Da Vinci is credited to have said that art is never finished, only abandoned. In truth, who said it doesn't matter so much as the sentiment. Because there is ALWAYS something more to be done, it's just as true that there is a time to move to another phase, let it go, share it.
Control is another point of dispute. There's no cushy line between the claim that 'the author is too controlling and I wanted to imagine it for myself' and ''his might as well be Mad Libs for all the holes in this story!'.
What if you're using the wrong medium? I covered an answer on Quora that took on video game dreamers for misguidedly translating that idea into a novel.
It could drive you mad, scraping through a story too much. I suppose. I've read my own work more times than I've read any favorite author, so I court madness with open arms. Not just to edit but I've gotten sucked into my words and worlds time and again when I was supposed to be editing. Planning itself can be a siren call into restructuring what might have been nearing completion.
It happens. Embrace it. I'm still on the task of typing out perfectly legible notes. And not word for word. I'm catching inconsistencies in the plans and is it EVER easier to correct a typed document than the battlefield my handwritten copies would become.
It's a beautiful thing, really. To visit a world, even knowing what comes next and feeling differently about it. Sometimes you cringe at a little mistake or you think of something better or you want to change it. That's where publishing seems scary to some of the never-ending creatives out there. If you really feel ten years is what your series needs, ten years it is. If you're ready to set it loose after a few months, do it.
I'm really enjoying this planning though. It's all for UnHeard when UnSung is still in progress. Yet UnHeard is my NaNo baby, so I'm setting it up to fly. Planning can benefit from extra sometimes. As a teen, it was all about different color pens. Even now, switching to a designated tool for a designated task can be motivational to the process.
Visit your worlds as many times as it takes. It is never finished and it never needs to be. The art is about flexibility and the need to return. For writers and readers alike. No matter how airtight and done to death it is, a fan can tirelessly both spot flaws and create reimaginings. Even 'ship' characters, which is a term I won't use often because, while the origin story is cute, the concept itself is applied so thick that it's about as unoriginal as another overused word 'love'.
Heyyyy, let's shoot the shit with that one since I'm here... I almost obsessively avoid using 'love' directly when lovers are confessing their feelings. One of my favorites comes from two characters in the third trilogy of my first series. It tickles me because it's an obvious avoidance and a simple truth, but you know it means 'I love you.' In fact, it becomes an endearment, an emotional running joke between them. Lol if it were anyone else's work, I'd tell you their names and what they said, but at this point, I'm a newly published author and I hesitate to run the risk of my blog being the equivalent of a movie trailer that spoils the best parts.
I love writing romances where there is light teasing and quick jabs of tension. Some fantasies keep romance on the side of solemn and intense. The Arwen-Aragorn romance was a big one there. I've never liked seeing love from the 'til-death-do-us-part angle. I won't just brush it off as being done to death, but there are so many books I've read where confessing love or marrying was the height of the story. Or having a child. I won't deny that those are exciting moments for many people, but ultimately it came off as depressing that these very isolated events were given more weight than than the ACT of falling in love through a rich plot, what it takes to make a marriage work or even the beauty of raising a human being into a good person (or the horror of them becoming an inherently bad one). I have never seen love as a quick prize.
Even some romance novels that attempt to make a rich plot, the MAIN plot often still makes the confession the central point of the story. Maybe this is what most romance readers DO want, but when I started reading books where romance was a subplot, it was noticeably richer to me than poetic descriptions of eyelashes and dimpled smirks in books solely focused on it. I might be an odd one here, but romance isn't my favorite genre for romance. I like a lot of cat and mouse, but the juicy kind where the cat catches the mouse but toys with it to give chase again. Some erotica is annoyingly framed as romance so when I realize the plot is lame, it becomes a hunt for the sexy parts, where all the effort was placed. Yes, erotica can have a great plot, but that makes erotica the SUBplot. If you frame a book as romance primarily, I don't even have high expectations for plot. Still, it can't be boring. Even when I want light and trashy, I want to care about it. More often, I say I want romance to be a subgenre, even fifth on the subgenre list because I don't want solid expectations of it being there. I like when it's present. I enjoy the building intimacy and the private insights. At the same time, I want to see its fragility, know that it can be cut short, know that it might not be returned, or even be passing or not strong enough with other temptation. I plan my own story's romances as carefully as my world building. If it's going to be there, I need to care.
