Tagged: stubs

A Stitch in Time

We have a sickness. As we write, we always try to estimate how many words long the finished manuscript will be. Why? Who knows. It doesn’t really matter, unless we’re coming up really short or going suuuuuper long. But still we obsess. We try to look at the outline and guess how many pages it represents, when we know in our bones that it’s a pointless endeavor. Some sections of the outline are incredibly detailed, others are done in broad strokes. It’s an inexact science.

Currently we are halfway through the outline for Sibling of Music Novel. 36 scenes have been written, and six more are stubbed and ready to go. Does that mean that we are halfway through the novel? Our guts say “not quite.” And since the manuscript is sitting at a hair over 71,000 words right now, that suggests that we’re looking at a finished product of something like 150,000 words. Which is quite a lot, in case you were wondering.

— insert all the typical caveats about editing and its impact on word count here —

Since we’re fairly confident that this one will be long enough, we’ve begun scrutinizing the outline for ways to consolidate scenes. Jen took it one step further and was reviewing the stubs still awaiting our tender ministrations. Turns out that there’s a stub for a scene that now feels unnecessary. By not writing it we’ll save ourselves the time that would have taken, plus time in editing when we would have agonized over removing it. The events in the ghost scene still happened to the characters, but we’re confident that they’re minor enough to be mentioned in passing. And if it turns out we’re wrong and all the characters want to do is talk about the events that happened off-screen, well then we’ll go back and write it later.

A writing partner is someone who can help you see around these kinds of corners.

And They’re Off!

Composition has commenced! Sibling of Music Novel is under way! We hit the ground, if not exactly running, then at a leisurely jog. We’re 3,000 words in, and are really pleased with which 3,000 words we’ve chosen, and the order in which we’ve put them. We say “we,” but so far Kent has done all of the writing of the actual novel proper. Jen’s been writing stubs (which we’ve talked about at length before). She’s got the first 16 scenes specced out beautifully for whichever half of Rune Skelley picks them up, and four more after that roughed in.

It’s just about time for her to put that project aside and join Kent in the prose mines, at which point our daily word count output should double. Sometimes it’s difficult to decide how many stubs in waiting is enough. Right now Jen has her eye on a particular event in the outline, and she’d like to get the stubs finished up to that plot point. It should only be another 5 scenes or so. The problem being that her target keeps shifting. Originally she was only going to do a dozen stubs to get us started, and now we’re looking at at least twice that. It’s not hard to imagine her making excuses to keep going and going. Which wouldn’t be the end of the world, since it’s work she’ll have to do eventually anyway. But it’s not unheard of for things to shift as we write the actual scenes, and if things shift too much then the stubs from the far future have to be scrapped or completely rewritten.

All that to say that Jen has, at most, two more work sessions of stub writing before she has to put on her mining helmet and join Kent in the pit.

Slow and Stubby Wins the Race

Jen writes most of the stubs. It’s not like there’s a union rule or anything, it just sorta feels like it. But it works out better that way for everybody most of the time, partly because Kent is prone to getting too wrapped up in the details. Stubs aren’t supposed to be all that detailed.

This week, there was a bit of a role reversal because Kent wrote some stubs. (And Jen wrote some epigraphs, which are usually in Kent’s wheelhouse.) He was supposed to just write a scene, but it’s an actiony scene and the stub Jen handed him said little beyond “they fight.” So, he decided to flesh out the stub first. Then he decided to make it into three stubs.

As he worked, he commented to Jen several times that he was reining himself in on the details. Which made her wonder why he didn’t just get into the flow and write the scene itself. He had his reasons. Basically, the same reason that it ended up being three stubs. They still came out a little too detailed for the Rune Skelley stub specification.

Jen wonders if we shouldn’t just call the stubs the scenes. This could be an elegant way of avoiding Kent’s tendency to overwrite action scenes, and save us the trouble of sanding off all the baroque curlicues during revision. But Kent is pretty sure he can punch them up a great deal and still hand in something relatively aerodynamic.

Having a writing partner means being able to rely on somebody to handle the tasks you’re less proficient at. And when you stray outside your comfort zone, it means there’s someone to coach you.

Fear of Details

Rune Skelley’s process is pretty intensive with the supporting materials, as regular readers here are well aware. It’s a system that has evolved as Jen and Kent have worked together on numerous novels over the years. We talk a lot here about the textual elements: rainbows, outlines, and stubs. What we don’t mention so often are the visual aids, but it turns out those can be just as important.

In addition to seeking inspiration on Pinterest and stock photo sites, and “casting” our main characters by including a pic in their bio, we like to create maps and diagrams. Cities, buildings, ships, underground complexes — you name it, we draw maps of it.

Usually.

