Weekly Update: 08/11/24

Change: +11,474

Year to Date: 195,349

After the wonderful freedom of a weekend escape, it's somewhat frustrating to once again write against a backdrop of work and other responsibilities. Nevertheless, progress continues if not quite as quickly as I'd like.

I find myself a little conflicted as to how I should proceed with Constant. The story is plotted through to the end, for the most part, though surprises pop up now and then as I write. There are many scenes I’m very much looking forward to writing, ones that I hope resonate well with the readers. And of course, I'm very keen to finish the story—it's very long, and I'd like to try my hand at other things as I’ve been beavering away at this one for quite some time now.

It would be easy enough to wrap up quickly, in another few chapters—another thirty or forty thousand words and call its done. Skip forward to the juicy bits and race for the ending.

Yet whenever I sit to write, the scenes always come out in long form: showing, not telling, as they say, and the story slowly unspools before me. You’ll see obvious examples of this in the next few posts. For example, Julia's revenge could've been reduced to a swift thousand words or two - a couple of paragraphs – telling the reader what happened and then moving on. Instead, it's very precise in its details: this happened, and then this, and here's the reaction, and this is what happened next.

Similarly, the start of chapter 6—in which our protagonist outlines the ‘real story’ of what’s been happening these past four months—presents those experiences in detail. The sneak peek hints at this. David needs money and finds a dodgy broker to access his funds. This could’ve been a single paragraph or two: “I needed money. My money—not Cindy’s—for what came. Fortunately, in a neighbourhood like mine, there’s plenty of dodgy brokers who aren’t keen to ask questions, even when the customer’s a tiny twenty-year old girl. It wasn’t pleasant. But after a few trips out at night through back-alley streets lit by garish neon glow, I got the job done. By the end of the week, I had the money I needed and with it, the gear I needed, too.”

Is it better? I don’t know. Certainly faster. The problem, I suppose, is that the pleasure I derive from writing comes from the more detailed approach—fleshing out the near-future dystopian world, stumbling across unexpected characters and trying my hand at different styles of writing. And the genre lends itself to long description (especially of clothes) and detailed focus on actions stereotypically taken as feminine: the threading of an earring through the lobe, or fiddling with an ankle strap on a pair of high-heeled shoes. The emotional reactions to all this takes time, too.

So that’s my ongoing dilemma—how quickly should I rush towards the ending? It’s not a new problem, and I know many readers prefer the ‘more is more’ approach, whilst other might enjoy a more streamlined approach.

Any thoughts?

Week to come:

Monday               : chapter 5-3 released to all members

Wednesday       : chapter 5-6 (“The Death of David Saunders”) for Constant members and above.