Considering a rejig of Structure.
| Sun, Jan 8 2012 12:01am GMT 1 | ||
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 Babblefish 886 Posts |
First off, TF- if you are reading this be gone- no spoilers for
you.
Okay so anyway, here's the situation, I just recently done a
manuscript swap with the clouds most excellent Tenacityflux.
After a couple chapters she has put serious question to the time
spent at the start of the story introducing things, and comments
that it is in many places slow. I've experimented a bit, but TF
has suggested that I get some outside thoughts, which sounds
useful.
So, basic set up is that story follows two threads- the first is
in the past- following Miya (a gaurdian angel) as she is created,
trained, and then assigned to protect Samuel (a human).
The other thread is in the present, where Miya is now mortal, and
has kidinapped Sam, claiming that the other angels are trying to
kill him. (Sam for his part thinks she's crazy).
So... Not exactly sure what advice I'm looking for here, and for
anyone who hasn't read the various fragments of story up here,
most of this probably won't make sense. I guess partly I'm just
trying to sort out my own head.
Current structure: “Do you know what happens when angels die.”- introduce Sam and Miya, in the present. Chap 1: Miya’s early days. Introduce 29 (teacher), 947 (Valkyrie, an ally), and Reave(love interest) Interlude:Sam and Miya talking Chap 2: hanging out with Reave, Archangel 540 turns up at end of chap and chases him off. Interlude:Sam argues with Miya. Miya gives him the option to leave, but in the end his curiosity overcomes him, he comes back. Chap 3: Miya gets trains as a Lumia (angel of hope), does that for a while, then gets assigned as a guardian angel, meets up with 947 again. Interlude: Sam notices Miya’s reflection, argues that her story doesn’t make sense- full of holes. She shows him the stubbs of her wings, proves once and for all that she is not crazy. Chap 4: Guarding Sam. Chap skips over twenty years, to the day where he was SUPPOSED to die. 947 and Miya argue- there is an explosion, Miya saves Sam’s life. Interlude (Sam and Miya) Chap 5: Miya’s trial and escape. Meeting up with Reave again- fleeing to Eden. Interlude (Sam and Miya) Chap 6: Hanging out with Reave (couple pages, probably should reduce this). Reave and Miya leave Eden, get ambushed. Reave is killed. Interlude(Sam and Miya) Chap 7: Miya attempts to kill 540. Gets her wings hacked off and thrown down. Lucifer comes and talks to her, offers help, she refuses. Interlude: Sam and Miya talking. Sam realises that Miya is no longer trying to save his life- that he is nothing but a tool, bait to help her get revenge. Chap 8: Miya gets captured by mortals- they plan to kill her, or experiment on her. Lucifer turns up and rescues her, before taking her to his private sanctuary. Interlude: Lucifer turns up in the present and talks to Sam, questioning his loyalty. Chap 9: Lucifer reveals his plan- explains how he desires 540’s death, offers to help Miya. This time she accepts. Interlude Chap 10: Miya travelling through the human world. Gets attacked, kills a man in self defence- Lucifer is furious- angry at her for attracting attention to herself. Interlude.: Sam and Miya are waylaid by two angels. Miya manages to kill their attackers, but is horrified by what she has done. She swears never to kill again. Lucifer turns up again and persuades her back onto the path he has set out for her. Chap 11: Miya finds herself drawn to a mortal. Spends and evening with him, and then accidently kills him, she sets up the room to make it look like a suicide, empty’s the man’s wallet, and runs away. Interlude. (Sam, Miya and Luc’ travelling) Chap 12: Miya almost gets capture, Luc’ bales her out again. The final part of their journey, eventual get home. Interlude: The team arrive in Eden. They meet 947, who is waiting for them, and turns out to be Lucifer’s lover. Chapter 13: Various revelations to do with Lucifer’s past. Chapter 14: Capture Fayt- a member of the council of archangels. Chapter 15: 540 turns up, fights Miya for a while. Fight ends with 540 stabbing Sam through the chest, and Sam releasing the poison Lucifer gave him to paralyze 540. Chapter 16: Miya gets an opportunity to kill 540, but refuses, instead trading her revenge for Sam’s life. 540 recovers, and kills Fayt. He then attempts to kill Sam, but Miya takes the blow, and is killed. Sam is then left defenceless at the mercy of the Archangel. Chapter 17: Final conflict. 540 is eventually tricked into angering Gaia, the guardian of the garden of Eden, and gets destroyed. Sam returns home to his wife and daughter.
