Forum: Author Hangout

Maybe it's your story transition, switching it from a story about Keith and Kim to one of Keith and Veronica. For readers who started out cheering Kim on, would understandably have trouble switching alliegences to someone else, short of a significant revelation/confession, revealing why Keith and Kim weren't the match he'd thought they were. A gradual disappointment generally produces unsatisfying endings, whereas a sudden revelations lets the readers into the primary characters' head, so they can feel what they're feeling.

It's the typical Show, Don't Tell, you can just describe the initial relationship going south (or at least not moving in the right direction), you often need a heartfelt confession as one reveals what they're experiencing, how lost they are and why, and it becomes clear that the new couple is actually a better/more-natural couple.

I hate to say it, but this is a basic flaw in the DITL (Day-In-The-Life) story, as you're tracking the story from day-to-day, rather than building the reader from one significant event to the next. By describing the details, you lose track of the natural progression, missing the very details that readers most need to clue them in to where the story is heading.

I hate to say it, but this is a basic flaw in the DITL (Day-In-The-Life) story, as you're tracking the story from day-to-day, rather than building the reader from one significant event to the next. By describing the details, you lose track of the natural progression, missing the very details that readers most need to clue them in to where the story is heading.

I don't think this is always true. It sometimes happens, but I've read several DITL style stories where there was a natural progression that builds from significant event to significant event. I think you're conflating some stories into a basic flaw, when it isn't.

I too very much enjoy Spielberg's 1941.

I also enjoy many Tom Clancy novels, with a big cast of characters, and multiple storylines. Such as Red Storm Rising.

Several of my stories are that way.

I think you're conflating some stories into a basic flaw, when it isn't.

I still contend that it's a basic flaw in that type of writing, however the better authors take it into account and work around it, but it's basically a trap for the unsuspecting newbies.

The DITL style is named that because each chapter is literally a day-in-the-character's life, so that rather than jumping from significant event to subsequent events, it lists each day, regardless of whether anything significant happens or not. Thus you frequently end up with the infamous 2-S stories.

In my opinion, it makes sense discussing these issues so that future authors will know what they're getting into, and can study how other authors handle it rather than diving in head first.

@GreyWolf:

I agree. Obviously I'm biased, doing a DITL story.

Actually, your an exception to the rule, in that you're not actually writing DITL stories. The story often details most of the week, but you're also free to skip over any days/weeks where nothing significant occurs, which is how you deal with the basic DITL problem.

That makes your stories a cross between DITL and the more common event-based stories.

Again, I'm not saying that you can't avoid the 'storytelling flow', only that if new authors are unprepared for it, it's easy to get burned. Though, to be honest, the DITL stories are much better than they used to be years ago, when virtually every DITL story started with the protagonist showering, shitting and shaving (known within the SOL community as 3S stories), something that adds nothing to a story (unless he misses and slices his jugular, of course!).

every DITL story started with the protagonist showering, shitting and shaving (known within the SOL community as 3S stories), something that adds nothing to a story (unless he misses and slices his jugular, of course!).

Hopefully such stories are autobiographical ;-)

AJ

Hopefully such stories are autobiographical

It was a definite trend with several SOL authors years ago, but the current generation are much better writers, although those stories still had good ratings, so apparently many didn't mind it that much.

Same.

I must have missed that trend. I've read a fair number of day-to-day-ish stories, and never anything that looked like that.

That was a defacto norm for epic stories (50+ chapter stories) for many years, but the SOL audience has become more sophisticated over the years, and most authors are now comfortable with avoiding that particular usage.

Specifically, it was mostly the influence of 3 prolific authors to where popular about 20 years ago, but influenced other writers to either duplicate it (rare) or avoid it at all costs (much more common).

However, it's rare to run across it nowadays, as most of those stories have been retired behind the SOL paywall by now. (Yes, I AM and old fogie on SOL!)

unless he misses and slices his jugular, of course!

That was the autobiographical aspect I meant :-(

AJ

The DITL style is named that because each chapter is literally a day-in-the-character's life

I hadn't realized that was how you were defining it, since I usually group in stories where it jumps to notable events and not ever moment, so sometimes 3 chapters cover one day and sometimes one chapter covers 2 weeks. Perhaps I misunderstood.

I'm not sure I've even read a story where it's 1 chapter per day before.

I agree (which is why I said I was writing a DITL story). I agree that, by the definition used, I'm not, but then, as Lumpy points out, not many people are, either.

