To Serialise Or Not To Serialise?

Or, ‘On Making Rough Drafts Public’.

Originally I was going to have this Friday’s post be about The Evolution of Setting, but I couldn’t remember half the points I wanted to cover, and I decided that I should probably save most of these backward-looking posts for when I’ve actually, y’know, finished a first draft or something similarly outlandish. So instead I’m going to talk about an important consideration for any writer who wants to build up a following online: namely, how polished does my writing have to be before I post it on the Internet?

Recommendation Tuesday: 'Digital: A Love Story'

It’s Tuesday! I’m posting something! Yaaaaay!

For our first ‘Recommendation Tuesday’ I wanted to flag up a Visual Novel that’s been a huge influence on this story and especially my choice of setting. If you haven’t heard of a VN before, here’s a quick primer. I always describe it as a cross between a game and a “choose your own adventure” story – except that having said that, this VN is so much more than that. It’s called ‘Digital: A Love Story’ and you can download it for free from Lemma Soft Forums right here.

Greetings from the Other Side of NaNo

So, November is over for another year and I can chalk up my third consecutive “loss” after my first and only “win” in 2009 (70,425 words) to the blackboard of my various attempts at NaNoWriMo. At 15,924 words, I’m pretty damn far from the target of 50,000 words in 30 days that NaNo sets for each of us. But I’m also finding it hard to be disappointed with my efforts this month. First off, nearly 16,000 words of anything is not to be scoffed at, as I’m sure any writer will agree. (Well, 16,000 words of Lorem Ipsum is perhaps not the most useful thing, but even that could be used as website filler).  Moreover, I’m still as excited about this story and where it might be going in early December as I was in late October when I first decided to do it for NaNo.

Part of that is because of the epic background research I’ve been doing. (The early years of the Internet and synaesthesia – two subjects that are so damn fascinating I feel like I can’t cram the information into my head fast enough. I also get to pass off reading cyberpunk fiction and various adaptations of Peter Pan as research). Secondly, the characters are coming alive in ways I could never have imagined when I started. (I don’t want to spoil too much, but I owe a lot of fascinating plot development to AuthorXIV’s idea about Tinkerbell. Thanks!!)

Third and most surprisingly, people really like this idea. I’ve had interest in my stories before, but the enthusiasm over the idea of a cyberpunk Peter Pan has just been unexpected. It scares me a little, because what if the story I eventually write isn’t what people had hoped for? The story has changed a lot since the synopsis I initially posted on NaNoWriMo, so what if the people who were interested by that don’t like what it’s turned into? Are my characters too different from J.M. Barrie’s? Am I shooting myself in the foot by trying to stick to the basic plot of Peter Pan – or am I deviating too far? Does my story even class as cyberpunk or is it just a story about people with computers? There is no end to the questions I subject myself to.

On the whole though, I’m psyched to have an audience of interested folks who want to see this story finished as much as I do, and so I’m creating this blog for you all. And for me, because the accountability that it provides will hopefully keep me chugging along with the writing and editing. I will still be serialising the story on my FF.net and AO3 as promised; but until it’s in a fit state to be published online, this blog will be home to progress updates from the battlefield, excerpts of the non-awful bits, background information and whatever else I can get away with classing as “relevant”. (*cough* Peter Pan GIFs *cough*)

I have ambitions for this blog that include reader input on the plot and characters and an old-timey BBS look for the site (providing I can rope Emi into helping me with the CSS… *makes a note*). But for now, all I want to ask is: how was your November? :D