On My Revision Process

The History of the Project

So Zonduth has gone through some pretty crazy revisions.

First iteration? Over a decade old. Not much written on it, mostly just us starting to develop our own worlds and characters.

Then a couple of years ago, we decided to revisit. Built upon what we already had and realized the importance of having a solid worldbuilding foundation. Everything we built crumbled because we didn’t know how our world worked, its politics and its societies.

Recent Iterations



So we scrapped most of it. Kept the few flickering flames of wonderment that had us loving the continent and started from scratch. Completely gutted a favored character to make her less powerful (all hail the mary sues of our past) and gave her companions.

All went well until we realized the plot we’d chosen had too much travel and the timelines wouldn’t add up to an interesting read — most of our conflict was on the back end of the story. It was unbalanced. Had to be scrapped.

So at the end of last year, we started rebuilding. Got rid of the concept of the “Race” (the key that caused the travel problems) and decided to make it a murder mystery.

… Then recently we discussed whether or not it would be better to slowly introduce the reader to the magic system instead of having characters already at the apex of their education. Nothing had been written on the murder mystery yet, so we allowed ourselves the luxury of just mentally playing with the idea that they’re still students learning how to control their abilities.

And bam! Just like that. The throwaway murder mystery that was mostly set-up for them becoming part of the world’s secret police? Gone. Now, we’ve got a plot that actually incorporates many of the major concepts for our orverarching storyline. Teaches the readers about more than just the characters and the way magic works, but asks questions about the Ash and the prison.

We’re still not done planning yet. I have three prime suspects for the bad guy in this book, and all of them are pretty viable. (Nice thing there? The ones who don’t become the bad guy can become believable red herrings. Muahahaha)



New Planning Methods



Recently, I swapped from my normal Beat Sheet method of plotting and started just making lists. What do I know about the villain? Where did the villain get [redacted] tool? Why is the villain doing this? What do the crime scenes look like? What are the clues left behind at them which might be noticed (either consciously or not) to help lead the characters to both herring and actual murderer?

I even stepped back and started writing lists for each character. Who is Tannaly? Osa? Ralek? What are their inherent personality traits and external motivations for their actions? Who is the leader? The Heart? The Brains?

Problem Solving

There’s a method of problem solving used by some programmers called the Rubber Ducky Method.

Whenever you hit a problem in your code that you can’t solve, go somewhere quiet and explain the issue to a rubber ducky.

Sounds ridiculous, but the programmers in the audience probably know EXACTLY why it works. You don’t necessarily need external input, you just need to simplify and organize the tangled mess of your thoughts. Telling someone else (even if that someone is plastic and squeaks when squeezed) is often all we need to solve our own problem.

The same applies to any problem solving, writing included. My lists are a version of this — trying to focus my maelstrom of questions and unfinished work into concrete and answerable questions.

… One can also use pets for this, by the way. Pets are also known to be a great way to help kids who have trouble reading aloud. The pet is completely unbiased and patient, no matter how long it takes to sound out a word or how many words are mispronounced. Bonus? They’re more fun to pet than a rubby ducky. =]