Tag Archives: planning

October Update

After a couple of disappointing months, September was fantastically productive. I’ve gotten a full Beta draft of the SciFi novel done, I’ve knocked a number of things off my to-watch list, and I made good progress on vide games and other projects.

Writing

First off, fantastic news. I finished a Beta Draft of my untitled Science Fiction novel. There’s still a lot of work ahead of my, but I’m within shouting distance of publishing. My goals for the month are to iron the book out and get it to some Beta readers, and work on the supporting work I need to do to get it ready for a Kickstarter campaign and publishing.

I got some work done on The Colonel Lieutenant, but most of my focus was on the Sci-Fi novel. I am printing off the chapters I’ve written so I can start processing and working out what I need to do to get it ready for its own publication.

I’ve picked at the other projects on my list, mostly doing research or building up the background and world building. The sort of things I should be doing before I get to writing. The idea is that when I get to writing the projects, I’ll have most of the support work done and I won’t stop and start so much.

October Goals

  • Iron Sci-Fi novel, get it to Beta Reader
  • Work out plan for The Colonel Lieutenant
  • Add 5,000 words to Fantasy novel
  • Keep plugging away at other projects

Movies and TV Shows

I continue to watch through the Ahsoka series with excitement. I’ll admit it is a more subtle show than I was expecting, especially when it comes to Ahsoka’s part in the story. But they obviously respect the elements they’re bringing together for the show (the characters from Rebels and Thrawn) and they’re telling a fun story. I’m excited to see the last episode.

I started and finished Ted Lasso this month. I’d heard good things about the show, and I was not disappointed. It was a hilarious show that had a lot of good character growth across all three seasons. Although I would say the last season may had a lot of missteps before it found its way.

Next I decided to re-start The Expanse, which I started some time ago but wasn’t able to finish because I don’t have Amazon Prime. Luckily my library has the discs I need to start and get through the series. I’ve read the first book, and several of my friends really like the show. This time I mean to finish it.

October Goals

  • Finish two TV shows off to-watch list
  • Watch one missing Best Picture Winner
  • Watch one movie off to-watch list

Books

I read through the Queen’s Fool, book 12 in Philippa Gregory’s historical fiction series. Following a fictional character through the tumult of Queen Mary’s reign, i found this book to be very exciting and a fun read. I’ll have the book report up sometime this month.

I then started the second of Timothy Zahn’s original Thrawn series, Dark Force Rising. This follows the same plotlines of the first book, with the Grand Admiral plotting the destruction of the Republic and the heroes investigating and responding to the threat. I’m maybe half-way through right now, so we’ll see how it goes.

And if we’re talking books, I’m going to add the audiobook I’m listening to right now, which is the classic Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. I chose this one because the 1992 movie is my favorite movie and I wanted to listen to the book. It is rough to listen to. Not only does the story meander a lot (a product of two-centuries of changes in story expectations), but the representation of native culture can be painful to listen to. I had to find a synopsis website to help me understand what I was reading.

October Goals

  • Finish one library book
  • Finish one book I own
  • Read one research book

Games

Not much to report in terms of videos games. I’ve continued working through both Gears of War: Tactics and FarCry 6, but I didn’t finish either of them. It’s odd to think that I have to work to find time to play video games, but I have a lot of other things I’m working on.

The RPG games are going well. We did start a new Pathfinder 2E game set in a world we played in back in high school, so that’s fun. My characters are sill alive for all my active campaigns. And I’m picking at the various campaigns I want to run, just so that I’m ready if and when I get to run them.

October Goals

  • Finish Gear of War Tactics
  • Keep trying at FarCry 6.
  • Start another computer story game

What’s Next

October will be all about getting my SciFi book ready for publishing, and pushing my other writing projects forward. And I’d like to get a bead on some good events to get into next year. But mostly, the publishing thing.

Cheers!