Again, you and other more recent SOL authors use a hybrid of the two separate styles, where you follow the day to day actions, but conveniently skip over that aren't particularly relevant to the story.

Typically, in traditional publishing, where paper costs drive story length, DITL stories are virtually unheard of, because who could afford to pay for a paperback novel of over a million words?

A better example of an 'event-driven' story of my more recent books, where any given chapter jumps from one 'event' to the next, regardless of the duration between them. Thus the story jumps around, like in my currently posting Kindred Spirits, the kids have an encounter, recover for a few days, and the next, they're suddenly jetting off to Mexico City to relieve the local Catholic Priests of their 'exorcism' burden using their newly discovered 'sectarian' approach.

In my case, one 'episode' may take up an entire chapter, vary rarely will it ever take up more than one, while any given chapter might have multiple same-day events and/or separate events spanning days/weeks or even months (such as my usual Epilogues, which recaps what happened after the official story ended).

@LupusDei:

In that case, it makes perfect sense, since the duration is so limited, just as GreyWolf and other 'coming of age' stories are limited to the main characters' high-school years. The same approach applies to both, because of the stories time limits, rather than the subject matter or plot.

The more extreme examples I reference typically began something like: Thursday, April 23rd: I woke, went to the john, shit, showered and shaved (often if fairly graphic detail), BEFORE I went downstairs to have breakfast with the family before FINALLY heading off to yet another day of school.

By the way, I originally coined the terms because that's HOW I originally started the story. While I never used the 3s style, I basically follow the protagonist for several years (6 books), largely detailing how the cast of some 30 secondary characters spent most of their days, although even then, I'd jump from one even to the next, although MANY of those were filled with the typical school-day dredge of having to explain a houseful of harem members while in high school.

Typically, in traditional publishing, where paper costs drive story length, DITL stories are virtually unheard of, because who could afford to pay for a paperback novel of over a million words?

This is actually more true than most people would imagine.

My longest story in here (around 1.5 million words) I knew was massive, but I did not realize how massive until I one time did a google search for how many words were in the Lord of the Rings series.

Including The Hobbit, it is over 576k words. That means my biggest one at over 1.6m words is almost three times longer. If printed at the same words per page as LOTR, it would be around 6,000 pages long.

In many ways, it is a good thing that we can ignore such in our writing. I honestly had absolutely no idea how much I had written until I was almost done. If somebody had told me that before I started, I would have called them a liar.

This is in my welcome message on Patreon:

A note about the size and scope of my work:

War and Peace has about 587,000 words. AWLL 2 - Book 10 - Bridget alone has about 640,000 words. If you read all of what I have written, it's about 12,000,000 words total, which is like reading War and Peace twenty times and still having words left to read Lord of the Rings, which is about 480,000 words (not including The Hobbit).

For other comparisons, the Harry Potter series clocks in at just over a million words, and the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan has about 4.4 million words, and is considered one of the longest (if not the longest) published series.

Just combining A Well-Lived Life, Good Medicine, and Climbing the Ladder which are in the same universe and intertwine characters, I've beaten the record listed on Wikipedia (about 11.2 million words).

Just A Well-Lived Life, without anything else from the universe, is second on the list by a long way and will surpass the longest before it is completed.

If my work was published in printed form, it would be over 120 average-length hardcover books.

The list I linked to is for single novels, not something like a series.

Again, the world record, for a single novel published on paper is 3.7MW

The record for an English language novel is 2.4MW

I broke AWLL into books only for ease of management. It is one, continuous story, start to finish.

I broke AWLL into books only for ease of management. It is one, continuous story, start to finish.

I did the exact same thing with CBCG. Each time when it got insanely big, I cut it into another book.

I broke AWLL into books only for ease of management. It is one, continuous story, start to finish.

As I've noted before, that's natural, as it's easier to read if each book has it's own novel-based conflicts, while the series conflict continues over the whole series. That allows you to explore and wrap up the smaller conflicts, before moving on to the next set of conflicts (i.e. the next year in most coming-of-age story).

That's essentially what makes a satisfying story, focusing on a central conflict, never going too far afield, yet wrapping up the central conflict before jumping into the next installment of the collective conflict (i.e. we each want each book to 'feel' complete, with a more-or-less happy ending, before diving into the next).

Cliff-hangers are fine, but if you end on a sad/tragic note, it's hard to get those readers back again!