And hey, some people want romance to be insinuated or absent. That doesn't make me hesitate to tackle it if I'm feeling the vibe as part of the story. I can't really help you. Despite or maybe because of its absence in my life, romance will always have a place in the story. Because I'm not fading to black when there's a veritable gold mine of character development (or fun) to be had.
One of the oddest kinds of comments I see in reading groups is along the lines of how much of a thing is generally accepted as okay. Can you poll that? Lol it doesn't stop people from trying. How much _____ do you like in a story? If you like all or nothing, every time, then you're an easy one. When I see these, I input 84% just to throw a wrench in the logic. There isn't a magic number when something is liked. In fact, someone's claim that they've NEVER seen _____ written in a way they like so they avoid it... Often makes me want to try. Not FOR them, but because I embrace the challenge of truly enjoying reading and writing on prompt. I wouldn't say that I aim to be the one who does it right. Most people who think in black and white will never ever try that disliked topic again. I don't doubt they'll still find plenty to read so that they can easily avoid every attempt to expand their thinking on it. They can have that. However, it's still backwards thinking to have not read anything in that category in decades and still make the claim there can't possibly be anything worthwhile. When they can't even frame an opinion as such, that opinion is usually as shallow as their ability to communicate it.
A guarded opinion is often external (this work is awful) as opposed to a more honest opinion actually focusing on their impression (this wasn't to my taste). I've always found that technical critiques can be external, focusing on grammar, punctuation, style, whereas using that same tact on opinion is always where it comes off as dishonest. I believe that some reviewers probably think it sounds stronger or more professional to leave out personal pronouns and impressions. To change 'I think' or 'I believe' into more definite points (this IS or ISN'T). In fact, it's often used in advertising because it's supposed to sound more confident. ('this product changed my life' as opposed to 'I really feel like this product improved this specific task'.) I'm going to disagree though. To me, bold assertions always sparked my skepticism, had me running to research it myself. Does it work? In advertising, the numbers would say yes. However, most people have neither the actual skill to reframe an opinion (to use actors as a scapegoat for something they never directly said) nor the ability to defend it fully. It is often parroted the same way every time, with no new additions, or extremely cherry picked examples (even to the point of purposely omitting knowledge of an exception).
I think I've found a few things to babble on about well enough so I'll return to planning. Got my notes typed out and printed today. Condensed and refined to nine pages. I have the series-arching plot arching over the subs, the book main plot (each one has a pivotal main character or two and a focus on one God and region), character planning, regional development (some idea of the map), and several of the micro systems planned. I also have a sort of running bestiary, but I need to play with a map. The scope is somewhat 3D like one of my locations in UnSung so it will need a top-down plan. These are just aids for me, nothing I'd ever publish (unless by some weird turn of fate there's ever a demand). Mostly done though. I'm excited to start it, even while finishing UnSung.
For some people who fancy themselves novelists, I wouldn't be surprised if some are actually most in love with planning. Those are the sorts of jobs that are harder to land and do start with a solid display of completed writing. I sit in the middle, the pantser that digs big holes and then plans. I'm not afraid of the holes though. I find a lot of comfort in them. They're puzzles I'm happy to solve. Even in a dark story, I find it cheering to get down to the critical fixes.
