Introducing…When Infinity is Empty

Having tried my hand at writing controversial posts, I’m now returning to the last post in my series “Introducing…My Novels”. This one is for my latest darling, tentatively titled When Infinity Is Empty. This is the sequel to my NaNoWriMo novel The Stars Fill Infinity. It’s a dystopian retelling of Charles’ Dickens A Tale of Two Cities and it is awesome.

(By the way, I purposely chose not to do a post on Stars Fill Infinity because I have already done several posts on it, back in October and November, which you can find the links to at the bottom of the page).

You cannot stop a revolution. Only inflame it.

When Chessy is called to the Capital to meet Dr Manly, a man imprisoned without trial for nineteen years, her life is inexplicably thrust inside out. Who is this man? And for what crime was he imprisoned?

Whilst in the Capital, Chessy stumbles into a young man named Zac Stoner, who bears a remarkable resemblance to Justice. As tension mounts between the upper and lower classes, a woman with a personal vendetta against Justice, stirs up the embers of revolution.

And nothing will ever be the same again.

That’s the best I can do, my brain is not taking to writing a blurb for this novel, I don’t know why.

Behold the glorious collage!

This is the collage that can be found on the My Books page, because I was too busy wrestling with a blurb to make a new one.

You want to see the notes? Okay. Prepare yourself to be astounded by my amazing photography and terrible handwriting.

 

See? Pretty silver notebook.

Yes, black and white is THE thing at the moment. (*cough,* it helps conceal the bad lighting…kind of…*cough*)

Well, the inspiration for this book was kind of random. At the end of the first book, I wrote an epilogue in which everyone was happy, the bad government was reformed, the antagonist’s sidekick became a great and noble president…

And it was totally unrealistic.

I sent it off to my lovely alpha reader (she knows who she is), expecting great praise to be flourished upon me. Of course, the Bible wisely states that pride comes before a fall, and so I probably deserved what I got when she told me plainly what she thought of it.

So, I rewrote the epilogue, and it’s actually much better than it was previously. However, my friend suggested that I write the sequel, which would explain the process that the characters took to get to the point which had been the original epilogue (I think she had ulterior motives for this, to be honest. She desperately wants Chessy and Justice to be together. There’s more chance of that happening the more books there are!). I kind of laughed this off, thinking that it would be a fairly boring book and I had no ideas for how to make it interesting.

Then come Christmas time. During my spare time, I started listening to an audio version of A Tale of Two Cities. Dr Manette’s unjust imprisonment instantly reminded me of Jean Valjean’s unjust imprisonment, and then I started making comparisons between Lucie and Cosette. And all of a sudden, the faint idea that had been lurking in my head ever since a sequel had been suggested, burst to life in a retelling of this thoroughly awesome novel.

And there we go. I also got an idea for a third book, which is going to be The Scarlet Pimpernel retelling *barely refrains from squealing*. I am looking forward to this!

Since this novel hasn’t actually been written yet, a lot of the stats are not applicable. But we’ll see how this goes.

Word Count: A couple of thousand words of backstory and character charts currently.

Genre: Dystopian/retelling

Pages: None yet!

POV: First person (but from two different characters–Chessy and Justice)

Date Started: Well, I officially started planning on January 2, 2018.

Date Finished: Remains to be seen!

Current Draft: Planning

Um…the random. Most of this book is random, let’s be honest.

-Justice’s father’s name is Everett MacLachlan and his uncle is Royce MacLachlan.

-Chessy’s middle name is Mae.

-Part of my original plan was having the president and his family imprisoned in a futuristic Bastille, and Justice and Quillon becoming sort of vigilantes to rescue them.

The above was a message I sent to the aforementioned friend after admitting to her that I had an actual idea for the sequel. Her response was literally “*exploding noise*”. That brought a lot of satisfaction.

There are no actual snippets yet, because I haven’t written it. However, these are a few tastes of what is to come!

 

I looked at him and suddenly a wave of compassion broke over me. He could not have been old, and yet his hair was a harsh white, his skin creased into a million wrinkles, and in his eyes was the look of a man who had seen more human words could ever describe. Nineteen years imprisoned, I recalled Errol’s words, Without a trial.

What could he have done to deserved that?

…

I grinned at Zac’s words, then sensed Justice standing behind me. I spun on my heel, a smile over my lips, only to find myself staring into Justice’s coldly glittering eyes.

“Ah,” he muttered, his voice dry and hinted with bitterness. He cast a glance at Zac over the top of my head. “Ah, I see you’ve met my cousin, the grand and mighty Zachary MacLachlan.”

….

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, glancing at the judge, and then at the lawyers, and finally back at Justice, his hands bound in front of him.

“Thank goodness for law and order,” I heard a woman whisper behind me. “It would never do to have such vagabonds roaming the street! Just imagine!”

I tried to shut out her comments, instead focussing on the proceedings go on in front of me.

“I call Witness Samuel Masters to the stand.”

My eyes flew open and I was suddenly leaning forward and craning my neck towards the witness stand. The name Samuel Masters meant nothing to me, but the face that apparently belonged to the name. I’d seen him before. The last time that face had been in my field of vision it had been covered in blood. Before that, it had been sneering at Sapphire.

Sean Darcy.

…

“Chessy,” Zac touched my hand, his fingers lingering as if he couldn’t bare to complete sever contact with my skin. “I just want you to know…you’ve been the finest dream of my heart. But I am…” he stopped, as if his words were physically painful to him. “I am glad you were spared the pain of loving me in return.”

…

I [now from Justice’s point of view, since this novel is actually in duel pov] looked up from the paper over which my pen had hesitated. I frowned, confused, and suddenly feeling very tired. “Why are you making me write this?” I demanded, my eyelids feeling as if they were weighting down my whole face.

“Don’t get distracted, Joshua,” he returned. “Keep writing.” His hand moved closer to my face.

But I could no longer focus on the words that were swimming in front of my eyes. “What…have you done?” I muttered, but too late. The haziness overtook me. The last thing I was conscious of was sliding to the floor, pen still in hand and hitting my head on the floor.

And I knew nothing more.

You can learn more about the first book The Stars Fill Infinity if you take a look at the two Beautiful Books posts I did back in October and November

I also have Pinterest boards (though they are random and not really aesthetic at all, basically all you’ll see is the actors who are going to play my characters once my book becomes a hugely successful movie). The Stars Fill Infinity and When Infinity Is Empty.

 

So, this post marks the end of the “Introducing My Novels” Series! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I’ll have a new series up next week in which I do exciting things, like comparing books, musicals and movies, and deciding which versions of things are my favourite. Actually, I’m indecisive, so maybe it won’t including any decisions. We’ll see!

Does When Infinity Is Empty appeal to you? How do you feel about the dystopian genre? Did you enjoy this series? Are you looking forward to the next series?