AQATWW: Year-End Progress Report
To the surprise of no one, Alexandra Quick and the Wizard War is not finished. But I am still writing, steadily if not as quickly as I'd like.
So some writerly meanderings before I get to the meat y'all are waiting for. Pardon me if I repeat myself. I've rambled about my writing before so there probably isn't really a lot I haven't said before.
Sometimes I spend more time thinking about my writing than I do writing. And I think about how to increase my productivity (easy answer: get off the Internet, and especially block reddit, Discord, and Netflix), and whether I really want to be a writer when I waste hours doing non-writing things when I could be writing...
AQATWW is more outlined and plotted out than my previous books. I have all the major events and story milestones mapped out. Indeed, I even went ahead and plotted out much of the seventh and final book. I am really at the point where, in broad strokes, I know everything that will happen all the way through the Epilogues.
Okay, that's not quite true. I know everything I have planned. I would like to be a meticulous outliner who can sit down, draft a road map that tells me exactly where the story's going to go and how it gets there, and then start writing. Not just because it appeals to my sense of organization, but because when I do have an outline, I write more and faster. When I'm unsure where to go or what happens next, I meander, spend lots of time thinking about plot holes, and don't write as much.
When I don't have an outline spelling out "A then B then C," I start adding dialog, extra scenes, and occasionally some new idea hits me and I run with it, and then I've written a couple thousand more words that I am not sure actually add to the story, and also might introduce things I didn't plan. Sometimes the things I didn't plan are good ideas, and sometimes, maybe not so much.
(I am kind of regretting those Seven-League Boots.)
I am not going to tell you all the things that happened in past and future books that I had planned all along, and all the things that I pulled out of my ass while writing. I'd like to say it's more the former than the latter, but there have definitely been some "organic" plot developments. Sometimes my intuition is good, and sometimes I have regrets later. (Mostly of the "Now how do I write my way out of this plot hole I created?" variety. Like giving your protagonist a powerful magic item that instantly raises "Why doesn't she just use--?" questions when she's in a situation where she could use it...)
The major stuff is all planned. The really major stuff has been planned since around halfway through book one. I have been writing with a plan for 14 years. But sometimes when I am not sure where to go next, I have to just write, and that's hard because what if I make a mistake? :o
When I do free writing exercises, I can easily bang out 10 or 15 pages in a day. But that's when I am just using the Stephen King seat-of-the-pants writing method. Spill some crap onto the page and figure out how to put it together into a coherent narrative later. I want AQ to be coherent to begin with, and I don't want to put it all on my betas to find the plot holes and the wtfs.
(I am going to lean a lot on my betas this time to find the plot holes and the wtfs.)
So anyway, all this is to say.... I set out planning for AQATWW to be a little tighter and hopefully shorter than AQATWA, and it's not. Nope, I banged out a two-page dialog that I didn't plan ahead of time, and a side quest that maybe will end up being cut, and a subplot that maybe should be but I probably won't cut, and so on and so on. I am trying not to be self-indulgent, which means I am going to be looking for a lot of cuts to make from the final draft, but I think AQATWW is still going to be a big book.
So where are we?
Right now: 270,161 words, and 48 chapters. My outline now has 63 chapters. You might have noticed from previous progress reports that that number keeps growing. :\
(For reference, Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle is 160,327 words, and in trade paperback format, is 578 pages.)
So, I am definitely in the final third of the book, and pretty much in the transition to the lead up to the final act. But there are actually (counts on fingers) at least three really big, climactic events still to come. And a bunch of smaller but still pivotal scenes. Which may be a structural problem. My "third act," when I diagram it, looks like almost a book by itself.
Meanwhile, I have all these chapter notes - "This doesn't make sense." "This needs to be introduced earlier." "Cut? Move?" "Reread book four and make sure this is consistent." Etc. And notes on entire plot arcs and subplots that I am unsure about.
AQATWW is going to be big. Major shit going down. And as I often warn ahead of time, some stuff people will love and some stuff, I have no doubt, is going to draw some hate. But I'm still gonna do it.
No more word clouds because at this point I'd have to heavily edit them to avoid major spoilers.
But, to give you a little something for the new year, I am going to jump the gun a little here. I was going to withhold the cover until I finished the first draft. But I like this cover. It's not as good as art I've commissioned, but I think it's one of my better Poser/Photoshop compositions. So here ya go, and yes, I am going to finish this book!