UnSung can be pretty dark. I wouldn't say grimdark or dystopian but still goes place light doesn't. Grimdark is really about the focus of narration. In fact, I'd love to try a cheerful narration of a dystopia. It's even been done! Twilight Zone had the infamous episode where a guy with a nagging wife and a joyless job finds joy in hiding in the vault of the bank where he works to read. Cut to nuclear destruction and he's the last man alive. It breaks cheerfully into him carefully gathering and sorting every book he can find, his face distorting with a happiness he'd never known before as he plans what to read next. Of course, he's severely nearsighted so it's a cruel turn of fate when his glasses fall off his face and break. For a loner, a solitary world seems ideal until you meet the grim realization that at some point, you depend on society to support the simplest of luxuries. What is a world without the passions most dear to you?
Of course, I'm not even going for the grim reality with my view though. What if survival isn't quite as bad as you think? What if you are actually good at it and the survivors aren't all morally bankrupt or zombies? I wanted to like you, Walking Dead... I really did. Can someone let me know if they ever actually decide to go to Washington DC to see if the virus center is even a thing? Because really, that was what kept me sticking around a few seasons longer than I should have. I assumed they'd wouldn't just keep escalating with a group sicker than the last and actually have an aim again. At some point, I didn't even care who died anymore because they all sucked.
Heyyyy, let's shoot the shit with that one since I'm here... I almost obsessively avoid using 'love' directly when lovers are confessing their feelings. One of my favorites comes from two characters in the third trilogy of my first series. It tickles me because it's an obvious avoidance and a simple truth, but you know it means 'I love you.' In fact, it becomes an endearment, an emotional running joke between them. Lol if it were anyone else's work, I'd tell you their names and what they said, but at this point, I'm a newly published author and I hesitate to run the risk of my blog being the equivalent of a movie trailer that spoils the best parts.
I love writing romances where there is light teasing and quick jabs of tension. Some fantasies keep romance on the side of solemn and intense. The Arwen-Aragorn romance was a big one there. I've never liked seeing love from the 'til-death-do-us-part angle. I won't just brush it off as being done to death, but there are so many books I've read where confessing love or marrying was the height of the story. Or having a child. I won't deny that those are exciting moments for many people, but ultimately it came off as depressing that these very isolated events were given more weight than than the ACT of falling in love through a rich plot, what it takes to make a marriage work or even the beauty of raising a human being into a good person (or the horror of them becoming an inherently bad one). I have never seen love as a quick prize.
Even some romance novels that attempt to make a rich plot, the MAIN plot often still makes the confession the central point of the story. Maybe this is what most romance readers DO want, but when I started reading books where romance was a subplot, it was noticeably richer to me than poetic descriptions of eyelashes and dimpled smirks in books solely focused on it. I might be an odd one here, but romance isn't my favorite genre for romance. I like a lot of cat and mouse, but the juicy kind where the cat catches the mouse but toys with it to give chase again. Some erotica is annoyingly framed as romance so when I realize the plot is lame, it becomes a hunt for the sexy parts, where all the effort was placed. Yes, erotica can have a great plot, but that makes erotica the SUBplot. If you frame a book as romance primarily, I don't even have high expectations for plot. Still, it can't be boring. Even when I want light and trashy, I want to care about it. More often, I say I want romance to be a subgenre, even fifth on the subgenre list because I don't want solid expectations of it being there. I like when it's present. I enjoy the building intimacy and the private insights. At the same time, I want to see its fragility, know that it can be cut short, know that it might not be returned, or even be passing or not strong enough with other temptation. I plan my own story's romances as carefully as my world building. If it's going to be there, I need to care.
And hey, some people want romance to be insinuated or absent. That doesn't make me hesitate to tackle it if I'm feeling the vibe as part of the story. I can't really help you. Despite or maybe because of its absence in my life, romance will always have a place in the story. Because I'm not fading to black when there's a veritable gold mine of character development (or fun) to be had.
