was, pointing out that he doesn't have a patent on any character types or plot devices...advice I may actually find reassuring once I climb down from my current ledge). But it's one thing to do something like that on purpose, and even as something of a homage. It's another to have it hit you in the face just as you're finishing a rough draft and thinking of where and how to market a story.

I mean, maybe this is OK. The similarities probably aren't as big as they seem. If nothing else, Novik's Napoleon is completely unlike mine, so it stands to reason her Wellesley will be too. But it does mean I've now lost whatever points for "unique, clever, and original high concept plot" I had.

pointing out that he doesn't have a patent on any character types or plot devices...advice I may actually find reassuring once I climb down from my current ledge

Back away from the ledge, Susan. The cool thing about alternative history is that there are so. many. alternatives. You've written one of them. Similarity to someone else's is only by virtue of the people/time period and that is what you are all tinkering with. In your own, unique, way.

Personally, I'm tired of Novik's dragons. I had a very hard time reading the third book and bailed less than half-way through the fourth. I'll take a peek at five and see if I want to go back and finish up four. Four just dragged so damn much, but if five picks up the pace again, I may go back just so I have any necessary details in mind while reading five.

"Already read this WITH DRAGONS" is really a whole different animal than "already read this." Even if Novik was selling at JK Rowling levels, which she's not, so there's a much larger category of people who won't have already read it. I would imagine most of the alternate history audience wouldn't read fantasy, anyway.

Well...my set-up is as follows. I may delete it in a few hours, but it no longer feels so important to keep the whole idea a secret:

Horatio Nelson dies of yellow fever in Jamaica at the age of 21. In his absence, though the British navy is still superior to the French, it's never able to attain the same level of complete dominance, and Napoleon is able to launch a successful invasion of England in 1805. A few weeks after the invasion, Arthur Wellesley (that would be Wellington to those of you who know him from our timeline) arrives home from a lengthy posting in India, and rather than turn himself in to the authorities he goes fugitive, linking up with a little band of soldiers who've escaped French captivity and eventually with 9-year-old runaway Queen Charlotte (because I conveniently kill off George III and Prinny in the aftermath of the invasion to make her the sovereign). Then, gradually, over the course of 4 books or so, our heroes build their strength and form unlikely alliances to take their country back. If I can write it right, the core of the story will be the sort of "Scooby Gang" (and, yes, I call them that in my notes and when talking them over with my CPs) that grows up around Wellesley, especially the close friendship and brothers-in-arms bond between him and one of the original escaped soldiers (which I guess makes the whole story as much of an Aubrey/Maturin riff as a Sharpe one...but I really don't worry about the derivative issue with long-established series where one of the authors is dead and the other is old enough to be my father and was already writing the series when I was in grade school).

I guess the only thing to do is keep going and figure out how to pitch this as "like Temeraire (and Sharpe and Aubrey/Maturin), but different" as opposed to "look at my completely cool and totally unique take on the Napoleonic-era adventure story!"