Michael

August Update

July was a fantastic month. I knocked a lot of things off my to-do list in almost every category. I did a lot of planning, organizing, and strategizing for my projects. And I feel good heading into August.

Writing

After a few chapters of work on Book 3, I switched gears to planning and organizing. I had all the scenes and plans from my first drafts, and I spent several sessions working on what scenes I still wanted to include and which ones I want to reference. It seems a lot of what I thought would be individual chapters might just be scenes. which is good, because I’m still worried about how big some of these chapters might get.

Did not get as much work on my SciFi novel as I’d had liked. That being said, what work I did do was pretty important. I figured out a few of the plot points that I had glossed over in previous efforts, so I know what I need to have happen. By my estimate, I have ten chapters to work out to have a draft ready for review.

Same thing with the fantasy novel, and the other projects. Not as much writing as I’d like, but a lot of planning and organization done.

My focus on organization and planning has a lot to do with me restructuring how I’m approaching writing projects. I’ll get into that in some future blog posts.

August Goals
  • Book 3: Finish at least one of the four remaining acts
  • Science Fiction: Get book to Beta Readers
  • Fantasy Novel: Add 5,000 words

Movies and TV Shows

July was a good month for knocking titles off my to-watch list, both movies and TV shows.

First, I sat down to watch Glass Onion, the second of the Benoit Blanc mystery movies. I really enjoyed the first one (Knives Out), and the second one did not disappoint. It was a different kind of mystery than the first one, and used the cast to greater effect. I’ve already re-watched it twice, to pick up on all the things I missed the first time.

My sister invited me over to watch through The Last of Us TV Show. I just finished the game series in June, and she wanted to share it with me. We got through the whole series, all nine episodes. I have always been fascinated by how stories change mediums, but usually its book to screen. And the show did it well. I’m doing a blog post on it, hope to have it up early August.

After that, we started House of the Dragon, the next Game of Thrones prequal series. Now, I’m not a huge GoT fan. I read the books and watched the series. But so far I like this show. I like the king, the prince and the princess. Of course, we’re only three episodes in, and I’ve been warned it gets pretty intense. We’ll see if and when I get around to finishing it, as I don’t have an HBO subscription.

I also sat down to work through the rest of Marvel: Secret Invasion. Last month I said I wasn’t sure what to think, except that I expect Olivia Coleman to be awesome. Well, she certainly was. I’d say she was the best part of the show. The rest of it I found boring. I had a hard time getting into the story and the villain’s plan was formulaic. About the only positive thing I can say is that the ending was not the happy ending I’d expected. And, I’d add that if they use the events of the show to set up story lines in other MCU movies and shows, I think that’s great. But I did not get into this show.

Maybe August won’t be as show and movie heavy, but it will have the Ahsoka show, and that I am very excited about.

August Goals
  • Watch Two Movies
  • Complete Two Shows

Books

I finished The Automaton pretty early on in the month. By the last chapters I had two ideas of what might be happening, and I was partially right with both, yet completely wrong. It was fantastic. This book is one of those science fiction books in the vein of Isaac Asimov. It really feels like a science fiction story and not just a story set in a science fiction world. I absolutely recommend.

I started an ebook edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which I did not realize at the time included the first stories of the famous detective. My only real exposure to Sherlock Holmes has been through film and the BBC show. Reading these stories, it’s fun to see things I recognize, such as characters, mysteries of bits of dialogue. It’s also fascinating to see how the concept of mystery stories changed since the time they first came out. Most of the stories are extremely short, and have a ‘hah, gotcha’ style that bugs the hell out of me.

At the recommendation of a friend, I started reading a book from a genre called ‘RPG Lit’. This is a genre where players in a game get put into the game somehow. The book I started with, Critical Failures by Robert Bevan, has the players in a game similar to Dungeons and Dragons. It was a pretty decent read, though I can’t say it was great. It certainly gave me a lot of good ideas for my own RPG Lit stories.

