Looking Back and Looking Forward

Step One is complete. I have broken the rough draft into 41 scenes, or scene-like entities. Technically, "Scene" 41 is just all the extra nonsense at the end, but I've been putting in section breaks at each scene change, so I can jump straight there, so Scene 41 is just where I would go if I want any of that.

So I have 40 scenes, really. Some are long, some are short. Some are probably several scenes crammed together, while others are just random events. But they're all broken up and catalogued. Now comes the tricky part: Figuring out what to keep and where to put it.

I also have a separate document that I copied all the bits of backstory into. Now I can just pull that up for reference and sprinkle those details around instead of big chunks of infodump. I haven't quite figured out how to sprinkle them in. I've been doing research, and everything just says "weave backstory naturally into the story." Yes. Thank you. I know that. But how. How do I subtly incorporate a plane crash from thirty years ago that is important to how the protagonist got where he is now? Do I just offhandedly mention it at some point? Or not bring it up at all, just letting it go unsaid as a thing I know that the reader doesn't? In the first draft, it was shown in a series of flashbacks. And frankly, I kind of liked it that way. But flashbacks are bad, I think?

There are all these things that used to be okay and accepted in fiction writing, like wordy explanations and unusual dialogue tags. But now we're refined people of the future, and we just won't stand for that anymore. And I'm sorry, but I can't keep up with all the changing rules.

Speaking of changing, it's a new year and I've decided to make some changes around here. I'm going to start "building my platform," which means getting the name I'll be publishing under out there. So you may notice something different on my posts. I have also updated my About page. You may wonder why I'm going with a name that's not particularly remarkable or distinct. I had a long debate with myself about that. In the end, I decided to go with it because, well, it's my fucking name. It's what I want to be called and be known as. So there you go.

Now that the holidays are passed, I'll be get back into the whole editing thing. Step Two (basically creating a better plot out of what I have) is going to be a doozy. But I've gotten myself into this, and I'll have to write myself out.

I'll see you next week.