storytelling

The Series Saga: one book, two books, three books, four

/ Scott Nagele / Leave a comment

It’s been two years since I posted my first update on what I’ve come to call the Series Saga. At the time of that first update, I’d already been working on the project for more than a year. Now, three years in, I hope I’ve reached the halfway point, but I really don’t know. It’ll take as long as it takes, I guess.

The Series Saga, for those who haven’t been following along, or those who forgot since my last update, 11 months ago, is my quest to turn one over-long novel into a series of novels in a major writing construction project.

READ THE SAGA FROM THE BEGINNING here

As of my last update, the series stood at three books. For reasons I enumerated at the time, I hoped it would not grow to four books.

A lot can change in 11 months. I went from hoping against a fourth book to seeing the need for a fourth book to accepting the fact of a fourth book to writing a fourth book.

I am now slightly more than halfway through writing the draft of the fourth book, which is actually the third book in the series. The chronological fourth book was the first book written. All this jiggery-pokery is explained in the earlier updates (sort of).

The good news is I’m confident I can close all the gaps with this fourth book (a.k.a. book 3) between the third book and the first book, which are actually books 2 and 4 in the storyline. In case you are marking your scorecard at home, this means the second book written is book 1 in the series.

Simple really.

“Mr. Dewey, are we supposed to organize these books in the order they were written, or in the order they fall in the narrative?”

The other good news is nobody needs to know or care in what order I wrote the books. Even if you weren’t marking your scorecard at home, you’re off the hook. The pop quiz has been canceled.

I mentioned, in an earlier update, my belief that it’s probably better to write a series in order. If the above paragraphs don’t illustrate why, nothing will. Every time I want to talk about this project, I feel like I need to make an illustrative chart. Graph paper isn’t on any lists of writing supplies.

Anyhow, I feel pretty good about being able to close out the story with all the pieces fitting into place. I feel pretty bad about what comes after that. Writing a 1200-page story in four self-contained parts shouldn’t be the easy part. I keep telling myself that like it’s going to become the truth.

False.

Writing a 1200-page yada, yada, yada, is the easy part. This makes me a little sad because there’s a part of me that feels like it should be an accomplishment. There’s a part of me that feels like pizza shouldn’t be cooked on a conveyor belt, too, and that part is also often disappointed.

For now, I still have nearly half a book to write, so I guess I’ll try to enjoy what’s left of my breezy fun time.

 

Last of the Good Proctololgists – flash fiction

/ Scott Nagele / 9 Comments

Sheila found her husband sitting at the table on the back patio. His face was ashen and he stared off into space. His mouth hung open a bit. His iPhone sat face down on the table.

“What’s the matter, Mike?” she asked. “You look like somebody died.”

“Worse,” he said without taking his eyes off the space before him. “Somebody retired.”

“That’s worse than death?”

He gave a little shrug. “Maybe not worse, but just as bad.”

Sharon sat down across the table from him. “I see. Was it expected or did it come out of the blue?”

“Came out of the blue, to me anyway.” Mike’s eyes fell toward his phone. “I called to make my colonoscopy appointment today. They told me Dr. Mullens retired.”

Sheila let out an exaggerated breath. “He’s probably not a day over 75 either. I can’t believe he would do this to you.”

Mike nodded his head ruefully. “I know. Left me in a pretty big lurch.”

Sheila leaned forward. “Mike, honey, I’m sure there are other proctologists in town.”

“There are,” Mike replied. “I checked. There are exactly three other proctologists in town, and not one of ‘em worth a damn.”

“How do you know that?”

He stared at his phone. “I looked them up online. Horrible reviews all around. Not a one of ‘em rates more than two and half stars.”

Sheila sighed. “Some days I regret buying you that smart phone. The kids tried to tell me you’d do better with a Jitterbug.”

“Well, maybe I’ll just quit the colonoscopies. At a certain age, what does it matter anymore? Something’s bound to take you out soon anyhow.”

“Mike, you’re 55. It’s a little soon to surrender to old age. You’ve got to get the exam; they found three polyps last time and you have the gene in your family.”

Mike made a muted motion of throwing his arms up. “I don’t know how I can get it done now, with Mullens abandoning me. It’s not like we’re in New York City or someplace, where they got a proctologist on every corner. We got three, and two of ‘em almost killed somebody, according to the accounts I read.”

Sheila picked up his phone and began tapping on the screen.

“What are you doing?” Mike asked.

“Looking up flights to New York.”

Mike reached out and swiped the phone from her. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not riding a plane to my colonoscopy.”

Sheila tilted her head a little. “Then you got to go to one of them here.”

“But they’re butchers! If I’m gonna die from medical malpractice, I want it to be during brain surgery or something. I don’t want to go from an ass wound.”

“Well, what about the one who didn’t almost kill somebody?”

“Has a horrible bedside manner. He’s callous and rude to patients.”

Sheila pursed her lips. “So, he’s a real asshole?”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds like the perfect guy for the job.”

