a bridge to the quiet planet

Steve’s Update 2/4/2018

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

Here’s my latest update!  With my move done and that insane January out of the way, I will get back to regular deliverables.

So what have I done the last week(s)?

  • Moving: Is done!  Now there’s just settling in.  And unpacking.  We’re taking a few weeks to do this.
  • A Bridge To The Quiet Planet: I sadly did not do more editing, but did work on the outline for the final plot changes – and I think I can do them in one go.  I actually want to get this to pre-readers as I’m a bit tired of editing it!
  • Writing: I did start a new blog series on Agile and creativity you’ll see this week!  This will mark my return to doing more creative advice stuff outside of writing.
  • Cover Work: I’ll be doing a cover for an interesting cookbook – not sure if I’ll start this week, but hope to give you an idea of what’s up once I get the tap!

What am I going to do this week:

  • A Bridge To The Quiet Planet: Returning to editing.
  • Writing: I’m going to work on my Agile and creativity blog entries.

General

  • Still recovering from the move, so I may front-load this month with more mundane tasks and then go do a lot of my creative stuff in a wave.
  • My commute should give me time to write (it’s easier to take a train over driving) so let’s see what that does for these projects . . .

– Steve

Steve’s Update 1/14/2018

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

Here’s my latest update . . . and a bit late as things got wacky.

So what have I done the last week(s)?

  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet”: Back to editing it in arcs.  There’s probably 1-2 more months of editing before it goes to prereader.  So stay tuned.
  • Way With Worlds Minibooks: The prices are going up to $2.99 because several authors noted that, ironically, people don’t take 99 cents seriously.  Let’s see if this gets more people’s attention; as weird as it sounds, I’ve heard this from several people.
  • Agile Guide: Is being edited and will be out in a few weeks as a free book.
  • Other: My roommate has got a new job in the area and plans to move.  I had planned to move in with my girlfriend.  However this is all a tad sudden, so I need to get a move done in a few weeks.

What am I going to do this week:

  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:” Editing arcs, and its pretty promising, though I’m still a bit burnt out on editing.  Let’s see how that goes now that I got other things out of the way.
  • The Move:  I’m going to try to make it go smoothly and without interruption.  Let’s see if it actually works.
  • Other Stuff: I had planned to do other things, maybe do some generator work but I kinda have to figure this move thing out.

General

  • As noted the move may mess with my plans – or it may not.  I honestly don’t know because I HAD set aside time for a slower month and had been preparing (even if I thought it was a few months off).
  • I am still a bit burnt out on writing so new projects may be a bit delayed – like editing books.
  • I am gearing up for con season and am submitting calls to cons for speaking.

– Steve

A Writer’s Life: Arcs Over Rewrites

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

So “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet,” my sf/fantasy sarcastic road trip novel, is in editing.  I did a few passes, but now the goal is to tighten up the plot and characterizations.

Originally I had wanted to go over the story and truly re-work it to be “what I wanted.”  The plan was to re-outline the plot, and then do a mix of cut-and-paste, writing, and rewriting to flesh out the “new” novel.  But something felt wrong . . . that kind of thing that tells me I’m doing something wrong.

So that gut feel – why did it feel wrong?  It felt excessive, it felt like a lot of effort, and it also didn’t feel like it’d bring me much.  I’d spend a bunch of time building an outline, then try to shoehorn things in, and as my past experience had told me – I’d probably find plenty of other things I’d have to change.

It’s always important to listen to those gut feelings, and this one said it was a bad idea.

At that point, I discussed this with friends.  How was I going to tweak the plot?  After a few discussions, I went back to my lessons from Agile Software development – good improvement is often iterative.  So how would I truly improve the plot in iterations?

Well, in software you rarely go overhaul everything.  You tweak the components, improving this piece here, that piece there.  My novel wasn’t flawed, it just needed to be improved.  Re-plotting it would have been as logical as doing a working piece of software from scratch just to add a few new features or improve existing ones.

That’s when I realized what I wanted to do was improve various story arcs.  So this is what I’m doing:

  1. First, I went over my notes and thoughts, and wrote down the arcs I wanted to improve or make.
  2. Under each arc I wrote down the general things I wanted to do in story order.
  3. Now with that done, I plan to rewrite just the arcs, going through the story (which I know all too well) to just add to, tweak, expand, or reduce the story to embody these new or improved arcs.

What does this net me:

  • It’s easier.  It’s just not some giant re-outline that’d be inaccurate quickly.
  • It’s about value.  Each individual arc improvement makes the story better.
  • It’s atomistic.  Each arc improvement is roughly standalone, so I can add them with relative ease.  I can also drop them with relative ease.
  • It’s synergestic.  I’m working on one arc at a time, so I get to see the synergies as I go part-by-part (which plays into iterative improvement).
  • It’s iterative.  Each arc I add or improve in the story allows me to re-evaluate progress – and re-evaluate the other arcs I want to add or improve.
  • It’s more hands-on.  I’m editing arcs much quicker as opposed to making some plan, so it keeps me in tune with the story.

I’ll let you know how this goes.  But it’s certainly less of a burden on my mind, it gets me writing quicker, and it fits my Agile experiences.

– Steve