Tagged: Grandson of Science Novel

When Writing Feels More Like Acting

We mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Kent is writing epigraphs for the third Science novel. As with book one of that series, the epigraphs are excerpts from the in-world science fiction novels written by one of the characters.

We need these snippets to have a voice that’s distinct from the Rune Skelley voice. They need to feel like they’re from a different era. So, to create them entails getting inside the mind of their fictitious author.

All fiction entails getting inside the minds of your characters, but this is something verging on stunt fiction. Get inside this character’s head, while she’s getting inside her characters’ heads. Write like she would write, and then rewrite like she would rewrite. Thank goodness these things are brief!

For the middle book, we gave this fictitious author a break and excerpted a story told by someone else. The process bore much similarity, even though the resulting epigraphs that time were quite a bit shorter and more interconnected.

Now we’re back to how we started, except that our in-world author has been through new experiences, some of which shook her. How does that color her writing? How does she cope with other constraints (which would be gigantic spoilers if we told you about them)? We don’t want to just serve up another batch of the exact same stuff, but we do want to do more of what’s good. It’s a tricky balance. Kent had some initial ideas that Jen had to nix. Those mystery constraints clamped down hard. Fortunately, Kent believes that constraints fuel creativity, even if they also prompt the occasional tantrum.

Having a writing partner means you have someone to run lines with you and help you get into character.

 

That Time Jen and Kent Were Writing Two Different Books Together

It’s not all that strange for us to be juggling multiple projects.  The twist this time is that we’re each focusing on one book, just not the same one. Jen is compiling the outline for Sibling of Music Novel while Kent writes the epigraphs for Grandson of Science Novel. A more typical scenario would involve switching between projects every day or two, with the two of us staying mostly synced up on whichever project we switch to.

Another fairly common situation would be where one of us is writing while the other one does research, or designs a cover, things like that. When we’re doing different types of tasks, it’s less noticeable if they’re related to different books.

This feels sorta weird this time, because we are both writing. We tend to ask each other questions out of the blue a lot, and that’s when it’s really noticeable that we’re thinking about different worlds.

For a long time, we would not have even considered this type of multitasking. We very deliberately kept our combined attention on one project at a time. It allowed us to stay immersed in that story world, and our concern was that we’d burn a lot of mental energy spooling it back up again if we got distracted by something else. But as the manuscripts accumulated, life in the Writing Cave got complicated. And it turns out that we’re pretty damn good at keeping multiple worlds spinning in our heads. After a while you even used to it.

Having a writing partner gives you twice the bandwidth for generating warped realities.

2019 Preview

Last week we recapped our 2018. Now it’s time to look ahead and see what the coming twelvemonth will hold in store.

Our top priority will be writing Sibling of Music Novel. The first round of outlining is essentially complete, which does not mean we are yet in possession of anything that resembles an outline. But it does mean we’ll be ready to begin the actual writing pretty soon. Hard to say how long that will take. Our past few projects have been all over the map. Hopefully we can be speedy this time!

After that, we have a couple of good candidates for our attention, depending on which story world we want to focus on. We can stay with the Music series and do an editing pass on Son of Music Novel, or we can pivot back to the Science series where there are two manuscripts that need such treatment.

Deciding which of those worthy endeavors gets our attention first will depend on how our near-future publishing strategy shapes up. 2018 was the year we got an agent, and 2019 will be the year that we adjust our routines accordingly.

And, that means as of now we don’t have an answer for “What book(s) will you release in the coming year?” Everything’s topsy-turvy! But we can say for sure that we’ll be sweating in the writing cave. (Not really, though, because it’s air conditioned.) We will let you know what’s coming just as soon as we find out ourselves. Watch this space for updates.

To sum up, we expect to be busy!

A toast: May this, the year two thousand nineteen, be generous and gentle to you and everyone you love.

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!

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.

Srsly, They’re Almost Done

Progress update on Son and Grandson of Science Novel: they’re still almost done.

All the outstanding comments in both projects have been cleared. The placeholders are filled in, and descriptions punched up and made consistent, and nearly all the new scenes have been written. It seems like for every scene we knock off the list, there are two more getting added. But this hydra will be slain ere the month is out! Forsooth!

Writing books two and three in tandem, and now simultaneously, certainly wasn’t the least stressful approach we could have taken. There were advantages, such as being able to get deeply enmeshed with the cast and the story world, and fine tune both books for thematic resonance and high-level plot development. But it made for a really long trip. We’ve got ourselves pretty well adapted to completing one first draft and then switching into a different mode for a while. Doubling the duration of that prose stretch — spoiler alert — made it twice as long! We’re jonesing pretty hard to focus on something else.

