The Dawn of Tears

[dkstories]

Dawn of Tears

 

Okay, folks, the Prologue, Chapters 1 & 2 are up on this wonderful site that Myr has so graciously provided and built for our stories. This is my newest original fiction work. Although it starts much like a 'what if' story, it definitely is a sci-fi as you'll figure out as the chapters progress.

 

Expect Chapter 3 up within the next day, and regular updates (how regular, it depends on feedback and how much re-writing I do after I get that feedback). The original draft version of the first 21 chapters are completed (The first story-arc is about 22-23 chapters in length and chapter sizes range from 15-25 pages in MS Word). Current story size for the first arc is about 500 pages right now. Depending on feed back I might re-write slightly.

 

Also if there's anyone out there that wants to edit...I'm looking!

[dkstories]

Have you read the prologue to this story yet? If you haven't...wait and don't read it. Please. I just looked at it and it did almost nothing I wanted it to do. To be honest, I should have waited until I finished most of the first arc before writing and posting it. I didn't.

 

I've sent my re-write (and it is a total re-write) to Myr, who will hopefully update it sometime Sunday morning. if you haven't take a look yet, wait till then please. If you've looked at it and went 'yuck', take another look when it's done, please. I beg you. This one gives a much better picture of the story I'm writing as a prologue is supposed to do.

 

By the way, I re-wrote this after finishing the epilogue earlier today. There's somewhere around forty or more chapters from the 21 I have typed before I'll even consider putting the epilogue up. However, the prologue and epilogue now make good book-ends to the story in the middle, and I think why that is so important for me will be clear when you read the re-written Prologue.

 

Ah, well, hope you enjoy and sorry for such an utterly crap original epilogue.

 

After 21 chapters, I've fallen in love with this story and these characters even more than I loved Mists of Fate, and I hope you will see that.

[Reader]

Having reread the old then new chapter I find it very believable (with the price of gas going up) and well written the title change more inline with this story

[BillM]

I love this story!

[dkstories]

My thanks to BM and Reader. So far you two are the only feedback I've had either here or by e-mail, so it is much appreciated that you like it so far. As for writing, I've finished the first arc of this story at Chapter 23, and written the Interlude (Chapter 24 - shortest since the prologue). I'm starting the second arc once I finish playing out the whole story in my head and get ready to put it into typed chapters.

 

I'm going back, in-between chapters and editing/polishing chapters for posting in between typing new chapters. What this means is you won't see the new chapters every day, but they should be coming out a couple of times a week. It also means all the details of those early chapters are staying fresh in my head and I'm less likely to make continuity errors (which I know readers hate as much as authors).

 

I hope more people enjoy this story in the days to come!

[Reader]

Chapter 4 WOW you had me holding my breath If this story gets any more intense you my have me losing sleep

[dkstories]

I was just going to post that chapter 4 is up now. Intense? Thanks for the compliment. As for what is to come, let's just say that after writing chapters 20-23 in a two day period, I had to take a chill pill because I was all tensed up. I barely moved from my monitor as I worked on them and spent a lot of hours on them.

 

I'm going back over chapters as carefully as I can, making sure continuity is maintained (there's a lot of little things to fix) and trying to get them ready for posting. (I write the Note to Readers part shortly before I post each chapter).

 

Now, I hate writing disclaimers in front of every chapter, so for those that want disclaimers, look at the prologue. It tells you pretty much what to expect.

[Tyrel]

hey dk, lovin your story so far! scary part is that its all too possible that something like that can actually happen these days. looking forward to reading the rest

[Bookworm]

I just read the prolog, and you've diffinetly piqued my interest in this story.

Now I"ll have to read the rest, thanks.

[dkstories]

Well, Chapters 5 & 6 are now up.

[BillM]

Sweet, I'm really getting into this story

[Reader]

you can fell things building

 

[miguelsanchez55]

Hey DK,

You got a good one here. You got me hooked. You're up to chapter 24? My god, this is gonna be good.

 

Take care,

Mike :sword:

[dkstories]

Thanks Miguel. Chapter 7 has been sent to Myr for posting on the page (whenever he gets to it). I should have chapter 8 to him either tonight or tomorrow (going over it one last time). The story really kicks off with Chapter 7 as far as the main plot line. Chapter 9 and 10 introduces the sci-fi element to the story (and some....romantic elements). I don't think it slows down until Chapter 25, and I'm typing 29 now.

 

I think this is going to go a lot longer than Mists of Fate and I seem to be kicking out these chapters a lot faster (the story is really moving along). I think I'm going to slow down on the writing and really churn some chapters out for posting and try to get some more feedback. Even with Chapter 7 and 8, the story is still coalescing and the number of characters really starts to grow. It's probably the most complicated story I've ever tried writing.

 

I just hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I did writing the whole thing.

[miguelsanchez55]

Hey DK,

Just don't burn yourself out. I've been there and done that.

