The Secret Story
The Withheld Story
I’m presently editing, augmenting, and splitting The Kira Chronicles trilogy into a six book series. While some fans of the trilogy have expressed dismay, the story will remain substantially the same, but with more explicit seeding of later events, a clean-up of some of my clumsier writing, and the reinsertion of the ending that didn’t make the final cut.
While I think writers should write the best story they can at the time and move on (or risk spending so much time editing they never write a second story), splitting the trilogy provides an opportunity to improve my writing, given I’m a better writer now than I was then. Book 1, The Whisper of Leaves, was also published before I had finished Book 2, The Song of the Silvercades, and Book 2 published before I had finished Book 3, The Cry of the Marwing so the ending was less well seeded than I would have preferred. Even given this, the main reason to split the trilogy, is that series do better on digital platforms and I now self-publish. But none of this is the point of this blog.
Re-engaging with The Kira Chronicles reminded me of peculiar feeling I had when I got the longed-for book deal from a commercial publisher and Whisper was about to be released. I can even remember when it struck me: I was driving down a dirt road near Melton on the way to work, and the peculiar feeling consisted of jealousy, indignation, and dismay. The story that had been mine alone (excluding publisher rejections) was about to be in the possession of countless others. It was almost like a violation, and for a brief moment, I didn’t want to share my story.
In less than a minute, commonsense had kicked in, especially as I recalled the joy I received from the artistry of others, and that if I hadn’t been entranced by Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and spent years augmenting it in my head, there would be no Kira Chronicles anyway. But revisiting The Kira Chronicles reminds me of just how many versions of a story actually exist, and how few are shared.
The Multi-Story
Writers know multiple versions of a story live in their heads, never to see the light of day, and that many versions go the way of early drafts: rewritten into oblivion. In their own ways, these are all distinct stories, but generally not dispersed beyond the computer or the brain, because of their perceived or real imperfections, plot-holes, and so on.
I’m usually sanguine when I see film versions of books for the same reason (although don’t get me started on Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn). It is pointless being enraged by the film version of a loved book (unless the actual plot is radically changed), when the two mediums function so differently. People tend to be annoyed by the lack of match with the story or character they have concocted in their own head (yet another version), rather than lack of match with the author’s version, for the story we enjoy is a product of both print and our imagination that changes with each re-reading. Film allows less latitude because it gives us the visual of the character; we don’t create it.
Even with my own stories, I am sometimes surprised by the disparity between what I actually wrote, and my memory of the story with all its emotional baggage. I also have trouble sometimes letting the story go.
The Secret Ending
Books end where they do for a range of reasons. As writers we decide when and how the plot threads are resolved to keep the story’s momentum, and publishers decide when based on genre, print, marketing, sales, and pricing conventions. As well as the preceding factors, as indies, we also have the freedom to create sequels in the form of novellas or short stories, especially as promotional tools, when we have more to say beyond the ‘ending.’ Tolkien used extensive appendices for this purpose.
I have been happy to end my stand alones: The Emerald Serpent, Heart Hunter, The Third Moon, and Messenger (about to launch), on the last page of text, disengage and move on, but I had awful trouble doing the same with The Kira Chronicles and more recently, with Angel Caste, perhaps because trilogies and series can take years to construct, and therefore you live with the characters in their worlds for extended times. My emotional involvement with them tends to be deeper too.
I don’t want to write more in the last of my trilogy or series, because the plot is resolved and other stories are hammering at my brain, but I can’t let them go entirely either. So, I resolve my problem with a secret ending, that stays in my head. These often have soap opera feel about them, which is even more reason not to put them out there. In The Kira Chronicles, it involves the birth of Kira and Tierken’s son; in Angel Caste, a period some months after Viv takes up residence at the Scinta-ril.
It might be that, one day, these secret endings will evolve into something more substantial, after all, The Kira Chronicles started with the secret ending of Aragorn and Eowyn’s potential relationship, which Tolkien never wrote but Jackson did. Time will tell, but in the meantime, my secret endings give me a lot of enjoyment, as all stories should.