We’ll have the books done soon. Meanwhile, have a picture of the two best, craziest pooches we know.

Lady Marzipan and her consort, the Bandit Lord

Pass the Spackle

We’re still making progress on these first drafts that have occupied us since, seemingly, time began. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we reached the end but still had a few holes to fill in. Since then we’ve made progress toward that goal. Not blazing progress. It’s more of a shamble, which we’ll blame partially on project fatigue and partially on life getting in the way.

The latest deficit to grab our attention is emotional holes and placeholders. Places where we’ve written, “She was angry,” or “He was sad,” or even “What they saw was very interesting,” but there’s no detail, no followup. The moments aren’t expanded or lived in, they’re just inert. It’s the classic trap of telling rather than showing, and we’re working hard on shifting the balance the other way. That’s what’s been occupying Jen most recently.

We also noticed that we had two particular characters who never shared a scene, and it felt like they should. The challenge was making their meeting relevant to the plot. They couldn’t just get together for a drink and chat about sports. It had to mean something. So Kent tackled that and finished it up last night.

If we fuck around with these first drafts much longer they’ll no longer be first drafts, which means that we might need a couple of you guys to come over and take them away from us. New life goal = not letting it come to that.

It’s About Fucking Time

Last night we wrote the final scenes for Grandson of Science Novel! Yay! Go team!

Clearly Jen’s original vision of finishing by the end of 2017 was wildly optimistic. Some might even say delusional. No matter. It’s done now.

Or rather, the main composition is done. There are still a few comments we need to address in both this one and its predecessor, Son of Science Novel. And a few little holes in both to fill in with details. But! We reached the end!

We’ll take the weekend to celebrate, then dive back in next week and knock those last items off of our To Do list in short order. And it will feel so fucking good! We’ll get to put this story world down for a little while and turn our attention to other things. And when we come back we’ll be refreshed and ready edit and perfect it.

Now, where’s that champagne?

Double Double Toil and Trouble

You know how much fun it is to set up a new computer? Well, multiply that by two and you’ll get an idea of how last weekend was for us.

Our old computers were still running fairly well, but they’re eight years old and we were concerned about them suddenly dying on us. To avoid being computer-less and bereft we splurged on replacements and spent several days loading files and updating programs and creating a new backup and all that awesome technical stuff. It was almost too exciting. Even Kent, who is a big ol’ nerd, was getting sick of all the techno-funtimes. We’re still catching our breath.

But now that we’ve come out the other side, we’re quite pleased. The new machines are faster, and since we’ve hooked the old ones up as secondary monitors we have acres of screen space. It’s quite something to behold.

The upgrade process derailed our writing progress temporarily, but we’re now back up and running. Both Son and Grandson of Science Novel have passed 110,000 words, which feels pretty amazing.

Having a writing partner might mean doubling your computer budget, but it also means doubling your successes and having someone to celebrate them with.

Don’t Go There

We’re getting really close to completing the first draft of Grandson of Science Novel. We have also been tinkering with Son of Science Novel a bit in parallel. Is it still a first draft, or have we begun revisions? That’s a deep question, and is not the topic of this week’s post.

The topic is, how much does the main character know about the dark dealings of the villain? Is it possible for the hero to know too much?

This villain does some really ugly shit. Quite a variety of badness, actually, most of it in secret of course. The good guys have to dig to find out just how awful their adversary is, and in the current draft they uncover the shittiest deeds. But, we’re going to pare back the amount that they’re able to learn. They’ll know enough.

There is a school of thought that would say this is a mistake, that every source of conflict and tension has to be maxed out. Um, no. The sources of conflict and tension that you want to capitalize on are only those that form the basis of the story you’re telling. If you have, say, ten things happening that might drive conflict, all of which are pushed as hard as you can, then the two or three that resonate with your theme are drowned out.

This does not mean that you shield your character. It’s not about avoiding real conflict, but about making choices of what conflicts your character will face. In our case, to give our hero this knowledge would force the entire rest of the plot to be about that. It’s so awful, so upsetting, that it then must become the thing driving the hero to seek justice, or else we pivot to a story of guilt over not seeking justice. Or else (if we try to pretend these issues aren’t there) we get a story with a main character who seems unconcerned about injustice.

The tale in which our hero knows those details is a different story than the one we’re telling. Of course, the villainy itself remains. That’s not up for debate. All we’re doing is withholding some information from our protagonist, which lets us put her into more nuanced peril (moral and mortal).

When you need to figure out the thorny dilemmas of your characters and your plot, it’s very helpful to talk them through with someone who’s familiar with the project. Just another way that a good writing partner makes everything better.