The Price of Demand Edit Saga Continues

I’ve finished working up a final outline for the edit of The Price of Demand. The work I’ve done so far with the dialogue has really helped point me in the direction the story needs to go. A lot of elements I had in there originally are going on the scrap heap, even more than I’d suspected. That’s okay though. They didn’t need to be there in the first place. The new revision of the story should be much tighter and should make far more sense, with motivations that make more sense.

I’m a little sad to make some of the changes. Electrite becomes little more than a footnote in this new version, it’s not really playing a part in motivating anyone besides Altman and Kaylene, who need to keep it a secret. I suppose that’s okay though. It plays important roles later, as regular readers know, and it doesn’t really make sense that it should be central to EVERYTHING that ever happens.

A Different Kind of Interview

This has to be another fairly short night of writing. I have an interview coming up tomorrow for one of those day job things I remember from some time back in the past. The dream is to do this writing gig full time, but it’s going to be a while before it can pay the bills, I suspect. Anyway, it’s a fantastic gaming company with a lot of great projects under them, so wish me luck! I’m really hoping I get this.

New Sword and Laser Trailer

Well talk about timing. 45 minutes ago I posted my big writeup of Geek & Sundry, Felicia Day’s new YouTube celebration of all things good and geeky in the world. Moments ago, Veronica Belmont of Geek & Sundry’s The Sword & Laser posted a brand new longer trailer for the video version of the S&L show, with a better look at the set and more explanation of what to expect.

The Sword & Laser started about four years ago as a book club, which quickly became an audio podcast. It’s going to remain an audio podcast, with this new show complementing it rather than replacing it.

The video version of The Sword and Laser will be every two weeks, alternating on Friday with Wil Wheaton’s Table Top. It launches on April 13th, kicking off the next book for the S&L community, Lev Grossman’s The Magicians.

Editing With Only Dialogue

Earlier today (okay, sort of yesterday) I posted a revised version of The Price of Demand draft 3, this time with everything except dialogue stripped from it. There’s no context, no description, not even any proper dialogue tags. I simply identify each character before each line.

This is part of an experiment to see if I can make editing a bit easier. I’m hoping that:

• It’ll make consistency of voice easier.
• It’ll make weaknesses in the story easier to spot. (I already know the ending is dreadful and I’ll be rewriting that whole section.)
• It’ll improve dialogue flow.
• It’ll reduce redundancy in the text.
• It’ll help me cut down on exposition.
• It’ll help me show rather than tell.

There’ll be some challenges in doing the editing this way, starting with the fact that I’m forcing myself to work from two documents instead of one. Possibly three documents; I’ve been toying with the idea of a similar exposition-only version as well, though I think that’ll break a lot more than dialogue-only did.

Once I’ve gone over the story as spoken only by the characters, I’ll have an easy way to block out the structure of the story, identify areas where exposition is really critical and where it’s difficult or impossible to convey it through dialogue. At that point I can go back and begin working the exposition back into the story again. I expect this’ll be the most difficult, or at least the most time-consuming part of the process.

Wish me luck!

A Big Ball of Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey ... Stuff

I do love time travel stories, but writing them can be mentally exhausting. I have a set of outline notes on this story that’s getting entirely too complex, so I’m writing this today and will be spending a chunk of tomorrow straightening things out. Stay tuned!