Big story acrs… come with big problems
No… this is not a post where I will look to attack some famous work with a big convoluted story arc to try and get some publicity and attention myself, because that whole thing has become too mainstream… and if I wanted some cheap attention, then I’d have just whipped up a top 10 list of something trendy.
Instead, this is where I look to share my thoughts on the whole experience of writing a story with a big convoluted arc!
In a couple of weeks, maybe less, I’ll put out Episode 6 in my ongoing Dance of Darkness and Light series but I am sure you haven’t heard about it because no one has since I am one of those opinionated yet obscure type writers… now before anyone reading this dismisses me as just another opinionated and obscure writer, allow me to point out that at least I am a self aware opinionated and obscure writer, so in a way I am one of a kind in this day and age!
Now I assume the whole writing experience is the same whether you’re writing in total obscurity or under the bright spotlight, sure one has the burden of expectations but the other has to carry the weight of writing something that there is no one in particular waiting for… what remains the same is the whole experience of figuring things out as you write.
If you’ve ever written a book yourself then you’d have known this by now but if haven’t, then here is the rundown… there are two chief approaches to writing a story, one has you plot everything out in advance before you write your actual novel while the other just has you write and then figure things out as you write. There are other approaches but they are just a combination of these two with one being more of an influence than the other but for the sake of mathematical convenience I’ll ignore all of them for now…
And I will also ignore the obvious connection between the two approaches where in even if you are writing stuff from the top of your head, you still need to have something that can pass off as a plot in your mind to begin with otherwise you’d just be staring at a piece of paper… just like you’d be before you write your outline in the other method. But why focus on the similarities when centuries of conflicts have taught us that focusing of things that divide us give us interesting thinks like war and conflict while focusing on things that are similar between things only leads to periods of peace, and we all know how boring that can get!
That went a little off topic but I guess it is fitting for a piece like this meant about long convoluted story arcs, that I took such a long convoluted route in getting to the point!
Now before I wrote down the whole 12 part story, not because I took the advice of someone who has no idea who I am or what kind of story I have but still advices me to “write in a series" but because it was a big epic story that I wanted to tell, I sat down and wrote down the whole story. So I guess that does make me a plotter after all!
And I began writing all the Episodes. And if you’ve read any of my book, you’d have known that they’re written like a TV show. People have found it off putting, but what can I say, that’s just the way I am comfortable doing things not just from a writing perspective, but I’ve also enjoyed reading conversation style narratives as a reader too! But I am an old soul who like old school TV shows, I am not big on immediate gratification and I’d much rather have the story progress organically rather than get off to a bang because for the sake of it. Because then the “bang” will actually mean something when it does happen rather than just being there for the sake of being there…
Now while the overall story was always clear to me, what wasn’t clear how each specific Episode will play out. So I guess I did float around a bit, and that was fun too! Now when I got my last book back from my beta reader, yes i may be obscure but even I’ve got a beta reader, she was rather surprised at how some of the character arcs played out. Usually writers are happy when their readers are happy when their readers are surprised but I wasn't too sure how to deal with this since in my mind I had left enough subtle clues to make sure that this wasn’t a surprise when it did happen. And yet, it was still a surprise and maybe I might have been a little too subtle!
Now being an obscure writer has its advantages, I could (and I have) revisit all the earlier episodes and make all the subtle changes so that the subtle subtext did not stay so subtle… try saying that with a mouthful!
But it got me thinking…
I am sure that the biggest names in writing have at one time or another just gone through their works and come across stuff that they’d want to have changed. And their stuff gets proofread and edited professionally before it gets out there… and not just that, many of these high profile editors have editorial teams who edit the manuscripts of these big time authors before it gets to them… and of course, each of these writers could very well have their own proofreader and editors too independent of the ones they have at the publishers… so their stuff gets vetted and not just vetted, it gets vetted and filtered through so many layers and even they might reconsider Chapter 3 in Book 2 by the time they’re ready to launch Book 7… maybe the whole context of how Books 7 and 8 play out changes if that chapter was never there! While some of these writer with strong enough convictions do actually come out with revised editions, where some admit to this while others just try and pretend that chapter never exists!
Regardless of how they chose to do things, my point is that if despite all the resources available to them, if they could feel they might have overlooked something that only becomes clear to them much later on as the whole story begins to wind down, then imagine someone working without that support system and operating independently.
I only say this as I try and shift the attention to the kind of advise which I feel is ultimately is counter productive to someone just starting out. Writing in series for the sake of writing in a series won’t work for you if your story is not something that needs to be told over several volumes. Case in point… Harry Potter books vs Harry Potter movies!
Now the Harry Potter book series may have needed 7 books for the story to be told but did squeezing that extra 8th movie out of the series make it a more enjoyable cinematic experience or did it take away from it? To me, it would have been better had they just made one big 7th movie out of the 7th book instead of making two movies, neither one of which was particularly fun…
And so does writing in a series for the sake of writing in a series work? I don’t know if it does or doesn’t, but there are apparently problems with it which are not being highlighted. Another thing is this whole thing called “rapid release” where you put out a book every month. It might seem that I sort of did that if someone took the effort to looks up the release dates of all of my books, but that just goes to show that maybe I too got caught up in this bad feedback loop . But more than that, I think I was just so excited about the whole writing process that I might have just gone ahead and done that anyway. I won’t deny it, it felt good every time I put out so maybe it would have helped me had the voices that were suggesting to “slow down” and instead of listening to generic advice, I should have gone in to something more directly applicable to me.
Overall I am happy with everything, and that includes being okay the mistakes made and money spend, but in hindsight I can see it would have been better to space out the releases. Taking a little longer to make sure everything has ended up the best way it could have will always pay off, even if not in terms of sales then at least in terms of satisfaction of having done a good job. Because no matter how successful a person get in this, the success will always be dependent on others for both sales and recognition, but the satisfaction of having done a good job… nobody else and give that to me, just like nobody else can take that away from me either!
That’s about it… and if you’d like to check out my book, please check out my website at danceofdarknessandlight.com and it’ll have all the links to the various retailers where you can get your copy for free!
Take care!
Seacrest out!