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Alpennia: The Instability of Story
May. 26th, 2015 12:11 pmI talked a lot about how part of my "writing process experiment" for Daughter of Mystery was not to plan too far ahead. To write--as much as possible--start to end and just see what developed. Of course, there were a number of scenes where I had to go back and tweak things or set up events properly once I knew what was going to happen later. And when you look at my original idea notes and compare it to the eventual plot, there are some very drastic differences. (It took me well into the book to figure out who Barbara's mother was and what she'd done. That's kind of critical!)
The Mystic Marriage was rather more planned out, though not with the sort of detailed outline that some people love. That meant that it was a bit of a wrench when I was getting to the last quarter or so of the story and realized I had entirely too many things happening in too short a time to be plausible. (In particular, Jeanne and Antuniet's interpersonal arc was far too compressed.) So I ended up adding in another four chapters and moving one of the political climaxes and its set-up entirely after the alchemical/personal climax. It made the whole much more satisfying overall (I think).
When I sat down this past week to fill in and tidy up my initial text-chunks for Chapter 2 of Mother of Souls, I realized I had a similar problem to solve. For one thing, those initial text-chunks ran to over 7000 words (and that was before I added in text re-introducing the relevant characters and their background). Now I had a couple of chapters that length in The Mystic Marriage, but my beta readers informed me that they slowed down the pacing. In that case, I really couldn't avoid the length. But this time I wasn't quite so locked in to fitting in a specific set of events, and a chapter that looked to stretch out to 10k needed something cut.
When I went looking for material that might just as easily fit in somewhere else, the answer was obvious. Chapter 2 is Barbara's point of view, off running errands with regard to her properties. There's a particular subplot involving Tavit, her armin, that I'd slotted for this chapter. But we've barely re-met the characters. And a reader who is entering the series fresh with this volume (a bad idea, but quite possible), or who doesn't remember the details of the minor characters, will have no reason to care who this Tavit guy is, or why his back-story might raise questions, or what his relationship to the other characters is beyond being Barbara's employee. And for the subplot to be effective, the reader needs to be invested in him as a character at least a little bit.
So Tavit's subplot got tagged to be moved later and that left a slightly more manageable 6500 word chapter (eek! hadn't realized it was still that long) where only three significant things are going on: the introduction of one of the over-arching plot arcs (about the politics and economics of canal building), Barbara claiming the not-entirely-wanted legacy that comes to her from her mother's husband (which will provide a context for some long-term developments in later books), and a somewhat personal scene between Barbara and LeFevre (which is part character development and part simply acknowledging that time moves on and nothing is permanent).
Now I had the question of where to move Tavit's subplot to. There were two hard guidelines: it had to occur in a chapter from Barbara's point of view, and it had to occur well before the introduction into Margerit's household of the character who will be the viewpoint character in Floodtide. I'm not going to explain why, it just does. That pretty much narrowed it down to Chapter 8, the next chapter with Barbara's POV. Barbara doesn't get another chapter after that until Ch 16, and Rozild (the Floodtide character) already needs to be aware of the fallout of Tavit's subplot by then.
So, Chapter 8 it is. My original outline had Chapter 8 (Barbara) occuring roughly in late November, Chapter 9 (Luzie) covering December, especially around the holiday season, and Chapter 10 (Margerit) picking up in early January.
But the more I considered Tavit's subplot, the more dissatisfied I was with how passively I'd sketched him in that context. And it also occurred to me that I've already laid the groundwork for a cultural understanding that the night of the New Year's Court is a time when simmering tensions are likely to burst forth in confrontations and challenges. Tavit needed to do more than deal with a figure from his past showing up; he needed to tackle the issue personally and decisively. What we needed was a duel, and the New Year's Court was the natural time for that duel to occur. It was also the natural context to get all the necessary players on stage at the same time.
So…Barbara's chapter gets shifted to cover the extended holiday season (with the previous chapter, which is one of Serafina's, getting shifted slightly as well to cover the gap). Then Luzie's chapter, which was planned to have some emotional triggers involving the holiday season has to move into January, so the triggers need to be more post-holiday instead. And then Margerit's chapter, which was intended to occur across the first half of January, will be more condensed instead. This means it may be a good idea to move one event (the sale of some property) out of that chapter and have it happen earlier. Which probably means moving it into Barbara's chapter, but that could work.
It's easy to get in a trap where the way you've visualized a plot becomes "just how things have to happen". I know that I've resisted changing or eliminating various minor events because they were part of the long game and I'd never have a chance to go back and set things up if I cut them "because they aren't important to the current plot." But it's never a good idea to get too attached to a specific sequence of events. What best serves the story? Where does this event make the most sense in the overall structure? Might a different context provide new opportunities for plot synergy? It's a bit like rearranging the living room furniture until you get that one perfect layout.