August Goals
  • Read one library book
  • Read one book I own (fiction)
  • Read one book I want to take notes through

Games

July was not a big gaming month. I played a few more missions in Gears of War Tactics, advancing the story a few more scenes but still within the same act as I started the month. I want to finish it off before September.

There was one game I really got into this month, and that was one called Thea: The Awakening. My friend Karl recommended it to me. It’s an RPG/Turn-based strategy game. You rule a town in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, sending adventuring parties out to find resources and defeat monsters. You have different abilities based off what deity you follow, and the deities gain abilities as you level them up. It’s immensely fun.

I anticipate that sometime in the near future I’ll be getting a Playstation 5. Therefore, I set myself a bunch of goals to complete before I can invest, including completing the last game I have on the current consoles, Far Cry 6. I believe I’ll start sometime this month, but I don’t know that I’ll finish it this month. Far Cry games can take a bit.

RPG wise, all three of my characters are still alive. One of them, Shiloh from the Delta Green game, had a fantastic event where he got possessed by an alien intelligence who wanted to end the world. I got to play the traitor for a short while, manipulating my party members to position myself to betray them. Seeing every player at the table respond to my betrayal was fantastic. Even though my possession was brief and a failure, my character survived to continue to be a part of the group, and I got a fun experience out of it.

August Goals
  • Finish Gears of War Tactics
  • Start Far Cry 6

What’s Next

Non-sequential writing

This last weekend I finished a rough, rough draft of Book 2, my sequel to Renaissance Calling. It took a lot longer to finish than I expected, in part because I had to learn how to write a book in a  non-sequential fashion. Between the length of time Book 2 covers (a year as opposed to two and a half months) and the need to fit fourteen backer-created characters into the story, writing the story from start to finish wouldn’t work, unless I was willing to write out a 300,000 word monster of a rough draft. So I started jumping around, writing scenes as I had them and working from both ends towards the middle.

Like a pyramid being built without finishing the foundation.

It was interesting and frustrating, with a lot of false starts and dead ends, but ultimately it got me to the end of the rough draft and into revisions. As I move on with both this book and other projects, I want to take a moment and share with you some lessons about non-sequential writing I’ve taken from the experience.

Start at both ends and work to the middle

Starting at both ends and working towards the middle was the first thing I started doing. It made sense, since I knew how the story began and ended. Working from both directions, I can approach any problem I came across from either the front or the back. Sometimes I had to solve problems by writing the solution first, and building up to it.

Keep an eye out for lessons the protagonist needs to learn

By writing the end I gained a huge advantage; I figured out what the character needs to experience to have the impact I need her to have at the climax of the story. That helped me figure out what I needed to show the reader, versus what I could tell the reader. It’s a huge benefit to non-sequential writing to know what you don’t have to write.

Write scenes independently; don’t worry about flow

By flow, I mean the attention of the reader as they go from one chapter to another. I quickly stopped paying attention to flow for my rough draft. Scenes begin and end rather abruptly. Annoying, yes, but finishing the overall story was the main goal. Working on the flow is for the revision phase.

Don’t describe a secondary character when you first write him/her:

Jumping back and forth, I had no idea when this character or that character was going to be introduced. The first few times I wrote a character I included a description, but several times I later wrote them in an earlier scene. So I stopped writing descriptions. Instead, I’m saving the description until afterwards, then I’ll add them when I know where their first appearance is.

Keep a list of ‘Bits to Add’

Instead of jumping around to fix things every time they come up, I’ve been keeping a separate document where I write down the ideas I want to return to. The point is to get the side-thoughts out of the way without interrupting the work on whichever scene I’m focusing on at the time. There will be enough time to fix everything later.

 

I’ve already started applying these lessons to other projects. It’s really helpful to get things moving when something is getting stuck, or simply to just get words down and counted. One project in particular covers almost a decade of time, and already I’m making huge strides in it because of these lessons.

Have any thoughts or tips of you own? Feel free to let me know.

