Drafts of all three books in my proposed trilogy (and a single sheet of paper to spare!)
When you’ve written the first book in a series that you want to have traditionally published—or rather a book that has “series potential”, to use the correct querying parlance—they say you absolutely should not write a sequel (or sequels) until the first book is sold.
(Continued from Part 1)
I am not one of those writers, to my great and ongoing dismay.
Not just those pertaining to good writing in general—and I made those big time—but also those specific to historical fiction in particular.
**No movie spoilers**
Quite unwittingly, this discussion arose on the heels of an entirely different examination of pantsing versus plotting.
(For the record on that account, I like to know where my story is going before I start and to rough out as much of the journey as I’m aware of up front, but I’m in no way wedded to it, nor do I subscribe to the notion that plotting will rob a story of the joy and magic of actually writing it. But you can read more about all that yourself.)
It’s hard to believe I’ve only been watching Netflix for a year, unless you happen to know me well. I’m perpetually late to everything new and cool. The last thing I adopted early was Gmail back in 2006 when you needed to be invited to by someone already using it.
As well, I went through a period of about six years where I stopped watching TV and movies altogether. Continue reading
Flinders Street Station – a major transit hub, Melbourne, Australia
In what seemed like the blink of an eye, I’d travelled more than half a day into the future; perhaps journeying more than half a day closer to my final day.
~
These were among the first words I spoke on Australian soil to my Aussie-born friend and former Vancouver roommate who was the impetus behind my recent trip Down Under. This after she’d retrieved me from a very crowded Melbourne airport and pointed out all her favourite cafés, restaurants, shopping areas and, walking paths during the drive to her apartment.
And in my customary inability to pick a winning horse, dismissed it without watching a single episode, deeming it just another sci-fi show on Space – a network whose programming quality, let’s be honest, varies.
But recently, my blog-buddy Eric J. Baker wrote about Orphan Black, recommending everyone give it a try. Plus, with the second season having recently started, news of Orphan Black and its success was everywhere in Canadian entertainment news.
So, I decided I’d watch a bit, and thus far am halfway through season 1.
The most common form is the Predictable-Yet-Still-Desirable (from pt. 1), wherein the reader/viewer already has a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen before it happens, but wants to see it anyway.
This may be either to feel the satisfaction of having been correct in his/her predictions, to see exactly how it happens, or to be already emotionally prepared to vicariously undergo a universal human experience.
Somewhat less common is a second form of suspense, which, ironically, is probably the form that more readily comes to mind when one hears the word “suspense”: the unpredictable-and-thus-unputdownable, which keeps the reader glued to the book, and still reading long after s/he should have gone to bed.
All stories by their very nature contain the precursors of this type of suspense. How could they not? Stories come to us described by blurbs designed to hint at the plot and its major turning points, but ultimately give nothing away.
They’re the very definition of suspense, for who knows what might happen between the lines of that enticing paragraph on the back of the book or DVD case?
Not all stories, however, retain that suspense.
It’s a writing tip whose source I unfortunately can no longer recall. I’ve searched through all my writing how-to books, photocopied pages, and notes I’ve taken in various journals over the years, but I’ve been unable to find it again:
The job of a story isn’t to tell what’s true; it’s to tell what people believe.
It’s a rather bald statement, to say the least – one that’s stuck with me for years. It’s yet another touchstone I’ve tried to apply to all my writing, ironically, without even knowing how it’s writer meant for it to be interpreted, for I can’t remember that either.
What does it mean? I’ve spent the last year and a half since I started writing again searching for an answer to that question.
I believe I’ve found two.
A Frame Around Infinity 