Maybe by that time I'll have learnt how to explore a story in my head without squashing it.
I've gradually found it easier to hammer in a few story-pegs and them aim for them while writing, so yeah, some of it is a skill you can just pick up with practice.
until I have a character wanting something, and working to get it
This is what my acting class called the "objective," and we subdivided scenes into beats based on shifts of objective or tactics to achieve same. It's a useful way of looking at things.
plot strands in different cycles, so you're likely to get something you don't understand the significance of, and somehing that's in the middle so you can follow it, and something that's just ticking along and you're not sure where it's going
By this point, the Wheel of Time seems to consist entirely of middles. For the major characters -- of which I'd say there are five or six -- basically only one thing has concluded, and one had a major development, in the last three books. (I wish I were kidding.)
There are two problems in this instance with "each volume has to stand on its own just a little bit" (which is a sentiment I generally agree with). First, the stuff that's getting rehashed is, too often, the excruciatingly tedious detail of the -- quaternary characters? I guess that would be the level below "tertiary." Not Rand and Perrin and Egwene and so on, nor Siuan and Faile and so on, nor Pevara and Alviarin and so on, but every random bloody Aes Sedai and Aiel and nobleman and servant. To quote my complain from Lord of Chaos:
"When Rand departs from Cairhien in Chapter 19, we get an entire paragraph describing the Aiel who show up to see him off, another paragraph for the Cairhienin, and a third for the Tairens, with a fourth to cover how they're all interacting; there are eighteen named characters in those four paragraphs. Then more fluff, telling us how all of them respond to his departure."
That was four books ago, and the problem has only gotten worse.
The other issue with these books standing on their own is that, at this point, they're almost totally lacking in shape. If anything concluded at the end of a given book, then the next book would be able to jettison whatever bits were no longer needed. Nothing ends, so nothing can be discarded; we're still trailing around all the random baggage brought in by every little sub-plot. When I read this series as it was coming out, after a while I gave up on re-reading, and I wondered if I lost something by forgetting who all those people were in the intervening years. Based on my experience reading things more quickly for this project, the answer is no.
who has time to read all of them every time a new one comes out?
Several people I know, actually -- which is a little scary. <g>
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yati
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Date: 2011-07-22 07:14 am (UTC)I've gradually found it easier to hammer in a few story-pegs and them aim for them while writing, so yeah, some of it is a skill you can just pick up with practice.
until I have a character wanting something, and working to get it
This is what my acting class called the "objective," and we subdivided scenes into beats based on shifts of objective or tactics to achieve same. It's a useful way of looking at things.
plot strands in different cycles, so you're likely to get something you don't understand the significance of, and somehing that's in the middle so you can follow it, and something that's just ticking along and you're not sure where it's going
By this point, the Wheel of Time seems to consist entirely of middles. For the major characters -- of which I'd say there are five or six -- basically only one thing has concluded, and one had a major development, in the last three books. (I wish I were kidding.)
There are two problems in this instance with "each volume has to stand on its own just a little bit" (which is a sentiment I generally agree with). First, the stuff that's getting rehashed is, too often, the excruciatingly tedious detail of the -- quaternary characters? I guess that would be the level below "tertiary." Not Rand and Perrin and Egwene and so on, nor Siuan and Faile and so on, nor Pevara and Alviarin and so on, but every random bloody Aes Sedai and Aiel and nobleman and servant. To quote my complain from Lord of Chaos:
"When Rand departs from Cairhien in Chapter 19, we get an entire paragraph describing the Aiel who show up to see him off, another paragraph for the Cairhienin, and a third for the Tairens, with a fourth to cover how they're all interacting; there are eighteen named characters in those four paragraphs. Then more fluff, telling us how all of them respond to his departure."
That was four books ago, and the problem has only gotten worse.
The other issue with these books standing on their own is that, at this point, they're almost totally lacking in shape. If anything concluded at the end of a given book, then the next book would be able to jettison whatever bits were no longer needed. Nothing ends, so nothing can be discarded; we're still trailing around all the random baggage brought in by every little sub-plot. When I read this series as it was coming out, after a while I gave up on re-reading, and I wondered if I lost something by forgetting who all those people were in the intervening years. Based on my experience reading things more quickly for this project, the answer is no.
who has time to read all of them every time a new one comes out?
Several people I know, actually -- which is a little scary. <g>