 

 

Why you shouldn’t write a novel series backward

/ Scott Nagele / 2 Comments

For starters, you probably shouldn’t write a single novel backward. Novels are kind of long for that sort of jiggery-pokery. Short stories are fine. I’m all for writing them backward. They are small enough to see from all angles in your mind. A novel series is like a train of trailers hitched behind a truck – tricky to drive backward.

I’ve documented how I got in the awkward spot of writing a series backward, or at least from the inside out, in previous posts. Here’s the back story for those who missed them.

I had a novel that was too long, so I decided to divide it into two books. This seemed like a good idea for a while, until it became clear that my two books would have to be three.  The third book would need to consist of a bulk of new storytelling in between the other two. At the time of my last update, I had finished drafts of the two outside books and was staring at the daunting prospect of building a bridge book that would fit together with the books on either end.

The whole story:    Update1    Update2    Update3

Now that I’ve got the support beams in place, to the tune of about 130 pages of new middle, I’m staring at the prospect (and you may have guessed this if you read the previous updates) of splitting the middle book in two, giving me a total of four books.

This is not what I wanted, and it’s possible that I may be able to hold it to three, but with each passing chapter, four becomes more likely. After 130 pages, I still have lots of ground to cover. If I could do it in another 130, that would wrap things up in three books. I begin to doubt I can.

Make sure the bridge is finished before you drive your series backward over it.

Why is four books bad? In a perfect world, it’s not. But in a perfect world, I would be writing these books in order. In a perfect world, I might even have the resources of a publishing company behind me.

From the writing standpoint, four books is no problem. As I progress, my confidence in my ability to tie four books together into a viable series grows. I can tell the story.

The headache comes after the writing. Taking a single novel from manuscript to book is a difficult task for an independent author. By the time I am done with all my patchwork writing, I could have four books to shepherd through that journey. Because I am not writing them chronologically, they must all be written before any one of them is finished.

Arranging for editing, covers, layout, etc. of four books in quick succession is crazy daunting. True, I would have to eventually do all that, even if I wrote them in order, but in that case the production pieces would be more staggered, with writing time in between.

I know it amounts to the same thing in the end, but it looks like a huge wall to get beyond, rather than four separate, manageable walls.

Nevertheless, I’m the one who put this train into reverse gear, so I ‘m the one who has to bear down and figure out how to keep it on the tracks.

Machines are Patient – flash fiction

/ Scott Nagele / 2 Comments

The engineer tapped his power transmitter, causing lights to come on for the first time in a thousand years. “Welcome to the last outpost of human civilization on Earth,” he told his companions.

“What is this place?” the reconnaissance party commander asked.

“It’s an underground control bunker,” the fleet historian answered. “It controlled all the nuclear missiles for this alliance. At the outbreak of war, the other alliance struck first. For some reason, still unknown, this alliance never fired its missiles back. We suspected it was because their command and control was knocked out. But as you can see, this facility’s only blemish is a thousand years of dust.”

“What they didn’t realize was that it would only take one side’s bombs to make Earth uninhabitable for centuries,” the engineer added.

The men considered the control center, with its ancient machines shrouded in a pristine layer of dust. “It’s a miracle we were able to get a foothold on Mars before the End War,” the engineer volunteered. “Otherwise this would be the last symbol of humanity left in the universe.”

“It’d be a sorry grave site for human civilization,” the historian said.

“We’re back to stay, now,” the commander assured them. “The surface has regenerated into a paradise. It has all the resources we were running out of on Mars and so many more. It was a good decision by the Council to bring everyone back.”

The men walked among the rows of machines that hadn’t seen light or life in centuries. The commander stopped short. “Look here,” he exclaimed, “there’s a light blinking on this machine.”

The others joined him. The engineer dusted off the console. “I believe that’s a printer,” he said.

“Exactly,” the historian agreed. “They used it to write onto a material called paper.” He pointed to a row of file cabinets. “Those closets are probably full of writing on paper. It was very inefficient.”

“Look, the screen is glowing.” The commander pointed to the small screen on the printer console. “It says something: ‘Paper jam in feeder tray.’ What’s a feeder tray?”

“It’s giving little picture instructions,” the engineer noticed. “The feeder tray must be this thing.” He pulled out the tray as the picture instructed.

“One of the papers is in crooked,” the historian said.

The engineer removed the flawed paper. The picture told him to close the tray, so he did. “It says, ‘Press OK button’, oh, I see it.” He pressed the button.

The men jumped backward as the printer sprang to life. It spit out printed sheets of paper on top of the ones caked in dust.

At last the printer stopped. They heard its motor ebb into silence. The historian picked up the topmost paper. All three examined it. “It looks like a list of coordinates of some sort,” the engineer declared. At the bottom of the page were the words, “End Report.”

The commander tapped the engineer on the shoulder. He pointed to a nearby machine. “Hey, is that other screen lit up under all that dust?”

“Let’s see.” The engineer wiped away the dust from the monitor. Words flashed on the screen. All three stared at the monitor as the engineer read aloud: “Target report printed successfully. Launch sequence initiated.”