Vampy Black Project: Organization

One thing I love about Scrivener 2 is the ability to cut up a chapter into subsections, group those together, and move them around. We ran into an issue at the end of Darthaniel's Vampy Black Project, which I am working on him with, where the end of the book did not feel like it flowed as well as we would have liked. There was nothing wrong with the text, it just seemed like the tension and drama could be increased and we just couldn't place our finger on it.

Last night I tried mixing things up. I split chapters up and combined them in a logical fashion where the action in each built upon each other. We had a structure where we had start-to-stop chapters, where a situation would begin and resolve all in the same chapter. They were great for blocking out what happened, but when they were placed together, they didn't flow together naturally, and I got the feeling I spent too much time away from one character while we read the next.

I don't like it when you get the feeling you need to skim to get back to the character you really care about, and that is what I felt was happening. Even though, yes, everything was great in the individual chapters, in the order they were, I just did not get that sense of urgency and equal importance.

So I cut the few ending chapters we were working on apart into logical chunks, and reshuffled them.

It worked very well. The same text was broken apart at logical breakpoints and pauses in the action, and then worked back together so the end of the book starts working very well as an interlaced, real-time story. Each chapter still has a single point-of-view, but the chapters flip characters rapidly as the end of the book draws towards a crescendo, and you get this sense of tension that I felt was lacking how the work was organized before.

You just don't get that organizational ability in other programs and traditional word processors, which is why I just love Scrivener so much for writing and these final editing phases. I can block out a rough draft anywhere, and preferably on a distraction free device, but when it comes time to layer, check, and craft structure - Scrivener is the place to go. Although I have written books in Scrivener from draft to release, and it does that well too.

So the next time you feel something isn't working right it may not be the story at fault, it could just be organization, flow, and presentation. If you cut things up, reshuffle paragraphs, and change the flow you just may see something you hadn't before. You may discover that the problematic feeling you had was just how things were ordered instead of the words themselves.

CLS Romance: Detail Passes, 18,000 words

I am at 18,000 words with my CLS Romance project, and I am finding myself going back and doing detail passes on what I wrote. I find it helpful to go back and ask the basic questions about a chapter, where are they, what do things look like, or when is this happening? Asking the basic who. what. when, where, why, and how questions will get you looking at your work as a reader, and you will then determine if that extra information adds to the scene or distracts from it.

Sometimes, I find that I wrote something, and it doesn't have a strong sense of place, so I need to pull my narrative and descriptive paintbrushes out of my writer's toolbox and set the scene.

Other times, I will see an info-dump and want to convert that into dialog so the reader can pick up on the information slowly and over the course of a conversation.

These are detail passes, like a painter stopping and going back into a place in the painting to add little pieces of detail to make the picture pop. Now, it's possible to overwork a chapter with too much detail, but never, ever consider your first draft to be a final - chapters always need detail passes and you should ideally never release something raw to readers.

After I am done my pass, there is always room for another to layer in further details and information. You may have forgot about the cold in a winter scene, or forgot to describe the tone and color of the light. You may have forgot to describe what the characters were wearing, or that may not be important. You may have missed a chance for some great dialog or character development.

As for progress? I am not done yet, and I have this feeling I am either halfway or 2/3rd done with this. I do not want this to go 70,000 words though, even though I could sit here and just turn this into an epic. I have my plan, and it shall take me as long as it takes me. I am feeling 30 to 35,000 words is my target based on the outline I have remaining, and my tendency to add in detail and interaction as I go fluffing things out as bit.

Mind you, that is still a hefty amount of post-work. It took me a couple weeks to get On Black Wings finalized, so we are talking a solid week or two of editing work to get this project to a releasable state. This is with those detail passes I am finding necessary and also very fun to sprinkle in.

Kindle Worlds

I've always wanted to publish for Kindle Worlds, sort of a commercialized fan-fiction portal that Amazon setup with a bunch of licensed property holders. There are some fun ones in there, but none that grab me right off. Some I'd love to see?

• Lost, The Walking Dead, Downtown Abbey, Game of Thrones and other fun TV shows
• Classic novels and movies from the 1940's to 1970's
• Some communities where fan-fic has been unofficially supported like Star Wars and Star Trek
• Even just famous figures, such as movie stars or personalities
• Cult classic shows like Buffy, 24, Charmed, or any other odd but recognizable choice

Yes, more, more, more. Part of the problem is that it probably takes time and money to secure rights, and they have to know that there is interest there before they choose what they would like to pursue. Without interest, they aren't going to chase it down. It's sort of a vicious cycle, I would love for this program to do well and expand, but if I can't find properties I am interested in, it is hard for me to dive in and start writing.

