Consider Leaving It Out?

A status update while Monday morning coffee takes effect.

Somewhere in the giant mass of posts about writing, I mentioned that I often lose interest in a series around book 10. After some introspection, I realized that this is usually when the “our intrepid hero” story becomes too broad, complicated, and political.

I’m finding that I have an iterative writing technique. I outline a few chapters. Go back and fill in this or that scene. Add details to the outline. Move ahead. Move back. Pull it together. Declare a chapter done. Three chapters further, realize something needs foreshadowing. Go back to put it in. Repeat.

Chapter 16 has one scene left. Chapter 17 has two. Chapter 18 is still in outline w/a few scenes staged, but I can tell what the hard ones will be. Chapter 19 is mostly hard scenes.

What do these scenes all have in common? They’re all groups. Not big crowds, but not-small groups. Chapter 16’s missing scene is a crowd gathering in a bar. Chapter 17’s are town council meetings. Chapter 18’s are a town meeting and a militia meeting.

I can’t write these scenes. They get too confusing to read. Too many people talking. There’s too much to describe, happening too fast. I need to compress them somehow. “There was this meeting and…” is too compressed. “Jane, the Treasurer, sitting third on the right from the meeting chair, stood to speak.” is too uncompressed.

I also realized this is the ‘boring’ stuff that makes me stop reading a series. Much needs to be left out. I don’t know what. I need to dig through my library and read the group scenes.

On the bright side: The action scenes are pouring out.

Two bright sides, actually: I found myself. I needed a writing break, so I started Andy in the Apocalypse. If you’re curious what my writing style is like, that’s it. The content is very different, but the writing is me; there are semicolons.