Demosthenes: Blog

With chapter 14 posted today, Longshot Part I (Flight) is about three-quarters finished, with six chapters to go. The remaining text of Part I is in draft, forcing me to take a few weeks off to finish it. My sincere thanks to everyone who has written, via comment or eMail, with compliments and suggestions for my work.

While I'm working on the closing chapters of Part I I'll also use the opportunity to complete the opening chapters of Part II (Coast), so that there will be no pause when posting resumes. However, I expect that I will need to stop publishing halfway through the full novel for more editing and writing.

I've also realised that the size and ambition of Longshot requires an editor. I believe I may have found one, but they've just left on vacation for two weeks… providing another opportunity for me to get ahead on writing.

To all of the dedicated readers who have stuck with me so far, my gratitude, and a promise to be back soon with more. :-)

I both write and edit my stories on SOL, making any errors that appear in publication truly my own, and forcing me to be entirely dependant on the feedback of eagle-eyed readers to point out any errors that remain. For Longshot, I am especially grateful for the contributions of yellowperil, who has helped improve Chapter 11, re-posted today, along with a lightly re-edited Chapter 12.

I'm also thankful for those readers who have expressed surprise and disappointment at the story's current score (7.45, as I write this). I've found that SOL's unique vote tallying system tends to rate my stories lower relative to works I consider of equal quality, for reasons that remain obscure to me.

Ultimately, of course, the score is an expression of the community, and I can hardly argue with that. However, I would be remiss if I did not remind readers that votes can be altered after one's initial feedback. If you feel that your impression of Longshot has improved over time and since your first vote, you can always return to the last chapter of the story and renew your opinion in the voting form. :-)

Regardless, I will continue to keep writing. My thanks, as always, for your support and kind comments.

One of the best creative writing tips I ever received, from a source now long-forgotten, was "every scene you write should do at least two things".

For completely understandable reasons, many beginning writers create scenes that fulfill a single purpose: "this shows how powerful X is" or "this shows how much A loves B". And sometimes writing towards one powerful direct point is the best and most direct way of accomplishing your goals. But a scene also often provides opportunities to be both more efficient and descriptive by weaving in other aspects of the story. For example, I'd like to think that, however inexpertly, the river crossing scene in today's chapter of Longshot accomplishes several things at once:

1. It shows the development of Askr's children, illustrates his relationship with them, and demonstrates Ananya's growing interest in mathematics.
2. It fills in more the interior of Longshot, in particular the area around a biome that we've previously visited.
3. It offers a context for the small family witnessing the destruction and rebuilding of the central city later in the scene.

At the other extreme, it's entirely possible to overburden a scene by trying to make it accomplish too many things at the same time, leaving it confusing and lifeless. As with many things, the best balance usually lies somewhere in the middle.

In further notes, I've updated my SOL profile and today's chapter in response to reader feedback.

A final reminder: Longshot is a novel. Promises will probably be kept, but things will take time to develop. I trust that the story is worth the investment of your time, but it's not going to happen in a rush.

I am indebted to everyone who expressed their interest in a map of Longshot, per my last blog post. While I doubt I'll be able to finish it before the mid-point of the novel, I shall start work on illustration forthwith. (I'd also like to complete some visualisations of the vessel's interior for a fully illustrated version of the novel, but that will only happen after publication).

The prompt also reminded me that I need to finish writing up a dramatis personae for the novel. The plot of Longshot takes place over three centuries: while the cast of characters is very small right now, I don't think it will come as a surprise or spoiler that the number of characters will grow significantly in the next part of the book. I feel that I've made the future population unique enough to eliminate any confusion, but I'm sure that a genealogical guide would be helpful for some, or at least interesting.

The posting of Longshot continues apace: I should be able to add a new chapter each morning (North American West Coast time) for at least the next week. Doing so allows me to triple-check each chapter before publication while (I hope) maintaining reader engagement, and rather makes me feel like Charles Dickens.

While I have a good mental map of Longshot's terrain, and believe that I'm describing the interior well, a landscape that literally folds in on itself can be rather difficult to visualize. I've been debating including a map when the story is finished, as I did with Resonance, possibly including a glossary. If you're someone that would find such features useful, please let me know, so I can gauge reader interest / need.