January 4
New Look: WIP Charts…
I’m hoping this will help people follow the updates easier. What’s done, what’s being worked on, what will be done, etc. All the links are in there for ease. Eventually I’ll make these for all the WIPS, but until then, here are the ones I’m focused on.
So, as you can see, I work in ‘Events.’ It’s the serial format I find the most useful. When you’re writing long story arcs that span several novels, it can be easy to lose tension, lose focus. I started solving this problem when writing serials like Demon Bonded where I attacked each thing in ‘Episodes.’ Each episode was a book, but it wasn’t always an event. It usually had a little cliff that broke an event right at the most suspenseful moment, and then the second half of the episode would be the beginning of another event that would pull a reader in to wonder what would happen next. Even if I had months between each episode, as long as I kept track of my ‘events’ (Ky facing the Aeternum is up next, for example,) I’m able to pick up and ensure the tension works moving forward, even if I can’t remember everything that came before.
Initially, I didn’t plan as much as I should have when writing. It was a lot of just seeing what worked while finding out the hard way what didn’t. Being sick was a wonderful excuse not to organize and just hope things would work out. @_@ Now that planning is part of my process (thank fuck XD) I don’t expect these levels of rewrites. When you have things figured out in the outline and keep nice notes, things flow so much easier. I actually have the third PATB novel completely outlined. I can’t wait to stop playing catch up and just flow with the writing once again.