This week's subject asks a rather significant question: Do you Weave?
In this case, weaving means to go back to a story and add in scenes to change the tale. Now, sometimes that men's in a situation where you're repairing a tale. In other cases the real question is Do You work in a linear or non-linear fashion.
I'm linear. I HAVE had to weave in repairs, but I don't like to do it. know the beginning, the middle, and the end of a story before I start. it might change as I go along, but it's incredibly rare for me to add in a scene after the fact.
It's a matter of structure and a matter of how my mind works I've had a few occasions where something wasn't work was writing it, but in most cases that meant deleting part of the book stopping what I was doing ad rewriting a block of the tale before I ever got close to finishing it.
The one serious exception was SERENITY FALLS, which is easily the largest piece I ever wrote. The first version of the book was 300,000 words long and came out as a single volume When the paperback version came out it was decided by the publisher to make it a trilogy. In order to make that happen, I added 40,000 words of story and shuffled quite a bit of the book around to guarantee easy story flow.
No, that's not a typo. I added half a novel worth of work in the weave. It was necessary in order to make the story as seamless as possible and meant adding well over a dozen new scenes. I do not regret any part of that work, just for the record.
Still, I'd rather not is my point.
Monday, May 11, 2020
Not much for weaving...
I write fiction, a little of everything and a lot of horror. I've written novels, comic books, roleplaying game supplements, short stories, novellas and oodles of essays on whatever strikes my fancy. That might change depending on my mood and the publishing industry. Things are getting stranger and stranger in the wonderful world of publishing and that means I get to have fun sorting through the chaos (with all the other writer-types). I have a website. This isn't it. This is where you can likely expect me to talk about upcoming projects and occasionally expect a rant or two. Not too many rants. Those take a lot of energy. In addition to writing I work as a barista, because I still haven't decided to quit my day job. Opinions are always welcome.