Other Writing Directions

So as Episode 8 drags on — although as an aside I think I’ve figured out a way to bring it to a satisfying conclusion without being too lean on the story, so that’s good news! — I’ve found myself pulled toward another project. It’s a slightly campy gothic horror-ish tale contained within a video-game structure, where the story exists in the background and middle pieces surrounding epic fight scenes between the hero and some dark foe. I think it’ll work as the fight scenes and tension surrounding them will drive things forward, and the overall plot can come out in smaller drips. The goal would be novels between 70K and 90K, published in sequence. A greater focus on the background story would drop everything into a plot-intensive book 1. Maybe favorable for some people, but that’s not the recipe for success in self-publishing right now.

I had the thing plotted out, at least roughly. My normal process is to have rough ideas of how each scene will go and then let the writing process take over. I can go back and reorganize things as need be. For this story, I liked what I had done, it had a good flow and a nice conclusion that would springboard into nearly anything regarding the next book in the series. I was able to read through it all and get to the end and think, “yeah, that’s a good, complete story.” (That’s an important note, as years ago, I’d plot out entire things that never really were complete stories, just somewhat connected sequences of events). But still, somewhere deep inside of me, I knew it was lacking something.

I was watching The Last Kingdom (and putting the Saxon Chronicles on my To Be Read list in the process) when I realized what was missing. The stakes just weren’t there. Sure, there was the fate of the world, but why the fuck would a new reader care anything about the fate of the world? I mean, from the reader’s perspective, things could get quite a bit more interesting if the world did fall apart. And of course, there was the protagonist’s survival, which is always at stake in any action-based story, but it’s not enough. The character didn’t have the motivation to keep moving forward and do certain things. There wasn’t loss to overcome, no darkness to move out of.

So I gave her someone to lose. Kinda shitty, for sure. But then, I thought, “well, what if they didn’t really die?” and large pieces of the background/understory wrote themselves in my head in a matter of minutes. The thing that was lacking is gone now, but of course, with new central characters and a mostly changed central mystery, the existing plot won’t work at all. So I’m back to the drawing board on that, but first I’m dipping my toes into the first few chapters to see if anything else just fits into place before I move forward. Sometimes, things just come together.