Cliff-hangers are fine, but if you end on a sad/tragic note, it's hard to get those readers back again!

I have tested that theory and it seems not to be the case (Cf Birgit Andersson's death in AWLL1.1)

The list I linked to is for single novels, not something like a series.

The only time that full series count is if you're stupid enough to publish the entire Box Set (i.e. the entire series as a single printed volume.

Still, many of the SOL single volume 100+ chapter novels are utterly unsuitable to print, which means that once the page disappear from the net (or get retired on SOL), they're pretty much gone for good, at least to the average reader.

However, as has been noted, if there even as little as a single $ difference between an eBook and a printed book, virtually no one will actually purchase the printed book, which is WHY no traditional publisher lists any of their eBooks cheaper than their printed books, (and usually they're several dollars more, even with their expressed size limits!

And even that wouldn't set a record if it got published.

I know that. But at least that is a series where most have seen them, so know how big they are. Another comparison I could have used is "Dune", which is under 200k words.

In many ways, it is a good thing that we can ignore such in our writing. I honestly had absolutely no idea how much I had written until I was almost done. If somebody had told me that before I started, I would have called them a liar.

In my case, my initial DITL Catalyst series was slightly over 1.1 million words, though spread out over 6 complete novels. Still, most of those the spines were between an inch to an inch and a half, and I could only pull that off because I used s diminutive 10pt font that was virtually unreadable.

Over my future stories, I focused on more concise event-driven stories, as well as learning how to 'cut the fat' from most of my passages, though it's only in my final book that I've finally relaxed enough to allow myself to use my old complex 40 to 50 character sentences (hey, your final story counts as 'never to late', isn't it?).

My efforts to pare down my stories only tool 28 full novels, and of course, once I mastered the process, I finally gave up the field, but it was an intense learning process!

I hadn't realized that was how you were defining it, since I usually group in stories where it jumps to notable events and not ever moment, so sometimes 3 chapters cover one day and sometimes one chapter covers 2 weeks. Perhaps I misunderstood.

I do the same thing, sometimes even skipping months at a time if nothing of importance had happened. Normally only signifying that by mentioning that the Holidays were fun, and it was now say Easter. Implying that I am now writing 5 months or so since the previous chapter.

In my longer stories I started to make it a "thing" to have some mention of the New Year, and mention what the year was so the readers could get a sense of the amount of time passing.

I hadn't realized that was how you were defining it, since I usually group in stories where it jumps to notable events and not ever moment, so sometimes 3 chapters cover one day and sometimes one chapter covers 2 weeks. Perhaps I misunderstood.

That's my fault, as it's a term I coined a few years back to describe common writing styles on SOL. The opposite, are 'Event Driven' stories, where the story jumps from one significant story event to another, rather than detailing what happens on each day, however enjoyable those might be.

However, since SOL readers favor those, and the scoring system benefits EPIC stories (i.e. 50+ chapter stories), which are almost unknown in traditional publishing, the DITL stories are more common here than elsewhere.

Sometimes I REALLY regret broaching a topic, not that that ever prevents me from sticking my foot in my mouth!

If he has a beard likely he isn't shaving. Lots of people shower before bed, not after getting up.

The original 3S authors were all 'Old School' who grew up rising at dawn, doing their chores, and then, if they didn't have other chores, would head to school. They never seemed to pay much attention to their school work, but her struggled in school, just seemingly magically getting good grades.

But then, it's probably been a good 20 or 30 years since the 3S stories were popular.

Is that correct? A DITL story MUST cover every single day whether anything important happened or not? If the story covers birth-to-death of a character who lived to be 100 years old, that's 36500 chapters,
Is there an example of a DITL story on SOL that does that - a chapter for every day?

Obviously, it doesn't, otherwise the story would never end—those there are still plenty of those on SOL—however, it's essentially a trap for the unsuspecting, and something to watch for when one embarks on one.

As usual, if you bog down in the details, you (and your readers) will lose the whole narrative flow, so to keep the pacing active and the readers' engaged, it's necessary to trim to unnecessary nitty-gritty details (ex: those 3S stories I alluded to earlier).

There are some great 60 - 90 chapter stories on SOL, but it's difficult to pull off successfully without a LOT of planning!

Of course it would end: the day the main character dies is the last chapter :)

Not necessarily. Note the responses to my post

Is a DITL story about a dead person a DITD story? ;-)

AJ

By describing the details, you lose track of the natural progression, missing the very details that readers most need to clue them in to where the story is heading.

