January's writing progress
Progress continues nicely on the first draft of book 4 of The Barefoot Healer - I have nearly 55,000 words now. This morning I thought of a cool plot twist after finishing Churchill's Wizards: The British Genius For Deception 1914 1945. It also gives a couple of minor characters something important to do, which is useful.
I'm in a reading group at work, where members take turns to pick a book. For our last meeting, it was my turn, and I had the temerity to suggest one of mine, The Mirrors of Elangir. It's rather different from the sort of thing the group normally reads, but seems to have gone down reasonably well. They praised the plot, pacing, dialogue and descriptions. The last was gratifying, as I've long thought my descriptions tended towards the plain and functional.
A couple of the group found the romantic aspects unconvincing - they didn't believe Raltarn loves Shanu enough to be willing to go to the other side of the world to raise the money to marry her. One reader thought I'd left too many plot threads unresolved at the end, which is perhaps true. (Some of the group didn't realise it was the first of a series, as we usually read stand-alone books.) I got past 100,000 words and reached a point where I felt that I could stop, so I did, perhaps without thinking whether it was a place where I should stop.
I know roughly what's going to happen in the first third of the next book, so I could've kept writing and put some of those scenes at the end of this book. But I don't think anything in those scenes would've made a better ending than what I've got now. The trouble is that while I know that, the readers don't - or don't yet.
Perhaps this more-open-than-usual ending was also a reaction against the requirement in the traditional publishing world that the first book of a series has to be self-contained, so that the publisher can easily get out of any obligations towards the rest of the series if the first book tanks. One of the nice things about being self-published is that my books don't have to show a profit within three months of going on sale. So I know that, barring drastic changes in my circumstances, I will write book 2 and I will publish it. That means that I can afford to leave a few more plot threads open than I might otherwise :-)
I'm in a reading group at work, where members take turns to pick a book. For our last meeting, it was my turn, and I had the temerity to suggest one of mine, The Mirrors of Elangir. It's rather different from the sort of thing the group normally reads, but seems to have gone down reasonably well. They praised the plot, pacing, dialogue and descriptions. The last was gratifying, as I've long thought my descriptions tended towards the plain and functional.
A couple of the group found the romantic aspects unconvincing - they didn't believe Raltarn loves Shanu enough to be willing to go to the other side of the world to raise the money to marry her. One reader thought I'd left too many plot threads unresolved at the end, which is perhaps true. (Some of the group didn't realise it was the first of a series, as we usually read stand-alone books.) I got past 100,000 words and reached a point where I felt that I could stop, so I did, perhaps without thinking whether it was a place where I should stop.
I know roughly what's going to happen in the first third of the next book, so I could've kept writing and put some of those scenes at the end of this book. But I don't think anything in those scenes would've made a better ending than what I've got now. The trouble is that while I know that, the readers don't - or don't yet.
Perhaps this more-open-than-usual ending was also a reaction against the requirement in the traditional publishing world that the first book of a series has to be self-contained, so that the publisher can easily get out of any obligations towards the rest of the series if the first book tanks. One of the nice things about being self-published is that my books don't have to show a profit within three months of going on sale. So I know that, barring drastic changes in my circumstances, I will write book 2 and I will publish it. That means that I can afford to leave a few more plot threads open than I might otherwise :-)
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