in good company
Writing is hard. I knew that when I set out to tell John Mann's story just over two years ago (after an innocent and inauspicious beginning, recounted elsewhere on this blog), but writing it in the format that I have has made the job much harder than it needed to be I'm sure.
I rather liked the idea of writing the story in serial form, it seemed more manageble that way, seemed like something I could commit to and stick with, and it never did Charles Dickens any harm I reasoned. Well, I have been committed and I have stuck but, damn, it's been difficult. I actually think I missed the whole point of serialising. I think I should have published a handful of chapters at a time, maybe on this blog, rather than in short story - verging on novella - format on Smashwords. For one thing it's made the gap between stories appearing much longer but it has also committed me to certain story strands and I hadn't forseen that consequence at all.
For example, I create a character in book 2 because they are very useful and serve as a catalyst. Super. Trouble is they are still hanging around in book 3 and now I have to find further use for them. This has caused me some headaches that I think could have been avoided in a serial format where I would have made things move at a much faster pace, introducing, dealing with and then discarding characters and plotlines far more readily from one episode to the next. It certainly wouldn't have been an issue if I'd written in the novel format. I'd have kept everything close to my chest, worked it all out and only published when I was sure everything was watertight and had worked out exactly as I'd intended. But as things stand I've published two parts of a trilogy, two short story/novellas with a fistful of loose threads that I can't retrospectively snip off and that I am having to now weave together into a seamless whole. And it's very hard work. And not a way, I think, that I would choose to work again. But I'm committed now, and suspect anyway that these problems that I'm moaning about are the very essence of writing itself: invent people, have them do stuff, keep it interesting, tie everything up at the end and don't, whatever you do, drop the ball.
I read that Julian Fellowes, writer of Downton Abbey and Gosford Park, amongst much else, is writing a novel that he intends to publish in serial form. I hope that fellow Fellowes knows what he's taking on.
I rather liked the idea of writing the story in serial form, it seemed more manageble that way, seemed like something I could commit to and stick with, and it never did Charles Dickens any harm I reasoned. Well, I have been committed and I have stuck but, damn, it's been difficult. I actually think I missed the whole point of serialising. I think I should have published a handful of chapters at a time, maybe on this blog, rather than in short story - verging on novella - format on Smashwords. For one thing it's made the gap between stories appearing much longer but it has also committed me to certain story strands and I hadn't forseen that consequence at all.
For example, I create a character in book 2 because they are very useful and serve as a catalyst. Super. Trouble is they are still hanging around in book 3 and now I have to find further use for them. This has caused me some headaches that I think could have been avoided in a serial format where I would have made things move at a much faster pace, introducing, dealing with and then discarding characters and plotlines far more readily from one episode to the next. It certainly wouldn't have been an issue if I'd written in the novel format. I'd have kept everything close to my chest, worked it all out and only published when I was sure everything was watertight and had worked out exactly as I'd intended. But as things stand I've published two parts of a trilogy, two short story/novellas with a fistful of loose threads that I can't retrospectively snip off and that I am having to now weave together into a seamless whole. And it's very hard work. And not a way, I think, that I would choose to work again. But I'm committed now, and suspect anyway that these problems that I'm moaning about are the very essence of writing itself: invent people, have them do stuff, keep it interesting, tie everything up at the end and don't, whatever you do, drop the ball.
I read that Julian Fellowes, writer of Downton Abbey and Gosford Park, amongst much else, is writing a novel that he intends to publish in serial form. I hope that fellow Fellowes knows what he's taking on.
Comments
Post a Comment