Drawing from the Well
Chapters Edited: 7
Chapters to Edit: 10
I made a lot more progress yesterday. I would have made more, but in my last edit, I cut a lot and in a couple places I cut too many. So I had to put some details back in to connect the dots (see where this is going). That said, I made these connections succinctly so I’m taking that as a lesson as I map out the scenes for Book 2. As of the last time I worked on it, I was on pace for 80+ chapters. Unless they’re all radically short, I’ve got too many chapters. Thus, I’m keeping these lessons about word budget on the front of my mind for when I switch from editing to sceneing again and then, ultimately, to drafting.
Filling the Well
That Hideous Strength: 54%
Elegy: Page 16 of 89
Jessica Jones: S2E13 of 13
The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections: 25%
Progress! I almost finished Jessica Jones yesterday but got cut short with ten minutes left. I’ll barrel through that this morning, but otherwise, this will not be a day where I fill my well because…
Polishing the Well
It’s my wife’s birthday today! I’m so excited to celebrate her. She deserves it. I won’t tell about any of my secret plans now, but you’ll hear about them tomorrow. Suffice it to say, I can’t wait to give her the Big Gift.
Well Chat
Confronting the Devil in the Details
Three times yesterday, I ran into notes from my editor informing me that she was missing something or that something didn’t make sense. One of them I immediately remembered from editing to Draft 6 as a potential problem. So I went back and adjusted things in a couple cases and added a few paragraphs in others to explain what was going on.
Now, what did we learn here? That’s a question I ask my kids all the time and they HAAAAAAAAATE it. It’s also an important question to ask myself, though. Word frugality is important, but you need enough details to connect everything together. Without that, you’ll lose your readers.
A great example of this is in the Dragonlance Chronicles. Between Book 1 and 2 (if memory serves) there’s a bit of a time jump. The characters are in different places and the groups are in different configurations than at the end of Book 1. The reason for this is that there’s a story in between these novels (that later became Dragons of Dwarven Depths, Book 1 in the Lost Chronicles trilogy) that carries the characters to different places. With that story in place, it all makes sense, but without it, jumping into Book 2 of Chronicles is a bit jarring.
Now, as always, the author has artistic license to do this, BUT I advise against this. Unless you’re going to loop back in the same book and explain and you’re using the disorientation for a reason (like with Claire in Lost), avoid it. To quote Vonnegut’s Tip #8:
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
-Kurt Vonnegut
Advice from Kurt Vonnegut that Every Writer Needs to Read
https://prowritingaid.com/en/Blog/Read/455?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=alexhemus
This is a difficult tip for me because I disagree with it on principle, but the more I write, the more I find that I agree with it. Show your readers what is going on through the lens of your characters. Give them the info so they can enjoy the ride rather than spend their time reading decoding how clever you are.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG