Tagged: Science Novel

Making Ourselves Believe the Make-Believe

A hallmark of well-crafted fiction is when readers effortlessly suspend their disbelief. Creating good fiction calls for writers to suspend their disbelief as well.

For instance, to write our ghost story we need to convincingly portray a world in which ghosts exist, so we have to embrace that alternate reality. In our Divided Man series, it was extra-terrestrials, nanotech, and psychic powers. In the Music series, it was something else (which you will not be able to guess, ever, we guarantee that), and in the Science series it was immortality. Each story we tell gives consensus reality its own unique twist, which on a certain level becomes “true” for us also. That immersion is crucial for us to bring richness to the setting, and to keep its physical laws consistent.

And that’s the easy part. Writing a novel calls for the author to see the world through potentially disturbing eyes. Could be a cult leader, a mad scientist, a serial killer, or a televangelist. If you’re a nice person — which we’re sure you are — the behavior of such characters seems unthinkable to you. Then again, you’d probably make a rather dull bad guy. Every villain is the hero of their story. They believe in what they’re doing. So the writer must be able to believe in it too, at least while they’re writing. This is still true even if the villain isn’t a POV character! Like an evil marionette, it’s relying on you to pull its strings.

A writing partner is someone who encourages delusional ideation, but only when you’re on the clock.

As Predicted

Way back in January we made a writing plan for 2021. Let’s see how closely we followed it.

In true oxymoronic fashion, we wanted to start by finishing something. Editing the Science Novels was handily done, so — Check!

Next was plotting the Ghost Series, which gets another check.

And here’s where things fall apart a little. We were a smidge optimistic when we made our plan, and thought we’d have enough time left in the year to start the actual writing. Hilariously, we left open the possibility that we’d need to decide what to do after we finished the first Ghost Novel. Ha ha! Building four plot rainbows took longer than anticipated, and the actual composition hasn’t begun yet. But slow progress is still progress, and we’re very excited about what’s in store.

One other item on our To Do list that still needs to be addressed: deciding what will come after the Ghost Books. Extremely preliminary discussions on that topic have begun. A good writing partner is someone you enjoy having discussions with, no matter how preliminary they might be.

Toodles 2021

Pull up a comfy chair, dear reader, and together we’ll review what we blogged about over this past twelve-month. Are you comfortable? Would you care for an adult beverage before we begin?

We started the year by pontificating about Point of View. It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that we have strong opinions on the matter.

We closed out edits on our Science Novels as we closed out January, and our Ghost universe took over all of our work sessions. It involved a lot of brainstorming and plot-rainbowing. And we started watching Supernatural — an activity we’re still engaged in (there are a lot of episodes!).

And speaking of televisual entertainment, in March we offered up an incomplete list of our quarantine viewing material. And even now, 9 months later, we still haven’t braved a movie theatre. We enjoyed Only Murders in the Building, recently finished up the newest seasons of What We Do in the Shadows and the Great British Baking Show, and are almost done with Schmigadoon!, DreamCorp LLC, and Party Down. We recently watched Raiders of the Lost Ark for the umpteenth time (inspired by watching Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made), and our most recent DVD was Harold and Maude (technically a rewatch, but it had been so long that Kent didn’t remember seeing it).

The dogs made a cameo appearance in April, then we went on to wax rhapsodic about our plot rainbow again some more. We were very proud of the concept we had for the ending, which has since gone through several further iterations. It’ll be interesting to see how much it further it morphs by the time we write it.

The joys and tribulations of plotting an entire 4-book series at once occupied much of May. And then our kids came for a visit!

The halfway point of all that outlining came in June, and that’s also when we started talking about redecorating the Writing Cave. We’re happy to say that the outlining is now complete. The Writing Cave reno, not so much. The big stuff is all done and the room is totally usable, but the finishing details are stalled.

In July we were a little hung up on how complicated our plotting process is, so we added a new member to our SkelleyCo writing team: our beloved white board!

When August rolled around we got started on Book 4 (the final Ghost Book for those of you keeping track at home). It’s kind of enormous, and we had to chop all of our paper squares in half so all the characters would fit on one side. We fretted that the 400 magnets we bought might not be enough. Fear not – we had a whopping 13 or 14 magnets leftover at the end.

September was light on blogging because we were shoulder-deep in the Writing Cave renovation, but we did manage to debate whether or not it was possible for a character to be too villainous. Conclusion: yes.

The end of plot-rainbowing was in sight in October, and we continued our passionate love affair with our white board. That thing is truly worth its weight in gold. And in addition to that we found time to update our Stichomancy Writing Prompt Generator.

In November we finally finally completed all the plotting for the whole entire Ghost Series.  But that doesn’t mean we’re ready to start writing just yet. When we aren’t hosting visitors or helping our children move, Kent is working on maps and Jen is typing up the world’s longest, strangest outline (the old-school kind with Roman Numeral and regular numbers,  and letters both capital and lowercase). The actual writing should commence soonish. Maybe in December, maybe in January.

And finally, in December we said a tearful goodbye to a beloved member of our critique group. It can’t be said frequently or forcefully enough: Fuck Cancer.

The Big, Giant Science-Trilogy Reread

Book one of our Science trilogy is in a fairly polished state. It’s been through our critique group and some beta readers and has had a couple of editing passes.

Books two and three, on the other hand, are still basically first drafts. Our next project will be to edit them into shape. So, first things first: we need to cram that entire three-book saga into our heads. This epic read-through is a little more than halfway done, and Kent’s voice is still holding up pretty well.

What’s neat is that we’ve been away from this story world long enough that there are lots of little rediscoveries for us in the text. They’re mostly fun little reminders of how good it is, but there are also some opportunities for improvement. It really is proving to us the value of letting something rest before you try to edit it. The awesome and the not-quite-awesome both just leap out in a way that they can’t when it’s too fresh.

A writing partner is someone who will read 1500 pages out loud to you.

2020 Vision

As we sit here in the Writing Cave, planning out our next writing moves, it’s becoming clear that 2020 might be a year that very little actual writing gets done.

We set January 31 as the deadline for Sibling of Music Novel, a target which seems easily reachable. There are two scenes in progress, and five more after that waiting to be written. Easy peasy. After a small champagne toast, the rest of the month will be spent going back through the manuscript and filling in the placeholders, fixing things we changed our minds about halfway through, and addressing all the other little fiddly things that we know need attention. It will still technically be a first draft, but it will be a pretty clean one. That’s how we like ’em.

To celebrate the completion of the Music Trilogy we’ll pop open the BIG bottle of champagne.

As of February 1 (assuming all goes according to plan) we will have four completed novels that are in need of major edits. For the past few years we’ve concentrated heavily on the writing side of the equation, and now it’s time to turn that around and get some things polished up and gorgeous.

We have two Music Novels and two Science Novels to edit, and we have yet to decide what order we’re going to do them in. On the one hand, we’re pretty immersed in the Music story world at the moment, so it makes sense to stick with that. On the other hand, Sibling needs some time to rest before we can effectively edit it, so it makes sense to switch our attention to the Science story world. Plus that’s the one that our critique group is looking at right now. But the Music Novel is the one our agent is shopping around, so maybe we should stay focused on that?

Around and around we go.

Wherever we decide to start, each novel will go through several stages of editing, and will rest in between.

And in the background we’ll still be tinkering with ideas for the Ghost Series. Jen is a little concerned about what our workflow will look like if we finish up everything else before we start on the ghosts. At various stages of our process we find it helpful to switch our attention to a different project to let our batteries recharge. What will happen if we don’t have anything else to turn our attention to? Kent is a little concerned about having an ever-increasing pile of first drafts that never get readied for publication, and he points out that there will inevitably be projects after the Ghost Series, so when we need a break we can figure out what the next one will be and work on that.

These best laid plans might all fly out the window when our agent sells Music Novel, because then we’ll have plenty of distractions, what with selling the movie rights, and going on all the talk shows, and hobnobbing with celebrities, and buying yachts and all that.

Happy 2020 to all of you!

A Lot of Balls in the Air

It’s hard to remember, but there was a time when we were only working on one book. Back in the prehistory of the Skelleyverse, Miss Brandymoon’s Device was our only project and we devoted all of our time to it. And it took forever to write. We were still learning how to organize our process, how to mesh our styles, how to create a coherent story with two headstrong people both trying to steer.

Through the years we got much more efficient. We also broadened our fictional ambitions. We added a second story universe. And then a third. Three seems to be a comfortable number for us. Our books come in trilogies, and once we put the Divided Man Series to bed, we started really fleshing out the ghost series that will come next.

Currently we are writing in the Music series, getting feedback on the Science series, and working on preproduction for the Ghost series. Our stories tend to be big and complex, and they benefit from being able to simmer for a long time. Every time we circle back and have a brainstorming discussion, new details emerge. It makes the story world and characters rich and full-bodied. It gives us time to get to know these people we’ll be spending a lot of time with, and it helps us spot plot holes.

A writing partner is someone who will help you with your juggling act.

2018 – The Year That Was

To the shock of both of us, last year’s forecast for 2018 was spot-on. We wanted to finish up the Science Novels, outline the middle Music Novel, and begin talking about the Ghost Novels, and that’s pretty much what we did. The one place we missed the mark was in predicting (or hoping) that the first Science Novel would be released in 2018. It wasn’t. But we have the best excuse! 2018 was the year we got an agent! And that put our self-publishing plans on hold while we talk to him and figure out what makes sense in this new landscape.