Unless, of course, you include the clues IN the descriptions of what's going on. That way, when the trap is sprung later on, your readers can go back and go ... damn!

That's why it's obvious - after the story is done - that you realize Doctor Crowe is dead, and is working with Cole Sear just FOR that reason. And why red was such an important color in that movie. But you didn't know it when you watched it the first time.

I've hit that a few times - cases where a quarter of the readers said 'good, but you telegraphed that, didn't you?', a quarter said 'I never saw that coming! You didn't telegraph that nearly enough!', and half thought it was about right.

@Radagast:

Chekhov's gun. If you mention a gun hanging on a wall it must be fired in a later chapter.

I typically take a more nuances approach, where the lead characters discuss their options, listing several option before selecting the most promising one, but emphasize one if an offhand way (using em-dashes, so readers pay particular attention to them, but since they're an aside to the rest of the sentence, readers don't pay the aside much attention. Throw in a few red-herrings (other possibilities that never worked out) and readers are never sure which direction you're going to go, but when it happens, they remember the whole discussion leading up to that event.

However, that level of planning takes a bit more advanced planning, and normally only occurs when you write the first draft and only THEN do a complete revision based on what you've learned of what happens in the full story, so you can prepare readers for what's going to happen in other 5, 10 or 15 chapters.

I understand what Chekhov was going for, but he was also commenting in the context of a very finite literary space. In a far larger space, there is plenty of room for guns that don't go off. You also lose a lot of space for surprise if every gun that turns up will be fired.

Keep in mind, that Chekhov was NEVER a literary writer, but was instead a playwright. So the real adage is: if you see a rifle over the mantlepiece during the course of a three-act play, you can bet it'll come into play during the final scene. But novels—especially the 50+ chapter SOL variant, are another story entirely! ;)

Plus, the whole point of the foreshowing/red-herring combo is that, when you pull out the eleventh-hour surprise, the readers will go "Oh, yeah, that's what he was doing! I see where the story turned, but I hadn't seen it coming.' The key isn't to shock the reader into disbelief, but to have the final surprise appear to be completely logical, even if no one saw it coming (aside from the author, that is).

I typically take a more nuances approach

I have discussed with several other writers, most (if not all) are veterans, writing and other matters; among which is EDC: Every Day Carry. So, the Gun is Not the key bit, Preparation is.

I try to Show, not Tell, so in an earlier scene I may describe a gun, as well as an IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit), and other things that Boone always carries. Setting up a future scene where Boone pulls out a field dressing, rather than just a 'Band-Aid' or his pen is also a window-breaker, I established that such a thing is plausible; where it would be unlikely that an ordinary person would be carrying such an item.

It also is more reasonable that such a character maintains situational awareness, and observes where alternative exits are in case of an emergency. Or in the words of USMC General Mattis, "Always be Polite, always be Professional, and always have a Plan to Kill Everyone in the Room."

There is an ulterior motive, several of us are endeavoring to encourage more people to be aware of EDC. Not necessarily carrying a firearm all the time. Having a folding knife, a multi-tool, and other things on the person (or in their purse). Related is that we have motivated more people we know to keep a case of bottled water, a tool kit, flashlight, jumper cables, gloves, a sweater, raincoat, first aid kit and 3-days food, and a sleeping bag or at least a thermal blanket, as well as a pair of comfortable shoes, in their vehicle at all times.

what are the logs supposed to do?

Let sleeping logs die ;-)

AJ

Imagine the setup. A modern house with an antique gun hanging over the mantle, or other wise on conspicuous display.

At the end of the story, someone pulls it down off the wall...and uses it as a club to bash the bad-guy in the head.

Sex story version:

The husband is impotent. The wife taunts him every night by taking the gun down and using it as a dildo to pleasure herself.

AJ

At the end of the story, someone pulls it down off the wall...and uses it as a club to bash the bad-guy in the head.

Or, during the final scene, the maid enters, screams and points at the antique gun hanging over the mantle, and when everyone turns to stare at it, she stabs the bad guy in the back with a knife, threatening anyone to question her about it, since he's obviously had it coming.

In the meat world, happy endings don't truly exist as everyone dies in the end.

Ahh, but the key to a happy ending is to finally die due to a happy ending, as then everyone dies with a smile on their faces. "What a way to go!" says the detective as he crosses himself as the coroner throws a blanket of the deceased couple.