AQATSA Update: Good News, Bad News

[inverarity]

Current word count: 204K, 32 chapters.

Book four is obviously swelling in size to become the largest book yet in the series. I've just finished the second of three major acts, and have been chewing on how to pull off the third act for months now. Alexandra is, as you may gathered, doing a bit of traveling in this book, and originally, I planned to have her spend a lot of time in one non-Charmbridge location, and then spend a lot of time in another non-Charmbridge location for the climax.

For various reasons, the transition just was not working in my head, and I could not figure out how to execute the scenes and specific events I had in mind. Moreover, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that the book was going to be just too sprawling and unevenly paced -- almost as if I were putting two separate storylines in one book.

So, the bottom line is I've pretty much decided that that second major arc does not belong in book four. It will get pushed back to book five.

This is good news in that, theoretically, it means book four will be less bloated. (And finished sooner! :)) I don't think AQATSA would come in under 300K words if I continued with my original plan.

It's bad news in that not only do I have to rethink a few things, but the book as I planned it has structural problems, so some stuff I've written will need to be scrapped.

Overall, I feel good about making these changes, but there are still an awful lot of plot points (both for this book, and laying the foundations for the rest of the series) that I'm struggling with, and I still have recurring "I've just written 5,000 words of crap" feelings.

Also -- there are a lot of multi-page conversations. I think there is more dialog in this book than in any of the previous ones. Since I haven't yet gone back to reread it all, I'm not sure what this will do to the pacing. It's just another thing I'm fretting about... am I bogging the whole story down with too much talking, not enough action? Fret fret fret...

Character Sketches

Here are the final character sketches based on the roughs I posted a few days ago.

Overall, I like them. To be perfectly honest, though, I think the rough sketches were somewhat better representations. Everyone seems to have aged a few years in the inked versions, and Anna's picked up some extra weight around her face. Still, I'm very happy with the artist's work. (She does seem to like drawing large feet, though!)

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's a rule that at some point in the writing of a long story you have to redirect the whole thing and cut a lot of stuff. It certainly happened to me the only time I finished a large project. I think that if you feel good about the changes, that is itself a good sign; it means that you have dealt with the problems of lack of balance and confused direction that were troubling you. I think a good writer knows these things by instinct.

You are damn right about all characters having aged. David is definitely an adult - and in training for basketball to boot - and so are the Pritchards. The rule is simple: commonplace proportion, five or six heads tall; imposing proportion, six or seven heads; heroic, seven or eight; improbable - and only to be used for special effects, such as Galactus in FF#50 - nine or ten heads. David looks at least seven heads tall, and it's not just the feet - which I had already noticed last time - his whole legs are massive. I am surprised, since I thought this artist had a better understanding of human variety and age than that.

the sketches

[(Anonymous)]

Very nice sketches. However, as you say, they all seem to have aged. And C & F are still opposite-handed.

I am not bothered by the large feet, though, since feet do grow earlier than the rest of the body, and also the sketches are clearly from a ground perspective.
Alex' clothing also seems a little excessively muggleish for me. When I imagine pants as art of the Charmbridge code, I think of more dressy, wider pants, and then you have those sneakers ... Bu what I find most dissonant is her vest.

Unless ... she is purposefully being drawn in muggle attire, because she is right then in a muggle area.

--Geneva

Re: the sketches

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

I gave the artist instructions to put her in "Muggle" clothing -- you're right, she would not normally be dressed like that at Charmbridge.

[kerneyhead.livejournal.com]

Look on it on the bright side. You have a lot of book five already written. Also, I like what they did w/Constance and Forbearance's faces and gestures.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

If only. The part I was planning to write is what will go into book five.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_silverfox/]

so some stuff I've written will need to be scrapped.
Maybe you could post the cut scenes here eventually (= when there's no danger of spoiling book 4or 5 anymore)?

and I still have recurring "I've just written 5,000 words of crap" feelings.
If so, I'm confident you'll catch it in the edditing round. Most likely it's much better than you think, though.

And yes, they all look about 18 to me now ... except for Constance and Forbearance who may be closer to 30. David looks really good like this, though.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Most likely it's much better than you think, though
Seconded.

[(Anonymous)]

While Alex wasn't in Charmbridge for the climaxes of Book 2 or Book 3, I can see how making her spend 2/3 of the book away from the campus might cause a few problems. Hopefully sending 1/3 of the book to Book 5 won't cause too many issues w/r/t to the overall series.