I would love for them to grab the rights to dead-properties, like old TV shows or any other abandoned but interesting license. You would think things long off the cultural radar, like The Lone Ranger, Three's Company, Dynasty, The Love Boat, or any other classic TV show would actually want new fan-fic books to come out for those properties - since any interest beyond them slowly fading away into obscurity.

There are limits to what you can write for all of these, and the rules do change between books. You can bet each is reviewed as well. You are definitely not going to write the next 50 Shades with any of these, so it is sanctioned fan-fiction to be sure, but an interesting opportunity to get your name associated with a brand.

So check it out, and support this if you find something you like. Who knows, maybe someday I will get my wish and rights holders will realize they need to play and let us writers in for their franchises to become part of the cultural language and common dialog again.

We can dream.

CLS Romance: The Tide Goes Out

There's always that moment in your book where the initial rush wears off, and you start thinking hard about it. You reflect on your opening, and you make changes. Maybe you share it with others, and they say, "Wouldn't it be cool it...?"

Yes, that's where I am with my romance novel.

I have a great portion of the first part done, it's just I want some time to consider where it's going and how I want things to develop. It may require some reworking, but there are some great ideas I didn't consider for a book like this, and I want time to piece them together with what I have.

The tide goes out, and it's that strange moment in a project where the mental thought work you put in will be the difference between the book being what you want, and something that is a bit more difficult to get through. Both get to your vision, it's just the latter taking more rework time after you are done than the former.

You need this reflective moment, and it helps. You feel the pull of the water as the ocean rushes out around your feet, and the starting wave of energy is spent as things pull away. Good writers use this chance to realign, reflect, and retool themselves for the long walk up the beach that is called 'writing a novel' since this is a long walk and not a sprint.

Creative energy is the food for the long walk on the beach.

You talk about your book, you gather ideas, you let things cook so you can solidify them in your head. You always got your original plan, but there are so many good ideas out there you pick and choose them to make your work that much better. I am always careful of that dreaded 'out of scope' idea that comes in and derails a project, but like a great artist, you be very selective and support your ideas with all the stuff that comes in later.

Good artists are very selective. What you choose to drop makes or breaks your works.

But the tide goes out, and you take a moment to reflect. It's natural, and you needn't worry about losing momentum or getting it done. You are  a master writer, it will get done, and you will do it. You will make time. Don't dread, do. But be confident enough to know when nature is telling you to slow down and take in the beautiful ideas around you and use them to enrich yourself,

Proof Work

Proof work is always long and a bit tedious. I am doing a proof on a project at the moment, and the one thing about this project is formatting will make or break it.

On the Kindle.

I know, you can't really predict too much on the Kindle, and you don't have a lot of control over both margins, bulleted lists, and much else when you are trying to split text from other text. You basically have paragraph spacing, left margins, and empty lines.

So I am formatting, uploading to my Paperwhite, making notes, plugging the thing back in, changing things, and repeating the process. Over and over again. I am happy with what I got, so I am going through and double-checking everything now.

The Kindle and the Paperwhite are odd devices, they are mainly readers of books, and you have to work within some strange restrictions if you want things looking good on everyone's screens. Ideally, they are for reading bulk text, and they do that very well. There are still some things I prefer PDFs for, such as technical documents or complicated layouts.

I do wish the Kindle and the Paperwhite had a simple layout language.

So I am proofing some more today, and going over this project's forward so I can get the tone and content right. I know, nobody reads those, but I do since they set the tone. Every part is important, every mistake is painful, and proofing "just one more pass through" is always a long and arduous process.

CLS Romance: Heat Level

I want this book to be hot without being explicit. Does that make sense? I feel you can have a scorching book that pushes the boundaries without the traditional erotic-romance explicitness.

In fact, I think I can go even hotter without it.

I know, care to explain? My goal is to blow out the heat level of traditional erotic romance without going to erotic romance, and yes that means a lot of twisted teasing and thoughts, but those are so deliciously fun and a thrill to write I am salivating thinking about writing them.

No, I don't want to 'fade to black' during the good parts, there will be some edgy content there, but I know where the lines should be, respectfully, and I want to see if it is possible for me to make this sizzle without having to break out the nasty parts and let those be the heat instead of the mental, touching, lustful, and relationship parts.

It is going to be a challenge, I know. But I love those.

I'm not shy about going explicit, but I don't want to for this book because I want room to explore the relationship through relationship, and not sex-as-plot. It's not that type of book, really. I strictly define erotic-romance as needing plot-through-sex, and that's not the point here - this is about two people, their feelings, their trials, and their emotions between each other.