So some writerly meanderings before I get to the meat y'all are waiting for. Pardon me if I repeat myself. I've rambled about my writing before so there probably isn't really a lot I haven't said before.
Sometimes I spend more time thinking about my writing than I do writing. And I think about how to increase my productivity (easy answer: get off the Internet, and especially block reddit, Discord, and Netflix), and whether I really want to be a writer when I waste hours doing non-writing things when I could be writing...
AQATWW is more outlined and plotted out than my previous books. I have all the major events and story milestones mapped out. Indeed, I even went ahead and plotted out much of the seventh and final book. I am really at the point where, in broad strokes, I know everything that will happen all the way through the Epilogues.
Okay, that's not quite true. I know everything I have planned. I would like to be a meticulous outliner who can sit down, draft a road map that tells me exactly where the story's going to go and how it gets there, and then start writing. Not just because it appeals to my sense of organization, but because when I do have an outline, I write more and faster. When I'm unsure where to go or what happens next, I meander, spend lots of time thinking about plot holes, and don't write as much.
When I don't have an outline spelling out "A then B then C," I start adding dialog, extra scenes, and occasionally some new idea hits me and I run with it, and then I've written a couple thousand more words that I am not sure actually add to the story, and also might introduce things I didn't plan. Sometimes the things I didn't plan are good ideas, and sometimes, maybe not so much.
(I am kind of regretting those Seven-League Boots.)
I am not going to tell you all the things that happened in past and future books that I had planned all along, and all the things that I pulled out of my ass while writing. I'd like to say it's more the former than the latter, but there have definitely been some "organic" plot developments. Sometimes my intuition is good, and sometimes I have regrets later. (Mostly of the "Now how do I write my way out of this plot hole I created?" variety. Like giving your protagonist a powerful magic item that instantly raises "Why doesn't she just use--?" questions when she's in a situation where she could use it...)
The major stuff is all planned. The really major stuff has been planned since around halfway through book one. I have been writing with a plan for 14 years. But sometimes when I am not sure where to go next, I have to just write, and that's hard because what if I make a mistake? :o
When I do free writing exercises, I can easily bang out 10 or 15 pages in a day. But that's when I am just using the Stephen King seat-of-the-pants writing method. Spill some crap onto the page and figure out how to put it together into a coherent narrative later. I want AQ to be coherent to begin with, and I don't want to put it all on my betas to find the plot holes and the wtfs.
(I am going to lean a lot on my betas this time to find the plot holes and the wtfs.)
So anyway, all this is to say.... I set out planning for AQATWW to be a little tighter and hopefully shorter than AQATWA, and it's not. Nope, I banged out a two-page dialog that I didn't plan ahead of time, and a side quest that maybe will end up being cut, and a subplot that maybe should be but I probably won't cut, and so on and so on. I am trying not to be self-indulgent, which means I am going to be looking for a lot of cuts to make from the final draft, but I think AQATWW is still going to be a big book.
So where are we?
Right now: 270,161 words, and 48 chapters. My outline now has 63 chapters. You might have noticed from previous progress reports that that number keeps growing. :\
(For reference, Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle is 160,327 words, and in trade paperback format, is 578 pages.)
So, I am definitely in the final third of the book, and pretty much in the transition to the lead up to the final act. But there are actually (counts on fingers) at least three really big, climactic events still to come. And a bunch of smaller but still pivotal scenes. Which may be a structural problem. My "third act," when I diagram it, looks like almost a book by itself.
Meanwhile, I have all these chapter notes - "This doesn't make sense." "This needs to be introduced earlier." "Cut? Move?" "Reread book four and make sure this is consistent." Etc. And notes on entire plot arcs and subplots that I am unsure about.
AQATWW is going to be big. Major shit going down. And as I often warn ahead of time, some stuff people will love and some stuff, I have no doubt, is going to draw some hate. But I'm still gonna do it.
No more word clouds because at this point I'd have to heavily edit them to avoid major spoilers.
But, to give you a little something for the new year, I am going to jump the gun a little here. I was going to withhold the cover until I finished the first draft. But I like this cover. It's not as good as art I've commissioned, but I think it's one of my better Poser/Photoshop compositions. So here ya go, and yes, I am going to finish this book!