It's time for...

Ask the Author!

This is an occasional post - prompted by a question asked by a reader which seems to deserve more than a short reply. The reader who asks such a good question will be rewarded with a share of Steem Basic Income (SBI) as a thank you.

Today's question(s):
@shaheerbari asks:

I'm a bit curious of how you get the whole idea and structure of the chapters and the way they all have this completeness at the end

Answer:

First of all, thank you so much for the compliment that you find my chapters to have a completeness about them.

This is a surprisingly complicated question - and I'm glad I decided to use it for my Ask the Author post.

Within the author community (as I've found on Twitter recently) there is a constant debate between "planning" and "pantsing" (i.e. just writing without a clear direction.) My take is somewhere in the middle.

In order to write a coherent story, you have to have a decent idea of where it's meant to end. That's not to mean it can't evolve as you write - a character will often "speak" to the author to let them know what's going on... and how changes may be required.

When I write a chapter, I have a fair idea of where it's supposed to be going. I also have a length that I shoot for (around 1100 words for the purpose of the blockchain.) This chapter may have only one scene or it may have multiple scenes. Sometimes, a scene may even have to be broken into several chapters - it just depends, and I find it's not usually worth trying to force a scene to be something it doesn't want to be.

Scenes are more important than chapters, in many ways. People can break chapters wherever (I've seen weird examples in print that make me ask "why"...) But the scene should always have a clear purpose. It needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end - just like the story itself. It should also have a draw towards the next scene - a reason to keep reading.

My biggest trouble is that I try to do too much at once. I see my stories more along the lines of a good TV series, with lots of stuff going on with different characters. But the reality of life is that none of us have only one thing going on, we have lots of inter-related things. The phrase: "when it rains, it pours" definitely applies!

When in doubt, pull the reader back to the main reason they must keep reading. In the chapter commented on, the reason to keep reading was to see if Andrian can find Lidzi in time...

Thanks for such a great question! I've sent you your SBI share @shaheerbari

Reviews?

If you have liked any of my books, please take the time to leave me a review/rating at Goodreads

Crossposted on Steem, Whaleshares, WeKu
Please bring popcorn!
(Just for @popcornexpress...)

Previous issues of Ask the Author

(I'm going to have to go and find them now...)
No. 5 - Inspiration
No. 6 - Character names
No. 7 - Author's Tasks

Image credits

This is the cover scene from Building on Promise and features Yewan Avicent and Tirry Jelham on the beach in Loxos, Gaskarii.

Figures posed in Daz 3D studio using Genesis and other free bits of clothing and hair.
Background image taken with my Samsung NX11 in Seaside, Oregon.
Editing done in Gimp and Photoscape.
All image work done by the author.

Writing and artwork copyright myself 2005-2020 – all rights reserved.
If you are interested in helping me publish these works, please contact me on Facebook or Discord, viking-ventures#2883.

Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
verified author on Goodreads
find me on Twitter
blogging on: Steem, Whaleshares, WeKu, Hyperspace

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