I’ve been battering my way through this house build for years now. First bureaucrats, then the actual job – as prescribed by people who plainly have never done what they insist I do. Frankly, I very much doubt they’d be capable – but that’s another matter. Anyway, I am getting there, but it’s been a long, slow expensive haul. So: rather like writing a book (yes, that can be expensive too). You just keep pushing, victories are small, and often Pyrrhic. Nil carborundum illigitimi.
I should be used to it by now. I’m good at enduring and pushing on in the direction I want to go – obstinate as a balky mule. But you do get worn down. It’s winter in Tasmania – a bit of SAD time, which doesn’t help. And the cloud and rain (not much rain, lots of cloud) have set in. We have had 4 low-light days, which doesn’t just make me sad, it makes the batteries sadder. We’re off-grid. Not so much idealism and saving the world as pragmatism. It was substantially cheaper – and writer’s incomes are not predictable or reliable. We have a very old stand-by generator to charge the batteries – because solar panels can only do so much (as I wish people would figure out). We used to do about three days, with the old lead-acids, now, with our new fancy-dancy no maintenance batteries… we do 4.
Given that this is not England, or, worse, Campbell Island, with 325 days of rain a year and less than hour’s sunshine on 215 of them, such periods are not frequent. The wind blows the weather around a lot, here. On average, 2 or 3 time a year I had to run the gennie for about 3 hours. Occasionally — every couple of years, 2 days in a row. This gives you a machine that, while essential, doesn’t run very many hours, very often.
Last year, spring, it broke down, but the next day was forecast bright and we were expecting to get the new batteries. We coped, I tried to fix it, failed, the batteries arrived, and so did the sun. In fashion of people with lots of other worries on their minds, I let it get away from me. We haven’t needed it until this last week, with 4 bleak days, and another 6 forecast. I began to understand those deserted villages, towns and cities archeologists keep finding. Some essential thing goes wrong and the people… left. For us, electricity is freezers, lights and most importantly water. We can cope, cut back, to a point, but then it gets really hard. And right now, the exchequer is pretty well empty. Building is expensive, writing pays badly, and my production is down with the time and energy spent building. So: replacing the generator is a non-starter. That left me with ‘repair’. I’m quite good with wood, cope with metal and have a hate-hate relationship with repairing vehicles or small machines. I’ve done a lot, and even succeeded occasionally.
There was not a lot of optimism about this. But needs must, so I stripped the entire thing down and largely rebuilt it (having, mostly no idea what I was doing – very like writing a book).
It… worked.
A long story but the point was having felt bent over to point of breaking, and really battling to write and go on doing semi-impossible tasks, I came in whistling and eager to get back to writing. And I found some kind reader had made a wonderful comment about my books. Suddenly, the load is lighter and there’s an end in sight. So: here’s my appeal. A few kind words to fellow writer, especially if you do enjoy their work makes the long haul to finishing the next book seem easier. It doesn’t cost you anything. Oh… and please, if you can’t be complimentary, don’t damn someone with faint praise.
So: A question, because I have never done this before: The current ‘Heinlein Juvie’ style book having been intended as short 40-50K is showing every sign of turning into 120K-ish. It makes some sense to split it. Have any of you done this, and just how do you decide where? My books are not modular or episodic. They ‘run through’. I just can’t think how to do this.
Mad Genius Club 
10 responses to “Something positive”
I did this with my Sarbotel Rising duology. I’d written it as one story, but because it’s length I split it into two books. There was a point, fortunately just about mid-way through the story, where the momentum of changed. In the first half, the good guys were basically playing defense and reacting to the bad guys, but in the second half they switched to playing offense.
If your story has a similar momentum turning point, that could be a good place to split it up. Another option might be to look for something end-of-chapter cliff hanger-ish – it might not have been a cliff hanger, per se, when you wrote it, but it could work as one if you end book 1 there.
My books don’t tend to run long. The space operas that weigh in at around 100K a piece were more or less planned that way, and took a lot of doing to get there. So, this next piece of advice does not come from personal experience. That being said, in your shoes I would look for either a single inflection point close to the middle of the book or two inflection points at the 40K and 80K marks, and try to rework them to be some kind of stopping points. They don’t have to wrap everything up, just drop the characters off in a good place with their more immediate problems under control.
The first chapter of my story Lost Soul is over 12,000 words. There just isn’t any logical place to split it. It’s all one scene. There are a few other chapters that exceed 10,000 words.
My first attempt at a short story weighed in at 30,000 words.
I did better on my second try: only 14,000 words. 😁
How many words should you write? As many as it takes to tell the story your way.
I had one book that “ran long,” and after a lot of cussin’ and discussin’, I opted to leave it as it was, 130K words. For me, that’s long. There was an OK place to break the story, but the two halves would have been uneven in length. Too, it was as much biography as novel, and telling it as a single volume worked, since I didn’t have a cap.
I’d have broken the book at the MC’s marriage. That’s a good point because it closes one part of his life and opens another. After that he has to balance additional duties to his family with his odd vocation of priest, noble, and explorer. The second book would have been about his growing conflict with some of the Powers That Be as well as his marriage and family.
The current WIP is going to be the first of two books, each one around 70K words, give or take. The first one is the character “growing up” and deciding to take responsibility rather than continuing to float through life (which in his culture he had every right to do, and would be more likely to do). The second book will deal with some consequences of the first story, and proving himself outside his home turf. It needs to be two books. Even though I didn’t intend to write either one!
Even After landed in at 150,000, but I didn’t split it. Then it’s not a boy’s, or for that matter a girl’s, book.
Yeah, my current WIP for the ‘Republic of Texas Navy’ series was supposed to be the end of the WW2 story arc. I’m almost 90,000 words in and not out of 1943 yet, so it’s going to be split, the next book will cover 1944 to the end of the war.
Yeah, my current WIP for the ‘Republic of Texas Navy’ series was supposed to go to the end of WW2, but since it’s currently at almost 90,000 words and still in 1943, that ain’t happening. There will be one more book covering 1944 to the end of the war.
I’ve tried leaving a comment twice on this post, but for some reason it isn’t going through. Moderators, help, please?
TXRed as Mod: They both went into Spam, and are now freed. I blame WP updating their filters and such.
Thank you, ma’am.