Status Report

[annathepiper]

I've been wrestling with a lot of stress lately that I won't get into here, but happily, the last couple of days I have managed to break through some writing blocks and get a new scene done. mamishka is to be loudly commended, for she has helped me make a lot of germs of ideas in my brain come together and make oodles more sense. She's really good at that. :)

My word count is currently 13,070, and I am one scene away from finishing what I started off calling a Prelude and which I think will now be actually a Part 1, since I expect to hit 15K and possibly 16K by the time I finish this last scene, and that's way too long to be a Prelude or Preface or Prologue or whatever the hell.

The interesting question, I suppose, will be whether this stuff winds up actually contributing to my story. Because the main story actually is supposed to start after the events in this here Part 1. I think the first thing I will need people to tell me, once I release this to proofreading eyes, is whether it burdens the flow of the story to be given 15-16K words' worth of backstory. It is IMHO crucial backstory, as it's all character-forming sorts of stuff and crucial events in my three main characters' lives... but I suspect I will probably be too close to the material to really figure out whether the data needs to actually be there or whether I should try to work it in somehow later, when the Main Story begins.

lyonesse and I talked about this a bit on my MUSH; she is, like I am, a fan of being shown something directly rather than just being told about it by some character spouting off after the fact, or by flashbacks. But I'll be wanting to solicit others' opinions on this, once Part 1 is done.

Question for all: should I start making this stuff available for y'all now that I've got this many thousand words? Or would it be more helpful, given the question I have posed above, to actually have some Main Story to compare to, to answer the issue of whether I need sixteen thousand words of backstory? :)

Comments

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

I think you should feel free to post it, but I don't think people are going to be able to answer the question of, "Is it necessary for the rest of the story?" without, well the rest of the story. :) I think the best thing to do as you write the story is to look at it closely and ask yourself, "Is this one story or is it many stories that ultimately become one story?" I suspect what you may want to do is consider breaking this story up into two or three books if you suspect (as I suspect) that it is going to become lengthy. You might keep that in mind as you write, looking for some sub-climax moments throughout which might make for a good ending of one book, continuing on the rest of the story in the second book. I recommend doing this while you're writing, because I think it would be kind of a bitch to try to go back later and chisel into it in order to make it marketable. :)

For what it's worth, I like the idea of Part 1 at least, because it has a nice pattern and flow that I think is stylistically interesting and because it seems like pretty interesting and crucial background information for all of the characters.

Re:

[annathepiper]

I'm already planning on this being a whole trilogy... Kestar's story, at any rate, feels in my head like it's going to need three books to take care of everything he needs to take care of.

Julian and Faanshi may or may not be there for all three of these hypothetical stories. I think I have a potential path to take for them... though I think I will have to actually do some more outline work and get a better idea of where I want to go with them.

Duly noted about the rest of your commentary, though... I think you're quite right in that the big question I need to ask with this Part 1 really does need at the very least a good chunk of the rest of the story to go with it. :)

Thanks Meems!

[mnemozine.livejournal.com]

The majority of what I am writing write now is backstory - which is not really contributable to my actual plot line. That said, this plot is based on a world that I started creating 15 years ago - so I really should establish the world before screwing with it. 0:)

I think you should post whatever you are comfortable with.

Re:

[annathepiper]

Heh! This sounds like, at least partly, what I'm doing -- the world I'm writing in took shape when I was in high school. I'm still keeping a lot of the fundamental concepts I've got from then, only I've moved the timeline along further, dropped a couple extra races I tried to throw in, and I'm adding in a couple extra countries.

I think I am going to, like Roger, make a private folder on my web page that the Scuzzboppers will be able to access. Watch this space for further details.