One of the oddest kinds of comments I see in reading groups is along the lines of how much of a thing is generally accepted as okay. Can you poll that? Lol it doesn't stop people from trying. How much _____ do you like in a story? If you like all or nothing, every time, then you're an easy one. When I see these, I input 84% just to throw a wrench in the logic. There isn't a magic number when something is liked. In fact, someone's claim that they've NEVER seen _____ written in a way they like so they avoid it... Often makes me want to try. Not FOR them, but because I embrace the challenge of truly enjoying reading and writing on prompt. I wouldn't say that I aim to be the one who does it right. Most people who think in black and white will never ever try that disliked topic again. I don't doubt they'll still find plenty to read so that they can easily avoid every attempt to expand their thinking on it. They can have that. However, it's still backwards thinking to have not read anything in that category in decades and still make the claim there can't possibly be anything worthwhile. When they can't even frame an opinion as such, that opinion is usually as shallow as their ability to communicate it.
A guarded opinion is often external (this work is awful) as opposed to a more honest opinion actually focusing on their impression (this wasn't to my taste). I've always found that technical critiques can be external, focusing on grammar, punctuation, style, whereas using that same tact on opinion is always where it comes off as dishonest. I believe that some reviewers probably think it sounds stronger or more professional to leave out personal pronouns and impressions. To change 'I think' or 'I believe' into more definite points (this IS or ISN'T). In fact, it's often used in advertising because it's supposed to sound more confident. ('this product changed my life' as opposed to 'I really feel like this product improved this specific task'.) I'm going to disagree though. To me, bold assertions always sparked my skepticism, had me running to research it myself. Does it work? In advertising, the numbers would say yes. However, most people have neither the actual skill to reframe an opinion (to use actors as a scapegoat for something they never directly said) nor the ability to defend it fully. It is often parroted the same way every time, with no new additions, or extremely cherry picked examples (even to the point of purposely omitting knowledge of an exception).
I think I've found a few things to babble on about well enough so I'll return to planning. Got my notes typed out and printed today. Condensed and refined to nine pages. I have the series-arching plot arching over the subs, the book main plot (each one has a pivotal main character or two and a focus on one God and region), character planning, regional development (some idea of the map), and several of the micro systems planned. I also have a sort of running bestiary, but I need to play with a map. The scope is somewhat 3D like one of my locations in UnSung so it will need a top-down plan. These are just aids for me, nothing I'd ever publish (unless by some weird turn of fate there's ever a demand). Mostly done though. I'm excited to start it, even while finishing UnSung.
For some people who fancy themselves novelists, I wouldn't be surprised if some are actually most in love with planning. Those are the sorts of jobs that are harder to land and do start with a solid display of completed writing. I sit in the middle, the pantser that digs big holes and then plans. I'm not afraid of the holes though. I find a lot of comfort in them. They're puzzles I'm happy to solve. Even in a dark story, I find it cheering to get down to the critical fixes.
UnSung can be pretty dark. I wouldn't say grimdark or dystopian but still goes place light doesn't. Grimdark is really about the focus of narration. In fact, I'd love to try a cheerful narration of a dystopia. It's even been done! Twilight Zone had the infamous episode where a guy with a nagging wife and a joyless job finds joy in hiding in the vault of the bank where he works to read. Cut to nuclear destruction and he's the last man alive. It breaks cheerfully into him carefully gathering and sorting every book he can find, his face distorting with a happiness he'd never known before as he plans what to read next. Of course, he's severely nearsighted so it's a cruel turn of fate when his glasses fall off his face and break. For a loner, a solitary world seems ideal until you meet the grim realization that at some point, you depend on society to support the simplest of luxuries. What is a world without the passions most dear to you?
Of course, I'm not even going for the grim reality with my view though. What if survival isn't quite as bad as you think? What if you are actually good at it and the survivors aren't all morally bankrupt or zombies? I wanted to like you, Walking Dead... I really did. Can someone let me know if they ever actually decide to go to Washington DC to see if the virus center is even a thing? Because really, that was what kept me sticking around a few seasons longer than I should have. I assumed they'd wouldn't just keep escalating with a group sicker than the last and actually have an aim again. At some point, I didn't even care who died anymore because they all sucked.