And as always, keep on writing.

Backer Character Creation

This morning the first backer built character for Book 2 was finalized.

For those of you who weren’t aware, backers of Renaissance Calling who pledged more than $100 got to build a character that would be included in Book 2 of the series. Twelve backers (two of whom did multiple-backings) are now creating fourteen characters.

Part of the reason for doing this was to give backers a reward for funding Renaissance Calling. And part of it was to hand off some of the burden of coming up with all the characters on my own.

Starting the Process: The Character Primer

I didn’t start with much of an idea of how to do, and certainly not any long term plan. I figured I would go with the flow, so to speak.

To start, I worked up a two page primer for the backers, to explain the particulars of Book 2, to give an idea of what I was looking for, and to explain the groups that most characters would fall into. I wanted to guide the backers into roles I knew I would have to fill, and avoid wacky characters that don’t fit into the story at all.

After that I figured it would be a back-and-forth to finish the character. With one done and several others being built, I’ve established the process more permanently. It has turned into a three-step process.

Step 1: Character Idea

The backer gives me a really basic idea of what their character is. What is interesting is that their responses will fall into one of two categories: either a character, or an impact.

Some backers have said, ‘I want a character who has this impact.’ One backer wants a character who teaches the Scientific method to the protagonist; another wants a character who reveals to the reader what the antagonists are like. From there, I build the character who will fit into the story the way they want.

Other backers have said, ‘I want this character.’ One backer wants a character who is interested in rebuilding medical technology; another wants one based off her son. In those cases, I figure out how the fit the character into the story.

Character Creation at work

Step 2: Character Framework.

Once I have the character idea, I build what I’m calling the Character Framework. It’s a three-part document that explains the plan for the character. Using the medical technology character for the examples, the three parts are:

  • Thoughts on the Character: What about the character needs to be true for the character to work
    • Example: The medical technology character is a civilian
  • Things that need to be decided: Additional options that the backer should decide on.
    • Example: The medical technology character can be from one of these three places
  • Scenes that the character will be involved in
    • Example: The medical technology character will be in a medical emergency scene

I spend several days going over this framework, building it up, rewriting, and repeating as necessary. Refining the ideas over and over again until the framework I send out is well founded. Ideally, I only need to get one response (answering the part two questions) from the backer to move on to the next step.

Step 3: Character Biography

The character biography is what it sounds like: given the answers to the Framework, I type up a biography that explains the character’s personality, appearance, history, and impact on the story. Even if a lot of the information doesn’t appear in the book, it does influence how the character will act and respond.

I have information bios for a lot of the characters already introduced; what I write here is more in depth, since I’m working with another person and I want to make sure we’re on the same page.

The backer can respond with any corrections or suggestions, and after approval, the character is ready.

Conclusion

So far, I’m enjoying the process. It’s fun to see how different people come up with their concepts. And the challenge of incorporating other people’s ideas into the story has been quite rewarding. There are still a number of characters to work on, but I can already see how Book 2 will be richer for their efforts.

Thanks for reading!

-Michael

A Renaissance Lesson

With Renaissance Calling published, I wanted to take a moment to write down a lesson or four, to help anyone reading this who is thinking of publishing, and to remind myself down the line of mistakes I made. Renaissance Calling is my first book, so I’m not surprised I made some errors. With Book 2, I’m going to get these right.

Taking notes.

  1. Proofreading versus Editing

My editor was a huge help in prepping Renaissance Calling for publishing. She helped me refine my writing voice, clarify my story, and improve the general quality of the writing flow. I’m thankful she’s agreed to stick around for Book 2. But as it turns out, neither of us are proofreaders; we get into the flow of the story without looking at the details. So when several people who backer Renaissance Calling came to me with issues, I cringed.

Despite our best efforts, a number of small errors made it through to the first printing. Some of them were simple things (example: ‘while he attached’, instead of ‘attacked’). Others were a bit ‘how did I miss that’ (example: Horace spelled Horus on several occasions). One was downright ‘I didn’t know that was a thing’ (the single quotation marks would switch between straight and curly, sometimes on the same page).