 

Take care,

Mike :sword:

[dkstories]

I've actually slown down on 29 today. I was just going to do a single paragraph on something that I've decided to make a lot longer scene. I think I'll go back and work on one of my HP fanfics to take a break and work that idea over. Plus it's already over 90 degrees here and I'm it's just too damn warm.

[Myr]

Chapter 7 has been posted.

[miguelsanchez55]

Hey DK,

Looks like it's time to crank up the AC.

 

Take care,

Mike :sword:

[Reader]

I fell like I'm in a roller coaster just going up and up can't wait for the trip down

[BillM]

Nice job on chapter 7

[dkstories]

Thanks, BM & Reader & Miguel. I hope you guys enjoy Chapter 8 (which I just formatted and will be sending to Myr soon). Think of this as a roller coaster with a lot of hills to climb, sharp drops, and a few loops thrown in for fun. The ride really starts getting rocky from now on.

[dkstories]

Ah, crap. I just read about the Israeli airstrike killing the Hamas leader on his way to/from a mosque. At the risk of giving up a plot point, I want to stress that when Chapters 29/30 are finally posted, THEY WERE WRITTEN BEFORE the Israelis did that.

 

Now, whether it's art imitating life, or life imitating art, I'm not going to argue. I'm just going to say I wrote it without having to copy the idea from real life events.

 

That's also a reason why I am glad I made some changes back when I was writing Mists of Fate in 2001/2002. I originally had a chapter detailing the American occupation of Iraq and problems dealing the army had dealing with insurrections and bombings there. Instead of detailing that in a chapter, I made a couple of vague references to it. I wouldn't want to be accused of having given the Iraqis or terrorists any ideas since it was fairly detailed.

 

I think I'm going to go back and rewrite some of those chapters so they don't fit in so well with the real world.

 

If people wonder where I get some of these ideas from, it's from idle conversations I've had with people from all over the world. When I was in the Navy, I spent a lot of time in foreign ports trying to meet and talk to locals, trying to get an understanding of how the percieve the world. I've had a few eye openers in talking with people in cafes located in places like Bahrain (Middle East), Singapore, Manilla, Egypt, Israel, Hong Kong, Paris, London, Brussels, and a few other places I've been. I also spent a lot of time travelling the US and staying in a lot of hostels with International tourists.

 

I'll never forget going drinking with two Irish guys (both around 20) who talked non-stop about the bloody British and how both of them had older brothers who were killed (1) or in prison (2) because of that conflict there. Another interesting day was spent with an Israeli tourist who was the son of a member of the Knesset (Israeli parliament). The week after that I met a Palestinian college student who spent an entire afternoon telling me how bad the Israelis were (nice juxtaposition that was). I also went to community college where my Russian teacher was the daughter of the KGB station chief in Kiev during the Cold War, and I was friends with two Estonian students, one of whom had a Grandfather disappear during Stalin's purges in the Old Soviet Union.

 

When I was in London I sat down to dinner in a pub and found out the wild group of men and women next to me were members of the EU negotiations teams that had been meeting with the US over trade issues. That led to an all-night discussion on international trade and how pissed off the US was making most of Europe with their attitudes at the negotiations (after I said I hated Bush and would never vote for him they bought me drinks all night). In Paris I got to talk, in a mixture of broken English and my broken Russian, with a Russian businessman who operated out of Italy, and his Italian boyfriend (who spoke better English than his Russian boyfriend and better Russian than I did, as well as his native Italian).

 

I try to incorporate elements of all the things I learned from these conversations over the past 20 years into my stories. Hopefully they actually make things more realistic. I just have to try to not be quite so realistic on certain things or I might find some guys in suits knocking on my door.

 

Oh, and the first such conversation that I can remember having about societal and political outlooks of people in foreign countries was when I was eight years old. My dad's church had sponsored a family as missionaries to the Soviet Union (this was early 1980 right before my 9th birthday). They had a son who was 18 (and since I still remember how cute he was I guess that even then I was checking guys out. Wow, hadn't thought about that in a long time and that's one of the things I mentioned to my mom when she asked me when I 'became' gay. She thought the guy had tried to have sex with me after I said that...but nothing like that happened). Derek (the missionary family's son) and I spent about two hours sitting around on the front steps of the church that night talking about how even in the anti-religious soviet state, the Russian Orthodox church still had the ability to influence the government against missionaries from other religious institutions (for current world impact you can see that the Orthodox church has influenced the Russian Federation to prevent the Catholic Church in its efforts to expand it's influence and fill vacant bishop positions, and their campaign against Mormon missionaries - who face high rates of abduction or other harrassment that the government does little to stop). I think that's another plot bunny I won't write in case something happens there. *sigh*

 

Okay, enough rambling...now back to writing.

[dkstories]

Chapter 8 is posted now as well.

[Tyrel]

DK, love the story so far! keep it up! waiting somewhat patiently for the next chapters.

[BillM]

Same here