It might be because we’re so eager to get the current WIP wrapped up, or maybe we’ve just become a little too comfortable with ourselves, but we neglected to draw any pictures of a key locale that figures in the finale. We talked about the place a lot, made good notes. But Kent noticed something about the first draft that he thinks is due to skipping the actual floor plan: he’s hesitant to enrich the scenes with sensory details.

This is a first draft, and of course we’ll address any such deficiencies during revisions. It’s not a disaster, although it might end up being more work than if we’d prepared the visuals up front. (We’re big on up-front preparation.)

Kent’s theory is that this “fear” of details arises from there being two of us working together without concrete documentation of the locale. We’re each making things up as we go, and we might not make them up exactly alike. Mentioning anything specific, like saying the door is on the right or the table is black, creates a potential continuity issue. The logical conclusion then? Don’t mention any details! That way we can’t contradict each other. We can literally keep our story straight. Straight, and devoid of texture or context.

It’s too vague, too loosey-goosey. If only we had a tool to fix that problem…

Wait a minute, we do! The Rune Skelley Writing Toolbox contains numerous strange implements, among them a pair of wrenches. There’s the familiar monkey wrench, meant to be thrown into the gears when everything feels like it’s running a smidge too neatly, and then there’s the goose wrench. That one’s more subtle, and its job is reduce chaos without making everything too rigid. It’s usually deployed during the outlining stage, keeping the plot from losing its shape, but it can also manifest as visual aids that keep the setting (and characters, and props, and so on) in focus.

Remember, Kent: righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.

Gazing Ahead

We’re very pleased with the process we’ve developed over our years of writing together, especially our secret weapon: stubs. They offer multiple advantages for anybody working on a large-scale project, and provide a crucial foundation of common understanding for anybody working as a team. Taken together, they form a kind of first draft of the first draft.

We don’t create all the stubs up front. Typically Jen will write a dozen or so at a time, and then when we’ve used most of them up she’ll do the next wave. Our main reason for this is for continuity. The progression from outline to stub to prose brings an increased level of detail and reveals decisions that get made on the fly. If we did stubs too far in advance, by the time we got to the later ones there’d be inaccuracies.

But the other reason for doing the stubs in waves is so that the material is fresh for us as we tackle the scenes. Our current work-in-progress has fallen just a tad behind schedule, which has undermined this notion of freshness. Jen did the stubs all the way out to the end a while ago, part of a push to get the manuscript finished up more quickly.

So, it was time to remind ourselves how this thing’s supposed to end. Over the weekend we devoted a chunk of time to reviewing all the stubs, reacquainting ourselves with the shape of things in the finale. We also wanted to decide whether or not to be a bit more vicious in our treatment of one character. It felt like we probably ought to, but before committing to that idea we had to check ahead for what actions might become infeasible for this person, so we could have reassigned or reengineered tasks if necessary.

Luckily for us (unluckily for that character) the adjustments were minor.

It felt great to read the ending of the story, even in stub form. We both got a nice jolt of, “I want to read that book — guess we’ll have to write it!”

Giants of Science (Novels)

We passed some nice milestones recently in the auxiliary writing cave. Our base of operations shifted there while we collated and discussed the critique input we collected on Science Novel, and even though we would rather have done that work over the winter (because the auxiliary writing cave has a fireplace) it was still a nice change of scene.

Now we’re back in the primary writing cave, gearing up to dive into the Science series. Maybe “come at it broadside” would be more apt, seeing as we’ll have three books in play simultaneously. Now that the critique info is digested, Jen will begin an editing pass on Science Novel. Meanwhile, Kent will be making additions to the first draft of Son of while Jen lays the groundwork for Grandson by cooking up its first batch of stubs. It’s a form of cookery where all the plates are spinning, evidently.

The last time we tackled three books all at once was when we did the covers for the Divided Man series. Based on how that turned out, we might want to start making a habit of it.

Like a Swiss Clock

r-avatarSon of Science Novel may not be progressing as quickly as we would like, but it is progressing smoothly. Everything is lining up just the way it should.

Jen whipped up a dozen or so stubs before actual writing began, and when we started to run low she was able to leave the prose composition in Kent’s capable hands and get the next batch of them ready. It takes a little bit of planning to map out which of us is going to write which upcoming scene, but as usually happens with a novel, each of us has gravitated toward certain characters. And, due to good planning at the outlining stage, point-of-view scenes for each character are somewhat staggered which has resulted in us seamlessly passing the baton back and forth. Wow, that’s a terrible metaphor.

Anyway.

This week Kent was working his way through a complicated scene while Jen did her best to confuse Google with her research topics. She got the answers she needed just in time for Kent to need to do some research, which meant one of us was always adding to the word count.