A bit embarrassing, but a lot of books, even best sellers, have small errors. I’ve still gotten overwhelmingly positive responses to the story, even from people who handed me lists of corrections. So I’ve made the changes and I’m replacing the documents for future printings and eBooks. I’d like to say no one will find anymore, but I’m only human.

Lesson Learned: I need to spend more time and effort on proofreading.

How: A couple of things I can do.

  • I found a few mistakes when I was practicing reading out loud for my launch party, so I have made reading out loud part of my revision process.
  • A number of the detail-oriented people who handed me lists are willing to proofread future books, which will also help.
  • I’ve made some notes about common errors I made, and will endeavor to account for them in future projects.
  1. Publishing Date

The Kickstarter campaign finished in early November, and I had a tentative publishing date of February 10th (the main character’s birthday). All I had to do was write a Backer Book, finish editing Renaissance Calling, get ISBN’s and Barcodes, get final covers from my cover artist, and load all the documents to the printers. I could do all that in three months, right?

Well, not so fast. The Backer Book turned into a bigger endeavor than I thought it would, finishing at twice as long as I planned. The cover was some back and forth due to differences in RBG and CMYK formats.  And it took a lot more time and money to proof test prints of my book than I thought it would (details in No. 4 below).

The date was pushed back to March 8th, then April 8th. As I wrote about before, I got accidentally published on Amazon when I forgot to change the publishing date on one of the publishing sites. This was a bit of a relief, as I no longer had to feel rushed about getting my stuff done and out there.

Lesson Learned: I need to set a publishing date far enough out that I can get everything done.

How: As I’m scheduling my next book, I’m considering how long it took me to get Renaissance Calling into print and adjusting for differences in the book size (I’m anticipating Book 2 to be noticeably longer). My goal is to have everything done, proofed and printed two weeks before publishing.

  1. Figure out prices before committing

A minor error that I should have foreseen, but I assumed the costs of my books were going to be $12 for paperback and $16 for hardcover. I don’t know how I came to those numbers, but I was pretty certain of that going in. So much so that I had the original barcode for the paperback made with $12 on it.

Turns out, however, that after printing and distribution costs (particularly for the hardcover), sticking with those princes was not feasible. If I had, I’d be making less than a dollar on the paperback, and I’d be losing money on the hard cover. I had to raise the price for both formats.

Not a huge deal, except the first round of paperbacks got printed with the price still listed at $12. That’s been fixed and the correct price will displayed on future printings.

Lesson Learned: Do all the math before you set something in stone.

How: Not difficult; most printers and distributors have calculators to help you figure out the math. Take advantage of the tools. Work it out before you commit.

  1. Proofing and Printing

(Note: Proofing in this section was not for content or spelling, but for formatting errors when converting from Word to PDF and PDF to print.)

Proofing printed copies of Renaissance Calling turned out to take longer, and be more expensive, than I anticipated. A lot of this was due to this being my first book, and not being experienced enough to understand what I was doing.

With Createspace, the process is pretty easy. Once a PDF of the internal documents is loaded (and their website can convert Word docs to PDF), it can be proofed through an online viewer that organizes it as if it was a book. I should have spent more time reviewing it online, instead of ordering a proof copy and finding formatting errors in that.

Ingram Spark is much more complex. The files being uploaded have to be corrected by you, the author, which can result in some issues when the formatting is off. Issues that are a pain in the ass to correct, since Spark is so particular. Luckily there is an option to ignore the issues and continue, so when you’re black and white PDF is being kicked back as having color (Yeah, I never figured out what this was), you can tell it to continue with a little waiver. They do provide a PDF to proof, but not the snazzy online program Createspace does.

