Crisis on Infinite Earths by DC Comics
Okay, so it might not be that bad. Normally I would save this for the goal post, but I felt like talking about it separately. Mostly because tomorrow’s post is going to be more about another topic. Getting hard to concentrate since it suddenly became really loud in this house and I’m too tired to figure out why. So let’s see how this goes.
Some people might remember me mentioning many times that I have about 30-35 stories in various forms of outlines. With the exception of Crossing Bedlam, all of them take place in Windemere. This means I do a lot of interconnecting like cameos from other heroes and mentions of other events. For example, any of the champions from Legends of Windemere who survive will make appearances from time to time. Some heroes even show up in multiple series like Rayne and Bogard. Eventually they reach a finale and you can meet them at any point without being lost. Still I’m working with a maze-like web whenever I do future outlines.
That brings me to the current outline project. This is a 9 book series of grand adventures with one hero who ends up reuniting with old friends and making new ones as he travels around Windemere. The first book was rather easy to do since the outline has been sitting untouched since Junior Year of college. Now I’m on the second and ‘things’ are making it a wee bit head spinning. I haven’t even touched the plot yet, which is next week. This week has been heroes, villains, and double checking my future plans. How could this be so hard?
Because I’m merging four things into one here:
- The original story.
- The new version
- Zombie Girl
- A story that got previously junked, but works here.
#3 could turn into 1 or 2 books on her own if she comes out good and is popular enough. The rest are all in various pieces throughout multiple notebooks or, in the case of #4, a stapled packet that seems to have lost a fight with a cup of soda. Can barely read the thing. It doesn’t help that the more current stuff I’m working off is still done in my own shorthand, which I don’t always remember. When I write these things, I’m expecting to get back to them earlier than I do. So there’s an added dimension of ‘what in the world is past me talking about?’
This is a complicated series to begin with since it connects with so many other stories that I predict needing pauses to jump series. Can’t have Sin go to a land or city that hasn’t been founded yet. Kind of ruins the other story. So far I can think of 5 other tales that this connects to, but 3 of them involve characters who debut in this series. Maybe this part of the problem isn’t as bad as I think. At least until I start writing it.
Would it be easier to chuck everything away and make a story from scratch? Yes, but no idea how that would happen. The meat of this story is from the original and I’ve simply added characters while re-positioning others. Some heroes are now villains and others have gone to different stories. A lot of villains and supporting characters have been placed in stasis until I find a new home for them too. Besides, it would be rather silly to erase everything just because I’m changing my direction in one arena. Getting a headache just thinking about it again.
I’m left wondering if other authors have this problem. I’ve yet to meet any that have planned stories this far ahead or are going for something of this scale. At least with this level of preparation because I think I met one who had a big world that they would add to in the future. This whole thing places me in a frustrating position at times: I have to write the present while checking the past and planning the future. Not just for the series I’m working on, but the ones that will come in the future.
I need to lie down.
Legends of Windemere 
That is a level of plotting that I I find both fascinating and terrifying! Don’t give up, but don’t be afraid to just jump in and get some pages done and see where it leads, even if it just primes the pump on your outline.
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Thanks. Have to admit that I feel those two things at times too. A big fear of messing everything up by one stumble. I might do a few test scenes to see what happens, but it’s more of a pacing and plot events issue than style. Still that could help see if the character descriptions work.
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Maybe you need to have coffee with George Lucas, or Steven Moffat. I find micro fiction calms the Muse down, and lets me focus on other things. I wrote one this morning, and might share it on my blog this weekend. If I don’t write them, they compete for page time in the novels. That doesn’t always work with all the genre hopping I do.
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Pretty sure Lucas would only tell me to add a Jar Jar character.
Micro fiction could be a good brain cleanser. I’ve been using breaks a lot, but I think I’m at a point where I have to hunker down and really stare at the pieces. Guess I can’t always wing it and see what happens. I’ve already picked up on characters being killed, but then being on the cast list of a future book. Getting sloppy here.
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Charles, your brain is doing backflips! Rest will (w)right it. It’s amazing how you think about your in depth stories and character sketching long term. Do you write that all down to keep it straight? Chryssa
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I keep it in various notebooks and have everything ready to go before I get into the actual writing. It helps give me an idea of where I’m going and maintain continuity. As far as rest goes, I don’t think it would help much. This is like sifting through stuff in an attic. Sadly, it won’t do it on its own. Still, all part of the fun. 🙂
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I have said a number of times I don’t know how you do it. I have to lie down too.
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In a recliner with a margarita? I really need to get one of those.
