Really progressing well on the killer’s perspective. I’ve reached the final scene, or at least his final scene, of the book.
His story is actually a pretty interesting one. When I first started writing his side of things, I thought his might actually be the more interesting story. Seeing things from his point of view, with all the planning and strategy and cleverness is pretty cool.
But I have to stay focussed.
This isn’t his story; he’s there to get the ball rolling, and for Gadwell to play against. I’ve got quite a few clues highlighted in bold in the killer’s document that I can use to plan out the detecting side of this detective novella.
When I start on Gadwell’s story (perhaps the last part of this post-outlining stage), I just need to make sure he’s as interesting as the killer. I think he will be; I basically wrote the killer to have parallels to play Gadwell off of, so he should be at least as interesting ;P
I thought I’d give you a heads up I won’t be posting those “quote” posts saying I’ve written on that day, as it could’ve gotten a little spammy. I’ll instead make a blog post if I don’t make it on a particular day, with my good (or shoddy) excuses why not. So far, for the past week or so I’ve been keeping it up, so here’s hoping I don’t let up on the routine.
I’m always happier and more productive (from a writing standpoint) when I’m writing daily.
I’m currently in the middle of writing a sci-fi murder mystery novella.
It’s about Detective Paul Gadwell, a “Unit” who swaps bodies with a fellow detective every few weeks. These Units’ bodies can be killed, but their consciousness is instantly transferred back to their original body. But as the story starts, Gadwell finds out he’s been murdered. Not his current body, but his “Original,” back in cryostatic storage.
I started writing it while on a canal boating holiday over a year ago.
I’ve never been so productive as I have been on that holiday. Something about not being connected to the internet, no TV to watch, fresh air (with a ton of hay fever for free!), natural surroundings, periodic hard work to help with the lochs... it just made the ideas flow out of me into my iPad.
I’d had the Units idea for a while, and had roughly sketched out an idea for a story featuring this technology. I hadn’t outlined the whole thing, which I had tried to do for other longer stories in the past, but I decided it would be something to while away the time, and to just go for it.
While I was on the boat, I just kept writing the next chapter. And when I was done with that chapter, I started writing the chapter after that. When I got back home, I kept on the roll for a couple of months, but I slowly ground to a halt.
I think the problem was the end.
From podcasts and a little experience, I knew for the ending to be satisfied, I had to be aware of any “promises” I had made to the reader—clues, hints that certain things might happen, anything that a reader could pick up on and may form an idea of how the story would progress. If those promises weren’t fulfilled by the end of the story, then it just wouldn’t be satisfying as a whole.
And so, I started a notes document. It held every hint or tidbit of information that could be seen as a clue, or a promise. I kept these things in mind as I wrote further chapters, and added new ones or amended old ones to include developments for that plot arc.
So I had a good basis for writing the rest of the book, keeping track of how each part was working as I went. But I still had no ending. A murder mystery has to make sense, has to all come together perfectly, or the whole thing would be a massive let down.
So I started retro-actively outlining.
I started with documents for each arc, but switched to using a mind map instead. That way, I could more easily link arcs to each other and hopefully get a better overview of the whole story, where I needed to add detail or remove meaningless threads I never followed through on, and generally prune the structure of it all.
And that worked for a time. I had some good ideas on how things might work out in the end, the mechanics of the final few scenes and so on. I even started writing some more chapters. But there was still something missing. I had an ending, even if it was a bit hazy at this point, but I wasn’t confident any of it really made sense.
Why would “Suspect X” do such-and-such? Wouldn’t something-or-other make more sense? There was other things like why characters react in the way they do, their rough backstory and so on. But the main problem was how Gadwell’s Original died and why.
So there is a killer.
(Might be a tiny spoiler, but you’d hope there was if you’re reading a murder mystery, right?)
So the next thing I tried (and am still trying) is writing the whole affair from the killer’s point of view. Nothing in too much detail, just an outline of every step in his/her story. Why them? Why Gadwell? Why did he leave such-and-such a clue out in the open? How did he cover up what he did cover up?
And this has been pretty useful so far. I started a little while before the events of Gadwell’s story, following what happened leading up to the detective’s murder. I’m still not done, but already there have been a fair number of major changes to how things work out.
Even parts of the story I really liked writing are going to have to be cut to have the story actually make sense, instead of just being a fun read. Hopefully it will still be a fun read, but you know what I mean...
Anyway, I just thought I’d introduce you to this story.
And how I’m progressing with it. My writing habits have been pretty lax these past couple of months (daily is the best way to do things, and I’ve maybe made it to Google Docs to write weekly), but I think things are looking up.
I’m going to post a little note here each day that I actually do write, and what I’m working on. If I get too long between such posts, feel free to elbow me in the ribs and tell me to get a move on! ;P
But don’t worry; I’ve done some writing stuff today, so my first post will follow shortly!