In both cases, it took a bit longer to get physical proofs than I expected. It also cost a bit more, since I had missed that Ingram Spark requires $50 to set up a file and $25 to correct. With two books set up at Ingram (hardcover and backer book), one correction each, and two proof copies of all three books, I spent well over $200 just proofing. If I had been on the ball, I could have saved about $100.

Lesson Learned: Give enough time to proof and print thoroughly, and be careful before you print off a copy.

How: There are a number of things I can do for this one.

  • Both: Convert the document to PDF and check thoroughly. A lot of errors come from this step, so checking the PDF should catch most of them. Check it several times.
  • Createspace: Proof the online program several times before confirming.
  • Ingram Spark: Proof the provided PDF several times before confirming.

Conclusion

As this was my first novel, I’m not surprised I made a few errors. But the point of an error is to learn a lesson. By writing these down now, I am going to remember them when I get back into the publishing process, which should be sometime next year.

If you’ve got any of your own tips, feel free to share. Thanks!

-Michael

Closing up 2016 and into 2017

Hard to believe the year is almost over, and a new one about to christmas-iconbeing. As I’m closing up 2016, and looking forward into 2017, I take a moment to consider both.

From 2016

In terms of writing, I didn’t get a whole lot done.  Sure, I finished the rough draft of a fantasy novel, which is great, I’m glad to have another one under my belt, but I did little other writing.

I spent most of this year working towards publishing;  I went through a number of artists trying to get artwork done;  I worked with an editor to get Renaissance Calling finalized.

I spent a lot of time getting a plan in place for when the project is done and Renaissance Calling gets published.  Learning the who to go to for what seemed daunting, but you cut through enough advertising you can find what you’re looking for.

I ran a successful Kickstarter campaign.  That was a bit nerve wracking, but I got it done.

I commissioned and artist for cover artwork.  A few rounds of back and forth later, I’ve got a cover (which I will be releasing soon).

And now I’m close to being done with my first book.

For 2017

I have a number of goals for 2017.

For starters, I plan to finish the publishing process and get Renaissance Calling to print.

Second, I plan to finish the rough draft for Templar Scholar, Book 2 of the Renaissance Army Series.  A decent start is already underway, awaiting the arrival of characters created by the backers.

Third, I want to finish the rough draft of the fantasy trilogy.  Book one is done, and the other two are outlined.  I want to get the three books done so I can make sure all three line up before I get the first one ready for publication.

I don’t want to set too many goals for 2017, but I want to stay focused.  Ideally, I’ll publish two books in 2018.  Now, I know that’s a large amount of work (now more than ever) but I think I can do it.  I’m already writing more efficiently: now that I know how much changes between rough and final drafts, I’m not so focused on getting the rough draft ‘just right’.

So as I close up 2016 and look into 2017, I want to thank you for reading this and supporting me, and I hope you have a great new years.

Keep on writing!

-Michael

Let’s do this!

ImpImaIconA lot happening this month, and all of it leads to publishing.

Started my publishing company, Impending Imagination.  Took me a lot of time (and many searched on thesaurus.com) to find a name that I liked.

Made my Facebook Author Page, so my personal and professional pages are now separate.

And moving into the final steps of beginning my Kickstarter campaign.  A little behind schedule, but I’m working towards it.

What does all this mean? PUBLISHING!

These steps are not just ‘the next ones’.  They signify a shift into my publishing years, from an enthusiastic hobby to an active business.  Every day, I have to do something, otherwise I’m letting myself down.

This is the starting line of what comes next.

As part of this, I’ve added message boards on the website, and loaded up wallpapers for download.

Probably some kinks to work out, but I’m eager to get going.

So, let’s do this!

Looking into 2016

2016 PictureAs 2016 begins, I look ahead and ask myself, as a writer and author, what do I expect to do?  What do I want to do?  I’ve wanted to publish for years and I constantly trip over myself.  I’ve got projects I revisit from time to time.  Lots of things I could do, I want to do, I should do.