This also may be a thought-provoking book on erotic-romance versus romance as well, that if a story is about the story, make it about the story without having to feel pressured to write in explicit parts because the market demands it. It is a chance for me to explore this, and to also play with making it as hot as I want it to be without having to write a sex scene every second chapter.

There will be those, I am sure, but they are special and I want to write them when I want to write them. They are story-driven events, not marketing-driven.

There is a thought here that erotic-romance may be a commercial art, like graphic design is to traditional art. When you are writing to put in a sex scene on a regular and predictable schedule, you are creating "art" for a commercial demand. Now, commercial art can still be artistic and well-designed, and art in itself, as Andy Warhol proved, but it is commercial art. It is meant to sell a product or service, in this case, itself, and it serves the commercial master before it serves the artistic one.

Not that commercial art is bad per se, but there is an honesty, truthiness, and freedom in understanding the concepts behind what we do as writers and artists.

How did I get here? Wow, I need a map to get myself out of this discussion because I am all over the place today. It is am interesting thought though, and one I want to explore when I write this. Ah, wonderful segue. The book?

It's going to be hot.

CLS Romance Project: I Drew a Map!

I haven't drawn a detailed map in a long time, but I found myself drawing one yesterday with my new romance book project.

I know, a map?

Trust me, I needed a really good map. There is a fair bit of travel in this book, romantic locations, plot elements, and lots of different things happening that I needed to sort it all out and draw a map so I would have something to write with.

I can't share the map now since that would give away everything, but someday you may see my sloppy, hand-drawn mess of a map that I needed to get my book off the ground. Now, I don't want to confuse people with a who-is-where-what thing, I just needed it to lay out place names, people and where they were at different plot points, and the flow of the story.

There will not be a test on this, please, but the genre I am thinking about requires maps in order for things to make sense. Remember when I said I needed to do a lot of backstory and world development so the characters in the romance book would have something other to talk about other than "I want you" or "I don't want you"? Yes, this is that work.

Oh, and another small clue, I started the tag CLS Romance Project for this book as well so those interested can track it. I'm not saying what CLS stands for either, nice try.

But, a map? There is a clue there I'm not going to even hint at. Part of the fun is showing and not telling. I'm probably terrible at keeping a secret though.

Oh, and on this map are several other short stories related to the main story that I may put out as freebie shorts. It depends if they are strong enough to release as a part of the book, or if they distract from the main storyline too much and I want to keep them as separate content. They contain supporting cast that aren't the focus of the story, but they are in and important to the story in major ways. I may do a month of pre-orders and release the stories as the run-up, who knows, and I shall see how it goes.

Oh Goddess, that is an ugly map. But it gets the job done.

Back to writing!

CLS Romance Project: 2,300 Words Done!

Progress report!

The first three scenes of  my new romance novel are done, and I am 2,300 beautiful words into this project. Oh my, I hit a very hot scene early, and some very emotional and soul-searching parts. This one turned out a lot better than I ever imagined it would have! I am so stoked about this beginning, it just sings to me and I love the setup and first couple characters.

It just snaps and sings, and the dialog is just so beautiful and poignant. It is one of those 'binge writing' projects you stumble into, where the situation and the characters take over your life and that is all you think, eat, and dream about?

Yes, part of writing is becoming so infatuated with the little worlds you create you live in them in your head constantly. I am all this now, and it is so hard to pull myself away from my computer to do anything else.

It is that 'promise of unbounded situation' that I love, and knowing the book can go anywhere I dream.

And do I have dreams.

And I have managed to do my first scorching hot scene and not get into the explicit stuff, and it worked very, very well. I could have went there, but the scene just worked so much better without it, and I feel it is actually hotter without having to write those parts. It's odd but true, and I find leaving enough sexy detail in there to get the reader's mind going is a lot more hotter and desire inducing than actually 'going there' and doing the blow-by-blow explicit stuff.

I love it, and it does take a lot of skill to pull off well without feeling cold or boring people. We become the writers we need to be as we write in different genres. I still like the steamier side, I am finding it a challenge to make this even more steamy while placing the erotic parts in the reader's minds and not on the page.

Challenge accepted, and I love it.

There is a theme shared here with my previous book, On Black Wings, and it shocked me when it came out. Of course, that is a deeply moody book, and I want this one to be lighthearted and fun, but it is a fun little link in the chain between my works - a subconscious similarity that made me smile. See if you can find it!

So lots of fun progress, and I'm addicted to my work again, which is always a rush and a great feeling. Tomorrow I am back at it, and working on the next exciting part.

Yes, I am on a total 'writer's high' right now.