As long as you don't pull a George RR Martin...:p

Also -- there are a lot of multi-page conversations. I think there is more dialog in this book than in any of the previous ones. Since I haven't yet gone back to reread it all, I'm not sure what this will do to the pacing. It's just another thing I'm fretting about... am I bogging the whole story down with too much talking, not enough action?

Conversations are interesting things. In TV shows and movies, they can't be too long, and even then you need to have the characters do something while talking (hence the famous "Walk and Talk" [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WalkAndTalk]). In a book, though, you tend to have a lot more latitude. As long as the talking furthers the plot and/or gives more insight into the characters, it's probably not an issue as long as you don't go way overboard.

-TealTerror

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Tolkien was fantastically good at using conversations to info-dump without seeming to AND move the plot along. Part of his craft, which is the symphonic weaving of themes in things like the Council of Elrond and the talk at the court of Lothlorien, have been exhaustively examined, but I wonder whether everyone notices that he also has a way of surrounding each major conversation or debate with a few smaller outriders, as the characters have come out of some wasteland action episode or battle, and they start talking at length again. The Council of Elrond is preceded by Gandlf and Frodo's dialogue, and then by the scene in Elrond's hall and the meeting of Frodo and Bilbo, and followed by a number of lesser debates, some only partially reported, as the Fellowship gets ready to move out into the wild. Talk during journey and/or action scenes has a different quality, curter and referring mostly back to things already said or mentioned by the narrator. It is as though the debate episodes had their own dramatic value (and indeed, I never get tired of re-reading them) and needed to be built up to and down from in order to achieve their proper impact. I say this because you (inverarity) sound like these dialogues and debates might also have a dramatic and climactic value, and so this might be a useful way to look at them and see if they work in context.

[(Anonymous)]

Conversations are fantastically good at info-dumping in general. When you have one character droning on for pages and pages in a monologue, people tend to go to sleep. But when you have two characters talking, having their personalities bounce off each other is often enough to keep people engaged even through exposition. (of course, a conversation where one person is just saying stuff like "I see" or "Is that so?" is more of a monologue than a dialogue)

The main issue I can see in using conversations to advance plot and/or character is if they get too far into "tell, don't show" territory. For example, a lot of people complain that Dumbledore always explains the plot at the end of each Harry Potter book--and while I actually disagree, I can see where they're coming from. That said, if you do it right, it's definitely fully within the realm of possibility to "show" with conversation.

Using dialogue as a climax also has a long and venerable tradition, and definitely shouldn't be shied away from if it fits the story.

As to Tolkein: I don't like Lord of the Rings, as literature, as much as you do (I definitely fully appreciate its historical value). That said, I did actually highly enjoy the Council of Elrond scene. Although I would suggest that Tolkein wasn't entirely successful at hiding the fact that he was info-dumping in it, the info being dumped was at least interesting enough to carry the scene along.

-TealTerror

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I did not explain what I meant well enough. It's not so much about Tolkien as about the issue of dialogue in narrative, meant to give an example of how a conversation can and should be part of a structure. The problem with many stories is the feeling that the story stops so that two or more characters may interact with each other and/or exchange information. Tolkien - I could have used other artists as examples, but he is one whom everyone is likely to have read - works his dialogues into the broad narrative structure of his story, making them into climaxes by means of such things as the "outriders" of which I spoke, and by giving them a wholly different pattern and sound from the more casual exchanges on the road. You are informed that something different and significant has changed, and instinctively you pay attention. I wanted to bring out the structural place of dialogue, because this would help solve a problem that many writers (very definitely including myself) feel about extended periods of dialogue.

[(Anonymous)]

Nah, I pretty much got your point from the first comment, don't worry about it.

There are, of course, many ways to make your conversations flow with the overall story. Tolkein's method is one of them, but I think it's probably easier to use it epic fantasy than in low fantasy or other genres. In any case, I still think that in text, most readers are willing to sit through a great deal of dialogue as long as it's interesting.

-TealTerror

[kerneyhead.livejournal.com]

The only circumstance which I would approve of you pulling a George RR Martin is if you pulled back to write something you could get paid as much as George RR Martin.

[lordfedora.livejournal.com]

The age is thrown off a bit, but not that much.

"...I still have recurring "I've just written 5,000 words of crap" feelings"

Inverarity, I can say with total honesty that you really could not post crap. It will all be excellent in the end, I'm certain.