So, realistically, what am I planning for 2016?

I’m planning to publish my first book.  

I’m so close, only if I give up completely will I fail to do so.  The third draft is a few chapters off from being done.  I had an editor lined up (and some options if it fell through), a company to help with publishing and promotion.  I’m researching Crowdfunding and Social Media.  And I’m staying focused.

I’m looking forward to holding a book in my hand and seeing my name on the cover.

I’m planning to finish writing a second book.

If I want to make a career as an author, I need to be able to write them faster than I have been.  Luckily I’ve learned a lot about myself as a writer, and I believe I can finish as least one more before next New Years.

The book I’m hoping to publish is the first half of a book I cut in half; so with so much work done on the second half, I write the second book pretty quickly.  I also have a fantasy book I’ve been working on that I might be able to finish.

Maybe I’ll finish a third book as well?

I’m planning on reducing the projects I’m working on.

A few weeks ago I counted myself as having 17 Projects in some stage or another.  Some of them were ‘hey, this could be a fun idea and I should think about it’, some of them were already underway.  This year I’ll figure out which ones I will focus on, and which ones I will put into storage.

Where do I want to be when 2017 starts?

I want to be a published author with at least one more book lined up and moving towards publication.

The Antagonist Story line

Villain Pic0001
Everyone has an antagonist

When I wrote the first draft of my book, I decided to include an antagonist’s story line, that is to say, a thread of the book from the perspective of an opponent, and not just people the main character has to deal with in her story.  The two characters never meet, never know each other’s names, or come within a hundred miles of each other.  I included the story line for two reasons.

First, it allowed me to explore more of the world.  The main character is fairly parochial in her view point, and does not travel far from home during the course of the story.  She learns a lot, but she can’t learn everything I want the reader to know.  The antagonist, being removed, well-traveled and experienced, could provide more of the framework the heroes are working against.

Second, his actions during the course of the book allowed me to toss a wrench into the main character’s story line, and to do so logically, without a feel of deus ex interruptus.

This worked for the 1st and 2nd drafts, though I must admit I was never quite happy with the actual wrench being thrown in.  When I started working on the 3rd draft, where I cut the book in half, I put the antagonist’s story line to the side.  I wasn’t sure (and I’m still not) that I would have room for it, and what kind of wrench he would throw into this one.  He would provide more of a world view, which in the long run may decide the issue.

Now that I’m nearing the end of this draft, I’m coming up on the point where I have to decide if I want to use his story line or not.  The first reason, world building, certainly still applies.  And I think the ending could use a wrench-toss to spice it up, make it more interesting for the character to overcome.  On the other hand, I’m not sure how long the book is going to be, and an extra story line could add too much.  And there is the aspect of writing a story where the reader learns alongside the character, reducing the chance of an information overload and surprising the reader along with the character.

I’ve got a tentative deadline of the 31st to finish writing this draft, so less than four weeks to decide if the antagonist stays or not.  Stay tuned!

Planning an argument

The current section of my primary project is an argument between several characters.  This section brings two challenges for me.

First, keeping the antagonist as a challenger.  It always bugs me when the author gives the antagonists the worst arguments.  Like any conflict I’ve written, it has to be  a real threat.  The other side HAS to try to win, otherwise it’s just a poor read.  As I’ve been planning, I’ve paid attention to both sides to keep it an argument.

Second is the strength of the arguments.  The topic is ‘When is it okay to rebel against tyranny’.  Now I have plenty of thoughts on this topic, but I don’t consider myself an expert on it.  And neither are most of the debaters, which makes their interactions relatively easy to write.  But one of the characters is much smarter than I am.  Planning his section is difficult because I want him to win, but I don’t want him to win because the other guy rolled over.

My answer to both challenges is research.  Not every character will be able to quote philosophers, but experience can be used to make similar points.  And the intelligent character, who probably can quote philosophers, probably should.

Only time will tell if my answer was correct.

Until then, write on!