I’m presently editing, augmenting, and splitting The Kira Chronicles trilogy into a six book series. While some fans of the trilogy have expressed dismay, the story will remain substantially the same, but with more explicit seeding of later events, a clean-up of some of my clumsier writing, and the reinsertion of the ending that didn’t make the final cut.
While I think writers should write the best story they can at the time and move on (or risk spending so much time editing they never write a second story), splitting the trilogy provides an opportunity to improve my writing, given I’m a better writer now than I was then. Book 1, The Whisper of Leaves, was also published before I had finished Book 2, The Song of the Silvercades, and Book 2 published before I had finished Book 3, The Cry of the Marwing so the ending was less well seeded than I would have preferred. Even given this, the main reason to split the trilogy, is that series do better on digital platforms and I now self-publish. But none of this is the point of this blog.
Re-engaging with The Kira Chronicles reminded me of peculiar feeling I had when I got the longed-for book deal from a commercial publisher and Whisper was about to be released. I can even remember when it struck me: I was driving down a dirt road near Melton on the way to work, and the peculiar feeling consisted of jealousy, indignation, and dismay. The story that had been mine alone (excluding publisher rejections) was about to be in the possession of countless others. It was almost like a violation, and for a brief moment, I didn’t want to share my story.
In less than a minute, commonsense had kicked in, especially as I recalled the joy I received from the artistry of others, and that if I hadn’t been entranced by Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and spent years augmenting it in my head, there would be no Kira Chronicles anyway. But revisiting The Kira Chronicles reminds me of just how many versions of a story actually exist, and how few are shared.
The Multi-Story
Writers know multiple versions of a story live in their heads, never to see the light of day, and that many versions go the way of early drafts: rewritten into oblivion. In their own ways, these are all distinct stories, but generally not dispersed beyond the computer or the brain, because of their perceived or real imperfections, plot-holes, and so on.
I’m usually sanguine when I see film versions of books for the same reason (although don’t get me started on Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn). It is pointless being enraged by the film version of a loved book (unless the actual plot is radically changed), when the two mediums function so differently. People tend to be annoyed by the lack of match with the story or character they have concocted in their own head (yet another version), rather than lack of match with the author’s version, for the story we enjoy is a product of both print and our imagination that changes with each re-reading. Film allows less latitude because it gives us the visual of the character; we don’t create it.
Even with my own stories, I am sometimes surprised by the disparity between what I actually wrote, and my memory of the story with all its emotional baggage. I also have trouble sometimes letting the story go.
The Secret Ending
Books end where they do for a range of reasons. As writers we decide when and how the plot threads are resolved to keep the story’s momentum, and publishers decide when based on genre, print, marketing, sales, and pricing conventions. As well as the preceding factors, as indies, we also have the freedom to create sequels in the form of novellas or short stories, especially as promotional tools, when we have more to say beyond the ‘ending.’ Tolkien used extensive appendices for this purpose.
I have been happy to end my stand alones: The Emerald Serpent, Heart Hunter, The Third Moon, and Messenger (about to launch), on the last page of text, disengage and move on, but I had awful trouble doing the same with The Kira Chronicles and more recently, with Angel Caste, perhaps because trilogies and series can take years to construct, and therefore you live with the characters in their worlds for extended times. My emotional involvement with them tends to be deeper too.
I don’t want to write more in the last of my trilogy or series, because the plot is resolved and other stories are hammering at my brain, but I can’t let them go entirely either. So, I resolve my problem with a secret ending, that stays in my head. These often have soap opera feel about them, which is even more reason not to put them out there. In The Kira Chronicles, it involves the birth of Kira and Tierken’s son; in Angel Caste, a period some months after Viv takes up residence at the Scinta-ril.
It might be that, one day, these secret endings will evolve into something more substantial, after all, The Kira Chronicles started with the secret ending of Aragorn and Eowyn’s potential relationship, which Tolkien never wrote but Jackson did. Time will tell, but in the meantime, my secret endings give me a lot of enjoyment, as all stories should.
No comments have been added yet.
