Last week was another rough one. Super busy at work, working longer hours, and then we had friends visiting from out of town over the weekend. The latter part was great, but it didn't help my word count any.
Having said that, I did write over 1500 words just today, as I get back in the saddle. And I am still ahead of schedule to complete the book before the end of the year, so no worries there.
Nothing else to report.
Monday, June 25, 2018
Sunday, June 17, 2018
Multi-threaded Plotting, and Status Report 2018-06-17
Starting with the status report: as of Sunday June 17, I am just about to hit 50,000 words. I was out of the country on business the past week, and the week before I was still cleaning up some of the plot changes that I mentioned in my last post. So while I did manage to hit my average daily quota of 550 words, I didn't hit or even come close to my stretch goals. But I am still excited to tell this story, still excited about the changes that I have mapped out, and excited to publish it early in 2019.
Now, on to "multi-threaded plotting". The meaning of this phrase is that the story has more than a single storyline, and I am writing the book from several different characters' points of view depending on which plot thread I am in. Not only that, but I am currently only writing one storyline from beginning to end. Once this part is done, I will go back and write the parallel storyline from its beginning to end. And that is what I mean by multi-threaded plotting.
Those who have read The Hand of Tyr know that it is basically a single-threaded plot that follows Balfrith and his companions. There are a few scenes with Balfrith's family, from his father's point of view, and those are important to the character building in that story as well as the resolution of the conflict between Balfrith and his father. But the vast majority of the story really does just follow Balfrith.
In the second Balfrith book, there are two main storylines each with their own POV characters. Balfrith is of course still the main character and his story is generally the central plot of the book. But there is another very important storyline that runs parallel with most of Balfrith's story, with its own main POV character who I will not name at this time. By the end of the book, these parallel plots come together into a single unified story.
As mentioned above, I will have written about 50,000 words by the end of this day. And that is all in the Balfrith storyline. I have almost completely ignored the parallel storyline, except to make myself an occasional note to remember something. But I have not yet written any prose for the parallel story.
Once Balfrith's storyline draft is complete, that will be my first big milestone for this book. And I will be quite happy to announce it on the day that it occurs.
Now, on to "multi-threaded plotting". The meaning of this phrase is that the story has more than a single storyline, and I am writing the book from several different characters' points of view depending on which plot thread I am in. Not only that, but I am currently only writing one storyline from beginning to end. Once this part is done, I will go back and write the parallel storyline from its beginning to end. And that is what I mean by multi-threaded plotting.
Those who have read The Hand of Tyr know that it is basically a single-threaded plot that follows Balfrith and his companions. There are a few scenes with Balfrith's family, from his father's point of view, and those are important to the character building in that story as well as the resolution of the conflict between Balfrith and his father. But the vast majority of the story really does just follow Balfrith.
In the second Balfrith book, there are two main storylines each with their own POV characters. Balfrith is of course still the main character and his story is generally the central plot of the book. But there is another very important storyline that runs parallel with most of Balfrith's story, with its own main POV character who I will not name at this time. By the end of the book, these parallel plots come together into a single unified story.
As mentioned above, I will have written about 50,000 words by the end of this day. And that is all in the Balfrith storyline. I have almost completely ignored the parallel storyline, except to make myself an occasional note to remember something. But I have not yet written any prose for the parallel story.
Once Balfrith's storyline draft is complete, that will be my first big milestone for this book. And I will be quite happy to announce it on the day that it occurs.
Sunday, June 3, 2018
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (turn and face the strange...)
Still making solid progress on the story, but I did realize early this week that there were certain plot and character elements that were rather... weak. So, I gave it a lot of thought over the next few days, and also engaged my "co-conspirator" (the Geekwif) in bouncing some ideas back and forth. By yesterday afternoon, we had re-written several pieces of the plot and a couple of character arcs.
None of them are revolutionary changes, more like evolutionary ones. Large parts of the story, scenes and chapters, will require only minor editing or slight re-writes to bring them in line with the new ideas. But I think even these small changes will reap huge rewards in a much better story, making it more engaging, more exciting, and more satisfying to read.
I will pass 40,000 words today, so if you do the math you will see I fell a little bit behind this week. That is primarily because of all the thinking and planning I was doing. I actually did write a few thousand words, but it was focused on recording my plot and character ideas rather than actual prose for the book itself.
But now, I need to get back to writing the story!
None of them are revolutionary changes, more like evolutionary ones. Large parts of the story, scenes and chapters, will require only minor editing or slight re-writes to bring them in line with the new ideas. But I think even these small changes will reap huge rewards in a much better story, making it more engaging, more exciting, and more satisfying to read.
I will pass 40,000 words today, so if you do the math you will see I fell a little bit behind this week. That is primarily because of all the thinking and planning I was doing. I actually did write a few thousand words, but it was focused on recording my plot and character ideas rather than actual prose for the book itself.
But now, I need to get back to writing the story!
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