Pacing

MOAR CHAPTERS! Yeah me too. I can't believe I used to post a chapter EVERY SINGLE DAY. Then I got a full-time job.

There are definitely some people we have been neglecting lately (e.g. Gunnilda's entire family) due to the other storylines going on, but it would have been all the crazier if I had added Gunnilda into the mix as well.

The root cause is too much going on at one time, and that is something I am working on fixing. Just have to get over these next couple of days... *pants*

I'm a new reader...having just found this story today, and I have to admit that I'm intrigued. I'm not reading the story itself until I have read all the other posts (to give me more background). However, as a fellow author, I do have an opinion on this post:

I think it would not be a good idea to go back and remove old chapters. Even though I have yet to get to the story, I already know that if you were to delete a chapter, I'd be missing out on what other readers have already gotten to experience...and if they were to make reference to a deleted scene in a comment, then I and readers like me would be lost.

As for speeding up the pacing of the story, you could always try for longer chapters. You mentioned above that after waiting six days for an update, the readers only enjoy about an hour of story time. My suggestion is this: if, in order to update more often, you find yourself sacrificing the pacing of the story, don't update as often. A longer chapter with more action would, in my opinion, speed up the pacing, and would be better recieved by readers in the long run, even if they had to wait a bit over a week to read it.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind my suggestions. I know this post is old, but I thought I'd share my two cents. This is a problem that all writers share, and it pops up constantly.

On the contrary I heartily thank you for your suggestions. If nothing else it is interesting to get the opinion of someone who hasn't actually read the story. It's nice to know I'm not the only author with this problem!

Heheh, even someone who hasn't read the story doesn't want me deleting chapters. I have been surprised at how vehemently my readers have argued against removing chapters or even heavily revising older ones.

I don't plan on removing much actual content. (So far I've only added heaping forkfuls of content in the form of three "prologue chapters" to the very beginning.) But my vanity just can't allow me to leave the older chapters unrevised. I cringe! My plan is just to tidy up the prose, break up some of my vast expanses of talking heads dialog with a little action, correct characters' speech to be consistent with the way they're talking now, etc.

This is the sort of thing any novelist has to do -- especially a lazy one like me who just starts writing without developing any backgrounds for her characters but lets them develop as she writes. There are definitely a few out-of-character moments early on as a result. (Sigefrith loves babies? WTF? He has to count on his fingers to remember how many kids of his own he has.)

But I do respect the fact that, unlike in an offline novel, people have already read all these chapters, and I can't just cut stuff out -- and I won't. In a later post to my blog I even explain how I managed to "replace" the original Chapter One with the three prologue chapters I have written before -- almost a line-by-line analysis of where the bits of that chapter got integrated into the three new chapters, but in a more fun and engaging way, involving characters and dialog and action, rather than just a few paragraphs of ponderous exposition. My goal is to retain the spirit and as much of the dialog and action as possible, just repackage it, remove a few continuity errors, and make the characters more like themselves (given that they were their 18-years-ago themselves...)

Anyway, as for pacing, I have actually improved since I wrote this. I have had a few days in the last weeks of 1085 with only one chapter in them. It is Christmas at last! I did put off all the elf-related stuff I hinted at above, and there are a couple of less-than-necessary chapters that I didn't write.

My chapters have been getting longer too... not intentionally so much -- that's just the way my writing is evolving. In some cases there have been chapters where in past times I would have broken them up into several chapters (like in the latest chapter there would have been a break between Oswald making up his mind to go in and see Matilda and actually going in to do it). That was one of the reasons why I used to be able to write a chapter a day. In others the action involved is simply more ambitious than the kind of thing I used to take on -- such as the massive "Sigefrith gets rid of a few good men".

But I don't see myself combining several semi-related chapters into one, as you might be suggesting with "longer chapters". My chapters nowadays are almost always one "scene" rather than one "chapter" in the novelist sense. But that's the style I've fallen into: you got dropped straight into the action at one point in time, and get whisked away again as soon as the conflict is resolved -- there aren't many chapters involving paragraphs of exposition, or even paragraphs of characters' reflection about things. It's perhaps due to the illustrated format, making me think almost more like a movie-maker than a novelist. Even though I can "tell", I have to have something to show.

Anyway, my point is that a longer chapter that encompasses more action would probably only tend to look like two ordinary chapters smooshed together -- two scenes. Instead of writing two short chapters in a week, I would write one long chapter in a week, which wouldn't win me anything in terms of pacing, I don't think.

My best hope is simply to skip chapters I would have otherwise written. Some things I need to express can be summed up in an off-hand comment in some later chapter, or even explored in more detail if need be, just at a later time. I would do well to remember that not every moment needs to be documented as it happens. For example, Irene's reaction to learning Egelric had been exiled. I had meant to do a whole chapter about that, but instead we will have to infer it from things she later thinks or says or does. But I run the risk of losing opportunities for characters to develop if I do that too often.

So yeah, actually my best hope for improving my pacing is improving my spacing. Just write the same chapters, only with more time between them, to the extent that is realistic and possible.

I didn't see this when it was originally posted. I have definitely noticed the increase in pace over the last few days of Lothere-time. I think it's great!

I'm not as concerned about things like seeing babies grow up, etc., but I would love to see further development in some of the areas that I personally find most intriguing (basically the whole supernatural underpinning of the Lothere universe), and that kind of thing seems to require a long time scale. However, just thinking out loud here, I think the story has evolved to the point where it is really about the characters that we've been seeing in 1085, and this period of time seems to be what everything has been leading up to. I don't know if that's what you initially intended, but I think it's perfectly appropriate for time to have slowed down considerably.

In conclusion, I really like the current pace of a few chapters for each day.

Oh, Lydia, there are those who are interested in the supernatural aspects, those who are interested in the political aspects, those who are interested in the romances and the founding families, and those who are interested in the ordinary antics of the teenaged set. I have so much going on that I sometimes fear I will lose all my readers by attempting to please all of them and satisfying none of them.

The supernatural aspect is definitely the longest-spanning storyline. In terms of the story that Cian told Eithne about the Holy Spirit and the Beast and so on. If I manage to get to "the end" it's a story about end times, after all. But I wonder whether I will ever make it. It would take years even if I hurried things along. And I think I owe myself more than that as a writer... unless this story really takes on the dimension of being my "life's work".... which given its origins and genre seems unlikely.

But we will be seeing a little of the supernatural in 1086, I promise.

I think the story has evolved to the point where it is really about the characters that we've been seeing in 1085, and this period of time seems to be what everything has been leading up to.

I had exactly the same thought the other day when I started putting together the Egelric storyline. The first couple of years are all but skipped over... there are months and months with no chapters at all. The number of chapters increases slightly as the years go on, but 1085 just exploded. It's as if the first 17 years were written as background for 1085. It was not my intention at all, however. In the beginning I really believed I would write through 10 generations in a few months.

Like I said, I don't know how I feel about that. People who want the broad sweeping storylines developed are going to be disappointed because time moves so slowly. But we have gotten to know the characters so well. I'm looking for a balance. I'm glad you're happy with the new pace of chapters. I feel like the story is finally coming unstuck and moving ahead again!