Simplifed structure:
Part one- intro, meeting Miya, introduce all other characters. At
this point Miya is portrayed as being relatively innocent,
perfect.(Chaps 1-5)
Part two- fall from grace- Miya travels through the mortal world.
Her fight for revenge and survival drives her to do bad things,
grinds down her morals, This is encouraged by Lucifer. (Chap
6-12)
Part three- final conflict, fighting 540. Miya must choose
between revenge and saving Sam's life.
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So... Anyway... current thoughts are to cut down the starting
chapters so that section 1 is much shorter (three chaps)...
Alternatively could focus more on Sam/Miya's story rather than
Miya's early days.
The catch here is that it is vitally important that the reader
relates to Miya, and show her when she is naive/innocent (in
order to make her fall from grace more noticable).
I dunno. TF believes that Miya's parts of the story (her past)
slow the story down too much. Then again, I've got to weight this
against the general reaction when I first posted the opening
scenes, which seemed to be mainly positive.
Anyway, will continue experimenting, and if anyone's got even a
general comment its appreciated (I understand that since no one
knows the story much, it may be hard to comment)
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| Sun, Jan 8 2012 11:21am GMT 2 | ||
 Barb 270 Posts |
From a general perspective, it may help to look at some books of
this style that have impressed you with their pace and momentum
while they tell more than one time-line. As an example, looking at
something by Kate Mosse, where she blends the past and present
together and shows the impact both have on the future. She also
tends to have strong female leads. Doesn't have to be her - it's
just someone who's work I know. But you could look at question
like:
When does she move from telling the past story to the present one, why does she move back and forth at certain places? How does telling two stories still keep the overall plot moving forward? Are there triggers or tie-in that makes it logical to swap story lines? The reason I mentioned Kate Mosse was because your description of your work made me think of her novel "Sepulchre" - no logic there, it just did. |
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| Sun, Jan 8 2012 02:07pm GMT 3 | ||
 EmmaD 1997 Posts |
Very good points from Barb.
In our Self-Editing Courses (other courses are available, of course but - plug, plug - if you're interested, it's here, next one starting towards the end of Feb), when we're tackling Plotting, one of the things Debi and I make students do is write a maximum of 3 sentences for each of their first 5 chapters describing what happens and how that moves the story along. It's very salutary for all, except for the natural-born plotter/story-tellers who do it quite naturally and sit there wondering why they're being asked to do something so obvious. Everyone else finds it surprisingly difficult for many. What I notice, running my eye quickly down your summary, is that I'm not at all clear how those first chapters are moving the plot along, and they need to. Filling in backstory and establishing characters and relationships isn't enough - they need to be characters-in-action, and that action needs to be the main action of the story. I would suggest focussing on the present story and its forward movement . You've obviously got the characters' character and backstory clear in your head, so you can have confidence that if you keep the action of the present story going, they will emerge naturally, as and when it's right. And if you like your character, we will, and the more so because we come to like her by being engaged with what she does in her situation in this story, not by being given case-studies of her delightfulness. Don't worry about character, concentrate on this engaging-character-in-action, and you'll be fine. |
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| Tue, Jan 10 2012 08:17am GMT 4 | ||
 stephenterry 1882 Posts |
Some very useful guidance, there BF. To put your mind at rest,
anything you have written on this story, people have liked.
My view is to look at your ending. Here you have Sam returning to his wife and daughter, and previous to that the angels fight to save Sam - or on those lines. So it would appear to me that Sam is now the key character (on your revised story line) and it would be sensible to start the story with his intro in the present, and backdropping Miya's past along the escape route which means you could have more than one POV... Sorted. |
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| Fri, Jan 13 2012 05:05am GMT 5 | ||
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Babblefish 886 Posts |
Yes... good. good advice all round
aaahhh... a lot of rewriting though. much rejiging, but it makes
sense. First attempt at such a rejig has... it's rung false. But
anyway, will get on to that.
Hmmm... just trying to balance TF's opinion (and my own
misgivings) against the responses I orginally got upon posting
(which were pretty damn positive, although even then, you ST,
mentioned the "so... where's this going" vibe).
Anyway, will rejig and see what I can do.
As you may have guessed, I'm not all that keen for yet another
edit, but... it needs to be done, so it's good to have people to
remind me of that.
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