Having a writing partner brings some challenges, but this past month has really demonstrated for us what a useful thing it is to have one.

So Now It’s Fall Already

r-avatarProgress report time: we’re making progress!

Jen has completed the first nine stubs for Son of Science Novel. Each stub represents a scene, which for us tends to run in the range of three to six pages, although many times they end up longer. It’s not exactly rare for a scene to get cut after we’ve written it, but our process does help us minimize such wasted effort. If it gets stubbed, it’s a pretty sure bet it’ll be in the book.

Kent has completed the first draft of the new short story. He hadn’t done one in quite a while, and it felt damn good. In this case it was also fun to reconnect with characters we haven’t written lately. So now that draft needs to rest for a bit and then we’ll do revisions.

And, we have been devoting a lot of time over the past few weeks to the business side. This is a trend we expect to continue for the foreseeable future. It’s exciting and intimidating at the same time. One thing that’s become clear to us is that the biggest appeal of traditional publishing is the idea of having other people do all this stuff. (Which isn’t necessarily an accurate idea, but it sure is appealing!)

Now, back into it. More worlds to conquer! And winter is, is… due to arrive… just around the corner, er, bound to show up at some point.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines

r-avatarWe mentioned recently that there hasn’t been much writing going on in the writing cave of late, and we’re happy to announce that that’s about to change.

Yes, we’re still wading around in the marketing bayou, wielding our machetes, collecting the far-flung pieces of the treasure map that will assure us publishing success, while doing our best to avoid quagmires, gators, and other distractions. But we are still attempting to plug away at the fiction at the same time.

A few days ago Jen finished up the detailed outlines and timelines for the next two novels we’re going to tackle. They’re both sequels to the Science Novel, so it makes sense to work them in tandem. This was the first time we’ve worked on such a grand scale, and it took a lot longer than expected to get them both fleshed out. We needed to upgrade our crystal ball to get better resolution for such far-future details.

Then last night Jen composed the first stub for Novel #7, aka Son of Science Novel. (In our writing cave, Stubs are what we call detailed scene descriptions, the step between outline and actual prose.) We like to have at least half a dozen stubs lined up before we start writing so that we’re both clear on how our individual parts will fit into the finished work. We’re not quite ready to start yet. But we’re so close! The excitement is building, and we’re hopeful that we’ll actually remember how to do it. To limber up, Kent is working on a short story.

A Little Pantsing Can’t Hurt Too Much, Right?

r-avatarMan, we are closing in on the conclusion — make that the action-packed conclusion — of Son Of Music Novel. We’re so close. The scene Kent is working on is that last big chunk of writing, although we have stubs for a few more scenes that are mostly denouement. (Also, there’s a feature of the Music Novel that recurs here, and for which we need a significant amount of text. Jen’s made an excellent start on that.)

All this adds up to a strong likelihood that our manuscript’s completion will fall during NaNoWriMo. Ah well, if our baby’s a Scorpio we’ll love it anyway.

Kent’s working from a stub that turned out to be a little light on details. It was fine up to a point, and then it got vague. The way we chose to deal with that issue (once we figured it out) was to have Kent beef things up in the stub first, rather than just winging it and going straight to prose. Either way could work, and our way we knew there was a small amount of extra writing to be done. It was tempting to see that as nonproductive and skip it, but experience has taught us that we’d end up with more rewriting if we succumbed to that temptation. Better to do a few hundred words up front, knowing they’ll never be read by anyone outside of the writing cave, than to write thousands of words thinking that they’re counting toward completion only to find that they don’t work, and then do another batch.

You might be wondering how we ran into this problem, given our fervor for a stub-based methodology. It was kind of a perfect storm. The later in the story we get, the less need for worry over derailing things. This lack of worry is great from a stress-management perspective, but it can lead to cutting corners. And as it turns out, there is a second edge to that “close to done” sword: things need to start coming together, not keep ramifying. You’re on final approach, and you have to make sure you won’t run out of runway. Another factor here is that the vague area of the stub was mostly kinetic, which makes it easily glossed over. But the action in question incorporates thematic elements and needs to cover specific beats for the character arcs. It’s not just, “make up something exciting and interesting,” it’s “do that, within all these nuanced constraints.”

It seems glaring in hindsight, but until the prose was well underway we thought the stub was pretty solid. Fortunately our work style involves lots of conversation and we figured out the issues without losing any ground. Kent does seem to have a Zeno’s Paradox thing going on, where each evening he manages to write half of the remaining words in his scene. Jen’s not the kind of co-author who’ll sit back and let that run its course, so one way or another that cycle will break pretty soon.

Happy Friday the Thirteenth to all our triskaidekaphobe friends! And all you triskaidekaphiles, too.