The Future of A Maze of Glass
Hey squidlings, ‘tis I, a madman. I wanted to talk to you lovely creatures about the future of the recently-wrapped A Maze of Glass.
“Ah,” I hear you saying, “but didn’t we just finish reading it?”
In serial form, yes, indeed you did! Which brings me to the point of this blog entry: there will also, in the future, be a novel form.
Sort of.
The version of A Maze of Glass that came out during the serial release was mostly third-draft material. The last five chapters were, in fact, second-draft material. I performed numerous revision and punch-up passes before publishing any given chapter, but the material published was still, essentially, a third draft.
I’ll explain this in terms of my general writing style.
Only myself and my fiancee ever read first-draft material. I recruit beta-readers and friends to read second-draft material. When I had an agent, the third draft was the point at which he’d become involved. The third draft is the one I usually seek professional opinions regarding. At that point, I allow myself to imagine that I have a firm grasp on the characters and their story, and so I dive back in to write a fourth (and hopefully final) manuscript draft.
But I fired that guy. So...
The third draft content from A Maze of Glass was, in my opinion, solid. The second draft stuff skates along by virtue of being the most dramatic section of the book. But having read through it all again, myself, and having received commentary and critique from numerous outside sources, I don’t think it’s quite where I want it to be.
So: I’m going to be writing a fourth manuscript draft (with numerous revision and punch-up passes) as a full-fledged novel for Summer 2021.
Well, anyone who picks up the novel will notice significant changes to the first few chapters in particular. My overall goal for the novelization of A Maze of Glass is to attempt to carve off ~10% of its overall length, with a particular eye toward shaving off 15% of the first two chapters. There were plot elements I wanted to frontload into the story that didn’t need to be front-loaded, and they weighed down the opening of the book. Worse, some of the elements I front-loaded turned out to be unnecessary, to play smaller roles in the story than originally envisioned. I’d like to fix all of that.
Due to the nature of a serial, some important pieces of exposition were provided to the audience more than once. Originally, I did this to remind people of things they may have forgotten about during the weeks-long reading schedule, but when reading the piece as a full novel I found the repetition needless and boring. I may leave in a couple call-backs or reminders, but my goal is to minimize them as much as possible. This will also tighten the prose and shrink the overall length--but, most importantly, it cuts gristle from the meat.
There are a handful of small plot and character inconsistencies that I need to resolve. They aren’t plentiful and (I hope) they’re not obvious, but I noticed them during my own read-through and I can only assume other people are equally, painfully annoyed by them. They’ll be patched. Any necessary rewriting or revision to patch them will be done.
And, after all of that’s finished, I’ll be doing my usual revision passes, punching up descriptive sentences or lines of dialogue, scanning for aesthetics and rhythm, and other minor editing miscellany. Given a new draft and four or five passes, I think this thing might go from ‘Good’ to ‘Great.’ And isn’t that what we want?
Then you’ll be able to grab A Maze of Glass (Director’s Cut) as an eBook, paperback, or even hardcover (no promises on the last one). It will be an improved version of the same basic story, meaning that you won’t have to pick up a copy if you don’t want to (the broad story elements and important plot points will remain largely unchanged); but if you want an improved version, it will be available.
Yes, that’s true. And if reading the story in its current form and on its currently-available platforms is all you want, that’s awesome and thank you for reading. Thank you so, so much. Really.
But if you’d like a sharper, improved cut, that will also be available for a very reasonable fee, that’s why I’m doing this. And buying it won’t just give you access to the improved prose, characterization, and pacing--it will also show your support and appreciation for me, the human who wrote it!!
In fact, purchasing a copy is one of the best ways to show support!!
(So is Patreon.)
The future remains uncertain. Right now I’m writing the second draft of When They Wear the Mask, our next serial novel, and then I need to send that out to my handful of beta-readers. I’ll probably begin the rewrite for A Maze of Glass while waiting for the critique and commentary to come in. Once we get closer to launch for When They Wear the Mask, I’ll have to switch focus back to that to make sure the serial carries the quality I want when it starts releasing.
If When They Wear the Mask turns out similarly to A Maze of Glass, I’ll probably still be writing the third draft as it starts to release. Depending on how well I handle the workload, I may reach a point during When They Wear the Mask where I don’t have time for any other writing work. If that happens, I’ll have to set aside Maze’s fourth draft to focus on the serial.
But I believe I should have ample time to accomplish both projects if I set my deadlines reasonably.
The novelization/director’s cut of A Maze of Glass will release in Summer 2021. Whether that’s early summer or mid-summer or late-summer will depend on other factors...but I’m hoping it’s sooner rather than later.
I’ll keep you apprised as the situations develop.
And I’ll see you soon, squidlings.
I’ll see you When They Wear the Mask...
