Aaron Overfield's Blog: New Veil World - Posts Tagged "veil"
Veil
I don't remember the exact moment I came up with what turned into not one but three books. I do know it was approximately seven to eight years ago. I've been developing Veil in my head since then. Or at least that's what I assumed. Apparently, I've been developing New Veil World in my head.
The premise is simple (and one I think we can all relate to): What is it like to be someone else? And ... not just be someone else but be them and then remember what it was like to be them. What is it like to see yourself through someone else's eyes? More than that - what if we could all be each other? What if that's what our society was based upon?
These ideas developed slowly and I've spent the better part of those years applying all the different ways such an ability would affect us, change us, unite us, possibly destroy us. I've spent hours upon hours pondering what such technology could do to us. I thought about it so much and so long that it became second nature to me. There was always an aspect of life that would hit me and I'd wonder what it would be like to experience it through Veil.
I've known the name of the technology and book for as long as I can remember. I think it was one of the first things I came up with. (As well as the name of the first chapter.) I also knew how the book would open - or at least how one scene in the intro would go.
I lived in Washington, DC for many years and often took the Metro to the GWUH station. I often pictured my main character (at least who I thought my main character would be, and who ended up being Jin Tsay) riding the escalator up to the entrance of the hospital and then riding the elevator to his fate. Although the book doesn't open with that very scene, as I thought it would, I did not let that image go. I couldn't let that image go. It was simply a part of who Jin was, even before I knew his name.
This is my first foray into writing. Writing a novel, that is. I've always written - at least in the form of what many of my friends would refer to as "rants." They would often also comment that I was wasting my time and needed to write a book. So, I did.
After developing the idea of Veil in my mind for years, it turns out I didn't actually write any of the story until I finally sat down to write it. There was so much of Veil that I wanted to go on and on about. The technology, how it would affect our lives, how it would work, all the ways in which it could be used. However, when I did finally sit down to write the story, I quickly realized that I couldn't build a narrative around the technology itself. There had to be a main thread going through the story and, while I could make Veil a character in a sense, that main thread couldn't actually be Veil.
For example, one of the aspects of Veil that I truly wanted to explore was the notion of how obsessed we could get with seeing ourselves through the eyes of others. That notion alone could take up pages upon pages upon pages of writing. Just think about it. The actual ability to see ourselves through the eyes of others. The desire to be able to do that is something that unites us all.
However, when it came down to it, that aspect of Veil simply didn't fit in the story in any kind of huge way. It ended up being only a few paragraphs at the most. That's what writing taught me: the story literally does write itself. As damn cliche as it sounds, it's true. The story paces itself, it develops itself, the characters grow themselves. It wasn't until I sat down and started to write the book I figured I'd written in my head for years and years that I learned what it meant to write.
Now, I don't think I'll ever be able to stop.
I hope you check out and enjoy the first novel in the New Veil World series:
Veil by Aaron Overfield
The premise is simple (and one I think we can all relate to): What is it like to be someone else? And ... not just be someone else but be them and then remember what it was like to be them. What is it like to see yourself through someone else's eyes? More than that - what if we could all be each other? What if that's what our society was based upon?
These ideas developed slowly and I've spent the better part of those years applying all the different ways such an ability would affect us, change us, unite us, possibly destroy us. I've spent hours upon hours pondering what such technology could do to us. I thought about it so much and so long that it became second nature to me. There was always an aspect of life that would hit me and I'd wonder what it would be like to experience it through Veil.
I've known the name of the technology and book for as long as I can remember. I think it was one of the first things I came up with. (As well as the name of the first chapter.) I also knew how the book would open - or at least how one scene in the intro would go.
I lived in Washington, DC for many years and often took the Metro to the GWUH station. I often pictured my main character (at least who I thought my main character would be, and who ended up being Jin Tsay) riding the escalator up to the entrance of the hospital and then riding the elevator to his fate. Although the book doesn't open with that very scene, as I thought it would, I did not let that image go. I couldn't let that image go. It was simply a part of who Jin was, even before I knew his name.
This is my first foray into writing. Writing a novel, that is. I've always written - at least in the form of what many of my friends would refer to as "rants." They would often also comment that I was wasting my time and needed to write a book. So, I did.
After developing the idea of Veil in my mind for years, it turns out I didn't actually write any of the story until I finally sat down to write it. There was so much of Veil that I wanted to go on and on about. The technology, how it would affect our lives, how it would work, all the ways in which it could be used. However, when I did finally sit down to write the story, I quickly realized that I couldn't build a narrative around the technology itself. There had to be a main thread going through the story and, while I could make Veil a character in a sense, that main thread couldn't actually be Veil.
For example, one of the aspects of Veil that I truly wanted to explore was the notion of how obsessed we could get with seeing ourselves through the eyes of others. That notion alone could take up pages upon pages upon pages of writing. Just think about it. The actual ability to see ourselves through the eyes of others. The desire to be able to do that is something that unites us all.
However, when it came down to it, that aspect of Veil simply didn't fit in the story in any kind of huge way. It ended up being only a few paragraphs at the most. That's what writing taught me: the story literally does write itself. As damn cliche as it sounds, it's true. The story paces itself, it develops itself, the characters grow themselves. It wasn't until I sat down and started to write the book I figured I'd written in my head for years and years that I learned what it meant to write.
Now, I don't think I'll ever be able to stop.
I hope you check out and enjoy the first novel in the New Veil World series:
Veil by Aaron Overfield
"Veil" now available in three parts.
Since 600+ pages is proving to be a lot for some folks to swallow, I've divided "Veil" up based upon its three parts. Each part can be read separately. Thought this might make it a bit easier to breeze through.
New Veil World
Blog for the New Veil World series by Aaron Overfield
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