Second and Third Guessing
Journal 105 2- 8 October 2023
Hopefully this week I won’t muddle through a topic for two-thousand words and then just cut off. I worry about going too long with these posts.
Many of my friends have no attention spans, and the younger kids are even worse.
I’m going to talk about a part of the revision that always bothers me.
And will probably bother me every time I write a book in series.
Main Assumption
OK. You’re sitting down to write a series of books.
DO YOU:
1. Write the book as if it’s the first a reader will ever pick up? OR:
2. Do you write it where the reader MUST read the whole series in order.
I should clarify that there is a difference between a series and a multipart singular narrative. A series would be Prey, Bosch, the Dresden Files, etc. While a single narrative would be most fantasy books: Malazan Book of the Fallen, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, etc.
And in the case of Malazan, it is also a series… so you have the 10-vol main story, then the Esselmont side stories that take place between the 10 volumes, the prequel trilogy, the post trilogy, etc.
I’m almost answering my own question on this one. Malazan is one of my major influences and point-blank Erikson does not give you a recap or spend much time rehashing what happened in the previous books. But he does occasionally make a few comments or references to previous events. Enough that astute readers are reminded that something happened.
My Problem
After years and years of telling stories in RPGs (on both sides of the Screen) I’ve seen so many moments where players just don’t remember things or get things confused. I’ve become hard wired to want to explain things, clarify things, or try to hand out all of the clues a second or even third time so that people “get it.”
Part of me feels that is insulting my readers, but I’ve watched some really smart people just totally go off in the wrong direction because they missed the obvious.
And in the case of my books, what if someone picks up D&N as their first book? Yeah, it says Invasion book two on the cover… but perhaps they didn’t like the Egyptian motif of book 1, or it was a cool cover grab that got them the book.
I just feel I need to establish what is happening and why everyone is doing what they are doing.
Worse Crime
Actually, when I think about it, my worse crime is that I wrote the Ashlands as a stand-alone novel that is the prequel to the Invasion. The origin of all the heroes and main characters for most of the novels in the series are in the Ashlands.
Their motives, why they’re the way they are: Caitlyn superpowered and almost inhuman, Keegan dead and his soul placed inside of a dire wolf, plus several characters who don’t reappear until book 4 and 5 respectively.
The way I market/sell Ashlands is as its own novel, and technically you should be able to pick up Invasion book 1 and not NEED to read Ashlands to understand it. And to that end I explain a lot of what happened in Ashlands, including some flashbacks, some in book storytelling, and even a new pov of some of the events.
And yet, I have referenced the events in BOTH of the Invasion books.
As I’m outlining and planning book three, none of the characters were ever in the Ashlands, but two of them did travel with those heroes. Meaning I will probably have yet another interaction in the book where the recap of both Ashlands and Invasion 1 will be told.
Which brings us back to my original question. Do I really need to recap everything or should I just assume that a reader will start with book one and work their way through all of them in order?
I’m going to try very hard to overcome my… ‘coddling?’… my need to over explain and clarify.
Was that Interesting?
I don’t know if my regular readers will find any of that interesting. But that’s the weird shit that goes through my head every time I write a story.
I’ve mixed in a couple days of revision. At this phase all I’m doing is finding typos, cutting down wordy sentences, switching some word choices, and trying to cut some words overall. I’m also trying to track continuity since I wrote the book over more than a year. I’m discovering that my characters knew things in chapter 1,2,3 that I brought up again 20 chapters later, and I made different arguments.
Really feel dumb when I have characters asking questions about what “is going on here, and who are X people?” and yet they knew some of those answers 20 chapters earlier. But that’s what happens when you take so much time between sections of the story.
Also, characterization. I’m usually very good with characterization… but that can also fall victim to the long intervals between chapters.
That actually brings up an interesting topic.
Pre- and Post- Characterization
Every time I start a story, I end up rewriting a character file for each character. That incorporates all of the growth changes to the character. I often use different methods to write these up. Sometimes filling out gaming character sheets, or doing a 20-questions dossier, or creating a resume file.
All of these methods I picked up from various blogs, writing books, and advice from other writers.
I went back and was looking at the write up of one of my characters from BEFORE I wrote Ashlands, and now I’m looking at that character as she appears in Invasion 2 D&N.
In this case it was a 10-question list. Current short-term goal? Character they hate, character they like, a secret. Etc.
Looking through the questionnaire, the character was meant to be a stone-cold bitch. Almost a straight villain, or at least a foil to another character. And she did start that way, but her character is so changed and awesome in D&N. She’s in love, she’s fighting for something other than herself, and all the people she hated are now her closest most loved friends. It’s crazy.
Part of me—for a single second—felt like I had screwed up. But then I realized that all of that growth happened naturally over 1200 collective pages.
Secondary Growth
I’m really happy with how I elevated these secondary characters. So much so, that I think when I finally start writing Dusk, that Barnabus and Jaime will just grow and prosper. They were never intended to be more than just some really interesting back/secondary characters.
But now that I am putting the spotlight on them, I believe they can become truly interesting. I’ve already planned on Jaime staying mostly secondary and then really blossoming in the 4th book.
Anyway, it feels great to have more outlining and a little of the revision done at this point. Dusk is going to feel weir to readers after getting through the first 2 books. And I kind of like that.
I remember reading Malazan and remembering how the books shifted to completely different characters… on a different continent… on a different timeline. Bugg and Tehol, also the Trull Sengar storyline, all great. But it was still a major shift away from the all the characters of the previous novels and you had to catch up to a different part of the timeline. Crazy.
Dusk won’t be quite as severe. But all different characters and I plan to spend a third of the book going through 30-years of the lives of the main characters before coming to the arrival of the characters from the previous novels. The I have day to day life and problems in the city, for a couple weeks before the invaders drop on top of everything and then the last half of the book is a completely different story.
We’ll talk more about the plotting and plans for the novel over the next few blogs.
Nanowrimo
For a minute, I was thinking of trying to get the outline done and the new book started in November. But really, I don’t like the idea of trying to make dates or events line up.
Like I really wish I could start a book every September and finish is during the winter. Like a pattern that repeat where I finish a book every year, but I just don’t work that way.
I’ll debate for the next couple weeks and make my final decision soon, I think.
But I really need to get the revision done, and I need to think before I just launch myself into the book too early.
Anyway… I don’t think we have time for media talk and I haven’t watched much of anything other than k-dramas for the last two months. I have friends pissed at me for not having started Ashoka yet… so, yeah. And I’m weeks behind in my comics.
So, thank you for reading this far.