Here’s how we spent 2018 on the blog:

January and February were devoted to writing Grandson of Science Novel, whining about missing self-imposed deadlines and target word counts, a brief break to clean our desks, and an update to our chain story’s cast of characters.

In March we mused about whether a protagonist should learn of ALL of the villains evil doings (“No.”) And we had the joy of setting up new computers.

April brought several rounds of critique group advice, and we finally reached the end of the first draft of Grandson of Science Novel. Break out the champagne!

But don’t drink too much, because we still had some work to do before the Science Novels could all be considered Done Enough. We spent May plugging holes and strengthening descriptions. Oh, and we got a puppy.

On June 1 we declared ourselves done for realsies, and hit the ground running on that Music Novel outline.

July and August were devoted to brainstorming, outlining, and research for Sibling of Music Novel.

In September we pulled back from Music Novels and dove straight into the Science Novels again, reading through all three of them in preparation for edits and cover design.

The Science Novels remained our focus in October as we worked to get them ready for our beta readers. Plus we passed a major milestone: 1000 blog posts!

When the Science and Music Novels are done, our next project is going to involve ghosts. We spent November taking various road trips and using the time on the road to lay the groundwork for this whole new story universe. Plus we tossed some old audio equipment outside during a blizzard and took pictures of it. As you do.

Which brings us up to the present. December. We GOT AN AGENT! And since he’s going to be selling the first Music Novel for us, we really need to turn our attention back to that series and get the middle book done. We were a bit rusty when we sat down to our brainstorming, but with a little bit of WD-40 and a couple of jumper cables we’re now purring along like a vintage muscle car.

We hope your 2018 went well, and your 2019 goes even better. Happy New Year!

Holiday Sanity Check

We are still toiling away toward the upcoming release of Science Novel, and it’s going well. Jen’s innate knack for project management has again risen to the fore, and Kent has been able to take down nearly one-third of the neon-orange sticky notes that she put up on the board to track his editing progress. The cover is resting comfortably, as is one of its siblings, with the remaining one nearing completion as well to round out the trilogy’s wrappers. (More about the covers in next Friday’s post!)

Also, we have a houseful of (very welcome!) distractions, and tons of baking and cooking and cleaning to do, plus visiting and shopping and, well, you get it. This season is a really tough time to try to cloister ourselves for a final push to complete a project. Work continues, but life goes on. There must always be a balance.

Thus, because we absolutely will not release anything that feels rushed, we have chosen to buy ourselves a bit of breathing room and push the new book back until January. Once we have a firm date, we’ll schedule a cover reveal.

Meanwhile, enjoy your holiday rituals, feasts, and companionship, along with anticipatory tingles about our new novel. Delayed gratification will be our gift to you. Hope you like the color!

Achievement Unlocked: Editing Pass

Science Novel passed another milestone this week, when we completed an editing pass through the whole manuscript. Yay, Team Skelley!

What it mainly showed us is that this book is really close to ready to meet its adoring public. The changes were almost all word-picks, and there were surprisingly few of them. We knew that we’d done significant editing on this one already, but because we’d laid it aside for quite a while we expected to have more issues jump out at us when we picked it back up. The longer we let a book rest, the better we can see what needs tuning. So, this is a great sign.

There’s still tons of work to do in order to get it ready. One of the tasks will be yet another editing pass. Why bother? Because we want you to have nice things, of course. But also for symmetry. Jen went first on this most recent edit, so for the next one it’ll be Kent’s turn to run in front. We each tend to be tuned into different aspects of the prose, and we’ve geared our process to take advantage of that.

(It’s also an excuse to read the story again.)

You Are Now Free to Move About the Cabin

We’re doing a read-through of the whole Science trilogy, as a step in the process of releasing the first book of that series. Our intention is to have all three of them fresh in our minds while doing final edits on book one. That way, we will be able to cinch them into a tighter whole as a series.

While writing them, it was hard not to end up with our noses down in the weeds. As we zoom over the tale in this marathon read-aloud, we’re seeing it from a much greater altitude. Kent losing his voice is a small sacrifice in exchange for such a boon, or so Jen assures him.

The three novels are at quite different stages of development. The first one, as we say, is going into final edits. Meanwhile the other two are basically raw* first drafts, and aren’t even arranged into chapters yet. Their scenes are (mostly) in the proper order, but we have been noting places where stuff will need to shift. In some cases it’s that info must be revealed out of chronological order, and in others we’re tweaking the rhythm of the POV transitions.

Having a writing partner means there’s someone to read your stuff out loud to you, at least until his voice gives out.

*Given our extensive pre-work regimen, all of our first drafts are technically medium-rare.