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Sounds like there’s a lot going on there for you, but I can offer some organizational tips that might help if you’re not already utilizing them.
Something that helps me straighten my head out is drawing timelines based upon location and characters, parallel to each other on the same page; it helps to see where overlaps occur and also keeps consistency to where a character was or what that particular locale’s history of visitors is.
Also, drafting world maps through different eras could help (a map for each important era with undiscovered locales masked in gray, as you move through the eras, the world should eventually be mostly discovered. Could even add who discovered it and how! Punch 3-holes in the paper and file the maps in a 3-ring binder progressed by time and highlight with a sticky note the map that you need to reference for the current date in the story you’re working on. Personally, I also like to do an “Approved by the Ruling Powers”-map and a “Hero/Wanderer/Mystic”-map as well, which end up very different from each other usually.
A 9+ book series is ambitious, but I’d say the most ambitious part of it is maintaining an understandable level of consistency. I’m working on a 3-book series that is interconnected with another 5-book series and possibly another open-ended serial, both of which involve cameos. So, I can relate to the headache of trying to keep everything straight while knowing when to reveal this or that to the readers without conflicting with future (or past) developments.
Best I have figured out so far is to keep the future as open-ended as possible (have options to choose from instead of set decisions, or at least, have flexibility if decisions are made), while keeping the past unrevealed for the majority of narration. Instead, trickle information of past histories only when it’s absolutely relevant to something. If the history is from a prior book, then reference it only as much as necessary to create a context for someone that hasn’t read that previous book to still understand the story they’re reading. It’s definitely a balancing act dependent on your intention with how the story should interact with the audience.
I imagine having a Book#1, or story set in the same universe, already out and about could make the situation a bit different, but I’d suggest to not feel restricted by your own outlines. If something would be simpler to change while setting down the plot, then work towards making that change happen if you can. If you have an idea what to change it to, then follow that instinct… just remember to add it to your consistency notes if it’s something important that’ll come up again!
Another helpful tool could be excel spreadsheets based on characters with columns for physical/mental/emotional changes that occur at particular points/events in the timeline, though this can get unwieldy after a while, especially if you add characters beyond the core cast.
And finally, utilizing storyboard-style notecards is another tool that I’ve found useful. Just get a pack of index cards, then write timeline/plot/character notes on them and tape/pin them to a wall to keep in view while writing without having to flip notebook pages constantly.
Hope maybe something I mentioned might help you out some. Message/E-mail me if you ever want to talk about serial-novel organization, consistency tracking, or interconnected stories in further depth, Charles. I don’t mind the nitty-gritty and it’s helpful for me to figure things out too! ^_^
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1. I have a timeline on my computer. The written version was claimed by the kid who added various dates and names when he was learning his alphabet. Still it’s fairly simple for me to keep track of this through my notes as long as I follow my gut when something feels off.
2. I have a few maps, but the founders are kind of moot because of a Great Cataclysm that changed the entire surface of the planet. A lot of this will be established in my current series, which is 15 books long and covers 3 of the big continents. This 9 book series will handle another, which is a collection of islands. Too many to draw.
3. I’ve also found that history is one of those things to only bring up if it’s useful. A casual mention of an event or why somebody is famous can have more weight than a lengthy description. Thankfully, the instances where histories come up in other series will be rather mild. So I’m not too worried about that.
4. I’m guessing the consistency will be easier when I get to this series. I should have a few others done and out by the time I reach the globe-trotter. I’m keeping notes on where to find the descriptions of every monster, place, and anything else that might turn up again. Nothing more complicated than the previous book and page number.
5. I keep hearing about notecards, so maybe I’ll try those. So far I’ve been focusing on having organized notebooks where I write up the past/role/future of each main character, important places, central monsters, cultural facts, and the general story with target events. Only problem is that I keep rethinking the stories I haven’t reached and that makes older stuff moot. So I have to behave in that arena.
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Thanks for the advice. (For some reason I ran out of space on the previous comment. Sorry about that.)
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No problem! Sometimes it can help to just consider ideas. Also, I didn’t notice I wrote as much as I did until after I’d posted it. xD
On the subject of rethinking stories set for future series, it makes sense why that would happen while working on the current series because the mind is ruminating over that universe. While working on Book#1 of my trilogy series, I constantly have thoughts for future books, but they morph eventually because as I write/sleep/research, more ideas surface and/or fuse together. I’ve been dealing with it by trying to keep futures open-ended until I get around to actually writing them in the closer-to-final draft and if I want to have a past influence related to that future point, I go back and edit it in – but that wouldn’t be an option if the story was already published and done I guess… hmm… Bit tricky, isn’t it? 😉
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I’ll admit that I kept getting lost in the comment while writing my response. It always looks bigger in the notification section because it’s a column.