* * *
And since this is my official weekly "promote my writing" day, I'll remind readers that posting reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, or other places on-line greatly adds to the visibility of the books you love. I've been finding it harder to keep up a constant "Rah! Rah! New book!" this time around. In part, I feel like there's more social permission to go all out on a debut novel. In part, I know that the more I focus on promotion, the more depressed I get when it seems that it doesn't have any effect. But please believe that everything readers do to spread their love of the Alpennia books makes a difference.
The Mystic Marriage was rather more planned out, though not with the sort of detailed outline that some people love. That meant that it was a bit of a wrench when I was getting to the last quarter or so of the story and realized I had entirely too many things happening in too short a time to be plausible. (In particular, Jeanne and Antuniet's interpersonal arc was far too compressed.) So I ended up adding in another four chapters and moving one of the political climaxes and its set-up entirely after the alchemical/personal climax. It made the whole much more satisfying overall (I think).
When I sat down this past week to fill in and tidy up my initial text-chunks for Chapter 2 of Mother of Souls, I realized I had a similar problem to solve. For one thing, those initial text-chunks ran to over 7000 words (and that was before I added in text re-introducing the relevant characters and their background). Now I had a couple of chapters that length in The Mystic Marriage, but my beta readers informed me that they slowed down the pacing. In that case, I really couldn't avoid the length. But this time I wasn't quite so locked in to fitting in a specific set of events, and a chapter that looked to stretch out to 10k needed something cut.
When I went looking for material that might just as easily fit in somewhere else, the answer was obvious. Chapter 2 is Barbara's point of view, off running errands with regard to her properties. There's a particular subplot involving Tavit, her armin, that I'd slotted for this chapter. But we've barely re-met the characters. And a reader who is entering the series fresh with this volume (a bad idea, but quite possible), or who doesn't remember the details of the minor characters, will have no reason to care who this Tavit guy is, or why his back-story might raise questions, or what his relationship to the other characters is beyond being Barbara's employee. And for the subplot to be effective, the reader needs to be invested in him as a character at least a little bit.
So Tavit's subplot got tagged to be moved later and that left a slightly more manageable 6500 word chapter (eek! hadn't realized it was still that long) where only three significant things are going on: the introduction of one of the over-arching plot arcs (about the politics and economics of canal building), Barbara claiming the not-entirely-wanted legacy that comes to her from her mother's husband (which will provide a context for some long-term developments in later books), and a somewhat personal scene between Barbara and LeFevre (which is part character development and part simply acknowledging that time moves on and nothing is permanent).
Now I had the question of where to move Tavit's subplot to. There were two hard guidelines: it had to occur in a chapter from Barbara's point of view, and it had to occur well before the introduction into Margerit's household of the character who will be the viewpoint character in Floodtide. I'm not going to explain why, it just does. That pretty much narrowed it down to Chapter 8, the next chapter with Barbara's POV. Barbara doesn't get another chapter after that until Ch 16, and Rozild (the Floodtide character) already needs to be aware of the fallout of Tavit's subplot by then.
So, Chapter 8 it is. My original outline had Chapter 8 (Barbara) occuring roughly in late November, Chapter 9 (Luzie) covering December, especially around the holiday season, and Chapter 10 (Margerit) picking up in early January.
But the more I considered Tavit's subplot, the more dissatisfied I was with how passively I'd sketched him in that context. And it also occurred to me that I've already laid the groundwork for a cultural understanding that the night of the New Year's Court is a time when simmering tensions are likely to burst forth in confrontations and challenges. Tavit needed to do more than deal with a figure from his past showing up; he needed to tackle the issue personally and decisively. What we needed was a duel, and the New Year's Court was the natural time for that duel to occur. It was also the natural context to get all the necessary players on stage at the same time.
So…Barbara's chapter gets shifted to cover the extended holiday season (with the previous chapter, which is one of Serafina's, getting shifted slightly as well to cover the gap). Then Luzie's chapter, which was planned to have some emotional triggers involving the holiday season has to move into January, so the triggers need to be more post-holiday instead. And then Margerit's chapter, which was intended to occur across the first half of January, will be more condensed instead. This means it may be a good idea to move one event (the sale of some property) out of that chapter and have it happen earlier. Which probably means moving it into Barbara's chapter, but that could work.
It's easy to get in a trap where the way you've visualized a plot becomes "just how things have to happen". I know that I've resisted changing or eliminating various minor events because they were part of the long game and I'd never have a chance to go back and set things up if I cut them "because they aren't important to the current plot." But it's never a good idea to get too attached to a specific sequence of events. What best serves the story? Where does this event make the most sense in the overall structure? Might a different context provide new opportunities for plot synergy? It's a bit like rearranging the living room furniture until you get that one perfect layout.
* * *
And since this is my official weekly "promote my writing" day, I'll remind readers that posting reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, or other places on-line greatly adds to the visibility of the books you love. I've been finding it harder to keep up a constant "Rah! Rah! New book!" this time around. In part, I feel like there's more social permission to go all out on a debut novel. In part, I know that the more I focus on promotion, the more depressed I get when it seems that it doesn't have any effect. But please believe that everything readers do to spread their love of the Alpennia books makes a difference.
