Category: writing

My new novel, Hour of Consequence, has gone to press. There will be some processing time before the print version is available. However, the eBook version is ready right now. Get it here.

In my first novel, Cordell’s Rebellion, one will find the lyrics to three songs from one of the characters. Since I had written the songs anyway, so I could include snippets in the story, it seemed like a nice thing to append. Now I have the question: should the second novel also include song lyrics or poetry at the end?

The thought behind the question is that such a thing could become a normal part of any novel I write, a sort of trademark. I write poetry and lyrics occasionally anyway; it would not be difficult to knock something out that fits the book. If anyone ever recorded a performance of the songs, it would help to promote the books. As long as the lyrics were good, I couldn’t see anyone complaining.

However, as I thought about it, there is no direct tie-in with the story. In the first novel, one of the characters likes to sing when he is under stress. He also fancies himself a song writer. This gives a story-related reason for there to be song lyrics. This character does not appear in the second novel, nor are there any others where a musical bent is important. This means lyrics in the second story would seem forced.

I’ve looked through the story of the second novel and cannot find a place where music would be appropriate. There’s no part where the characters or plot are enhanced that way. I can’t really think of the right kind of music for this story, not anything easy to describe.

In later books, poetry and music may come to play again. In those cases, it would be reasonable to append the verses to the end of the tale. It would be a natural thing. For the second novel, the prose will have to stand on its own. Isn’t that always the case.

As my current project nears completion, I’ve been thinking about what to do next. I have notes for the next few novels in the series, and one of them would be a good candidate. However, the part of my brain responsible for such things says I’m going to write a screenplay. What do I know about writing a screenplay?

Sure, years ago I read up on screenwriting. I wrote a few (fake) commercials just to see what it was like. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to do a really good job on a screenplay for a movie. Unfortunately, that’s the story my brain says I’m going to write.

It seems as though Hollywood likes bringing back old (intellectual) properties and rebooting or extending them. Sometimes this has worked (I really enjoyed The Predator) and sometimes it has not (Tom Cruise’s The Mummy starring Tom Cruise). My brain tells me a story that extends a television show I enjoyed in my youth. I must write it. Can I do simple fan-fiction and be done with it? No, it has to be a screenplay.

So, I’ll get started on the research to make sure all the incidental facts are correct in the story. I’ll also have to refresh my memory on screenplay formatting and nomenclature. If/when I finish it, I’ll have to seek out an agent to try to sell it to the people who own the characters.

Who knows, maybe this will turn into a profitable outlet for my energies. It may also go nowhere or may get me sued for infringing on some copyrights, trademarks, or other obscure movie thing. Of course, if it does work, I also have an idea to get rid of that Mummy picture, start the mummy series on a new, updated path, and still include Brendan Fraser.

Most of the editing is wrapping up on the second novel. The scenes have been laid out and characters assessed. The last part will be adding weather to the story. “Shouldn’t that already be done?” you ask. Some bits, perhaps, but now the real weather work begins.

It is very easy to get wrapped up in all the details of a setting. When that happens, those details can slow the pace of the scene. On the other hand, a scene can fly by so quickly that the reader has no idea what is going on with the setting. Weather is one of those things that can get in the way or can help.

On the first draft, weather was only mentioned if it had a direct impact on the action. In those cases, the story would not make sense without explaining the effect of the weather. You don’t want to forget about that while planning to add it later. What about the rest of the weather?

There is a lot of emotive potential to properly used atmospheric phenomena. We tend to associate sadness with cloudy days or happiness with the sun in spring. Refugees on a long slog down the road are that much more miserable with a downpour. We should take advantage of these things, but we must do so without making it a weather forecast.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I make a list of all my scenes and what happens in them. This helps me check the continuity of my story. The next use for that list is to map out the weather. I’ll make note of any scenes where the weather was already defined. Then, I’ll plot out what the weather should be in order to augment the emotive potential of those scenes.

The pattern to the weather will follow the story arc. There is the initial disruption where stories start, the changes, the character growth, etc. We know those things follow a pattern, within reason. The weather should support that. The story is about the character’s world, and that should be shown in all aspects of that world.

Of course, your story may need something different. For example, you may have a character who is sad about something on a very pleasant day to show that the world goes on despite the character’s plight. Every story and author will use these things differently, but it must be given some thought.

After mapping the weather, I’ll have to apply it to the story. It must be subtle, never disrupting the flow of the writing itself. Noting how a street light reflects off the wet pavement tells you that it has recently finished raining. Characters can be uncomfortable because of the humidity and the sun beating down on them. The same sun, without the humidity shows a pleasant day. These are the sorts of things that use the weather to add depth to the story world but not disrupt the story itself.

The first draft is complete and now the technical part starts. I’ve gotten a little of that done, but will have to wait until the end of the semester to really start working. It shouldn’t take too long though; I learned a lot from the first novel.

My first step was to print the first draft on paper. I’m old fashioned and rely on my reading glasses. That gave me chance to read through and make notes of things that needed changed. The notes cover the obvious editing issues, but also include comments about story or character weaknesses that need to be addressed.

Once the paperwork was done, I started transfering the editing to the electronic version. I made a new copy of the document so I wouldn’t risk damaging the original. As a computing professional, I cannot stress how important it is to make backups and to have restore points.

While working this second draft, I started a couple of new documents and opened another for editing. The new ones include a chapter/scene list and a list of locations. The existing one was the character list. These tools are a great help when making sure I didn’t do anything stupid.

The chapter or scene list is a list of the chapters in my book in the order in which they appear in the text. Most chapters are attached to a single scene, with a few exceptions. This list includes the time when the event happened in the story, the title of that chapter, and any other important notes. This helps be double check the timing in the story world to keep it consistent and realistic. The titles help make sure I don’t use the same title more than once and to make sure they don’t form an unfortunate pattern.

The location list also helps with consistency. Each location has a name and any necessary notes. This lets the characters visit places repeatedly while not messing up the details. Once I’m done with the second draft, I will do an Internet search to see if the place names show up. Any that do may be renamed to avoid conflicts and rights issues. Since any name will be consistent throughout the novel, it will be relatively easy to use the find feature to replace the old name with the new.

On the Barnes and Noble website, a reader comment for the first novel mentioned that some of the character names gave a little confusion because there were too many of them. That won’t be the case in the second. There are fewer characters. Also, the name list allows me to review the names to make sure each is sufficiently different. For example, there is an important character named Harv, but there was a minor character named Marv. This posed a confusion risk, so Marv found himself renamed. Without the character list, this may have been more difficult to see. If I really wanted to look things over, I could use a SOUNDEX function, but I’m a little lazy.

Those initial fixes will be good, but there will need to be some larger changes too. I noticed that some of the scenery lacked depth to a notable degree. There are things I want to add to help with the main guy’s character arc. The first draft was about sixty thousand words, but the new material will take it closer to seventy. That’s a good, readable size for the casual reader.

It’s only a few weeks until the end of the semester. I think I’m in a good place to get this finished and polished before the middle of summer. If my artist comes through on the cover, this could be rolling off the press in a few months.