The current series is exactly as you said it. What I write in one book ends up changing the events of the next one. The series I mentioned in this post might not be as bad because every book is a contained story with only the main hero showing up in all of them. It’s harder for one event to mess with another if the villains don’t carry over. 🙂 This is actually reminding me of a series that is an even bigger mess than this. Must be a masochistic author.
Good idea with keeping futures open. At the very least, I could leave the ending fluid and plan for some heroes and villains changing their fate. You never know if a character will turn out different once you start writing the story. Do you ever find yourself stopping while writing because you think you got something wrong in terms of continuity?
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Lol, ‘masochistic author’ reminds me of this James Joyce quote; “Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives.”
As to your question – yes! All the time! I try not to stop entirely, of course, so I have a highlighting system and will highlight the portion that I feel might be wrong in a green color.
Then, I come back to it when I’m done with whatever else I was doing (writing or editing) and consult my consistency notebook (or document) that is linked with that novel. I add the highlighted portion as a quote with the chapter, page number, and character perspective. Then I find the other points that are related to that quote and compare.
I try to keep things organized by character with subcategories of important facts/traits that can’t break consistency without threatening the plot/world or relationships. I also make categories for important Items and whose hands they switch between, when so I know where all the plot-related inventory is (gotta keep track of those enchanted rings, y’know?).
It sounds okay in theory, but my consistency notebook is an absolute mess right now… better than nothing though. @_@
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I don’t trust myself to remember to go back. There was a point where my main character’s eye color kept changing, so I’ve been toying with new ways to prevent that from happening. One was simply having the other files open, but I tried something new with my last book. I checked my outline to see if any places, monster, and characters were reused from earlier stuff. Only things I never memorized. This information was put into a master file that I kept open alongside the new book. This made it that I didn’t have to go back or hunting for the information. Might only be a fantasy author thing though.
I hear you on having the notes or consistency stuff getting disorganized. One could make a consistency book for the consistency notes, but then that’d just be an endless loop. I’ve actually seen authors fall into this one.
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Yeah, I’ve caught mistakes involving traits like eye color before. I use the excel spreadsheets for that – then I can just directly reference it, but that requires you to be suspicious that you might be wrong in the first place.
Another thought that occurs is Tabletop Roleplaying Campaign organization tools might be helpful – especially since it’s fantasy and involves monsters. But Character Sheets could be used to keep track of characters in a novel just as easily -template sheets or custom could work.
Master files to use alongside an in-the-works manuscript are great though. I make one for every manuscript I have, even if I don’t end up using it or what not.
I haven’t seen it myself of authors falling into an organizational loop, but I definitely can imagine how it happens! I ended up forgoing excel spreadsheets eventually because it just was causing too much preoccupation with organizing and less with actually writing.
Suppose it’s all about finding a balance of techniques and tools that fits with our personal workflows.
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I used to have character sheets that had the info. Misplaced the book for a few years and only found it when I was packing up for a move. I even had a folder that had some of my characters from when I was playing them. Lost that or it was stolen. Not sure which. Last I saw it, I brought it to a friend’s place before he moved and might have left it there. Realized it a few days later, but he said he never found it. Possibly tossed, but I had a world map and all my role-playing stuff from college in there.
I think the loop stems from those that are still building their confidence. We get told a lot to not reach for the artistic dream until we’re stable, but that might never come or even be clear. So people repeatedly outline, plan, and rework their stories without taking that final step.
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Dang, that sucks about losing that folder of maps/sheets. I’ve lost stuff in the past, the bright side of losing things though is rebuilding the same (or similar) concept that’d been lost with a fresh perspective… but it still kinda sucks, heh.
That makes sense (about the loop stemming from those still building confidence). It’s definitely a way to feel like you’re doing something without actually finishing a project. Especially with High/Classic Fantasy (or even Sci-Fi or Historical), research and planning and reworking is so tempting to pour energy into that the basics of just writing and editing to finish can be kind of set aside.
Well, best of luck to getting everything straightened out! Like I mentioned before, you ever want to talk even more about this kind of stuff, e-mail me or what not. ^_^
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It’s kind of different for that folder though. It was the eraser and pencil marked character sheets I used throughout college, so there was a memory factor there. Nothing can be done about it though.
The research is always an interesting factor for fantasy. It’s such a fluid and flexible genre that one doesn’t realize how much has to be looked up. Though you do have more freedom to just go with whatever you think up.
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