Clee Hill: Blog

This has been an interesting week in the development of The Wilhelm Scream as I have looked again at some of the later chapters and plot progression for Book One.

The background for this period of reflection is based on the fact that the original first draft of some fifteen days of plot, incident, etc., was written over the course of a few days back in July last year. At that time, I was obviously dealing with less fully developed and considered characters, meaning that certain narrative episodes were driven very heavily by various plot ideas I had had at that time.

As I came to the end of the fifteenth day of the first sketches, I recognised that I was becoming less connected with my characters, more connected with my plot, and that if they were headed to the then intended conclusion, I really needed to better understand my characters. Hence the decision to pause, go all the way back to the first chapter, and engage in the 'heavy editing' that ultimately led to the beginning of the publication of Luke's and Stef's story here at SOL.

What this has also meant is that as a result of the 'heavy editing' of the first nine days I have gained a greater understanding of my characters, and now I understand that to force some of them in certain possible directions would be to run counter to the ways in which those characters have been established.

This means I am faced with excising possibly up to a third of the incidents in the remaining chapters, leaving quite a few holes in terms of flow and also plotting as the book heads towards its conclusion. Indeed, when this story was first sketched out, I had not yet decided whether or not to continue beyond a certain point, knowing only that I had the groundwork for something which I wanted to spend the time and energy on to see how it would progress. This was another reason to 'go back to square one', as it were.

I am now in the position of not only understanding how the Rowden's adventures might continue, but also wish to continue them, as their story has been a source of great personal fun for me to develop and explore, and I generally enjoy having them 'hanging out' in my head.

This means that as I get into the later chapters of what is now Book One, I need to re-think how Book One moves towards its conclusion, which elements need to be foreshadowed for Book Two, which elements need to be 'hidden in plain sight', and which elements of Book Two might even be helpfully brought forward into Book One to keep Luke and Stef headed in certain directions with a degree of swiftness.

Consequently, Chapter Ten is essentially the last of the 'unadulterated' chapters where the three main scenes will remain as they were in the first draft, Chapters Eleven to Fifteen will be heavily re-written, and it is now envisaged that Book One will conclude around Day Fifteen rather than Day Twenty, though this is not yet certain as it depends upon how matters progress in the re-writing of Eleven through Fifteen.

So for those loyal readers who keep asking for more and quicker, this is why things sometimes don't go as planned. I'm still looking to getting Book One done as swiftly as possible, but there might be some small hiccups along the way as I keep the remainder of this story consistent with my characters. I know where they're headed, but how they're going to get there is not so certain.

If nothing else, authoring even the most well-plotted out of stories can still result in some surprises along the way.

CH

Final parse is done, last minute tweaks all tweaked, last minute goofs ironed out, and the children are all in bed.

Chapter is in the queue, and should be up pretty soon, I hope, holidays notwithstanding.

As ever, see a goof, let me know, earn my thanks.

Cheers...CH

Well, that chapter was way more work than it should have been.

For only a few scenes and one calendar day, that took a lot of re-writing. The first draft was written quite a while ago, now, and since then I've learned enough about my characters to excise whole chunks of wrong turns, add details to important parts, and even twist something I'd not planned on twisting until Book Two.

Of course, this wasn't helped by Luke and Stef taking off on a Christmas holiday either, meaning I couldn't write their dialogues as I couldn't hear them.

Oddly, I've learned their characters are revealed in their dialogue, not their descriptions and depictions. An interesting lesson.

Thankfully, everyone's back now, so a quick 'goof pass' on it tomorrow, then up into the queue.

Cheers...CH

Just a quick note to let those who read these things know that Chapter 9 might be a few days late.

Basically, real life is badly distracting at the moment, my Muse has decided to hide until it all quiets down, and I'm struggling to hear my characters clearly.

So please, bear with me, it will be out soon, but not until it's ready.

Oh, and Merry Christmas, too.

CH

Remember I had planned to move to a fortnightly instead of a three-weekly posting schema?

Well, that kind of fell on its face for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, as I get further into my first drafts I am finding that, now that I know and understand my characters better, there is an increasing amount of those later chapters which are needing heavy re-writing. Think something in the range of thirty percent, and you'll be at the shallow-end in terms of what needs doing. So, that's a drag on productivity.

Secondly, two weeks is not giving me enough thinking time, meaning that important aspects of the narrative and character development are too often remembered at the last minute, putting more pressure on me to hit my self-determined posting schedule.

Thirdly, churning out chapters every two weeks is cutting into, what's that thing, oh yeah, real life. I love writing, but I don't only write, and some of those other things are big bites of my time too.

Conclusion. Back to three weeks. If I'm happy there's nothing more to do with a chapter then it will get uploaded quicker than that, but that's more hopeful than likely. The upside of this is that a happier writer should make for a better quality story.

Cheers...CH