![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a question and some writing blather
Feb. 13th, 2013 09:13 pmI'm hesitating over a timing issue on the upcoming chapters of Dust, so I thought I'd poll the crowd. Not that this is necessarily going to have any effect on the chapters in question, but I'm also curious.
What I have at the moment are three, probably four, chapters that take place immediately after each other. Initially it was supposed to be one, and then two, chapters, but as often happens, it grew in the telling. (It was also supposed to be three, but, ahahahaha, apparently it's jumping to four. On the bright side, this lets me build the tension and the sheer wrongness of the setting across multiple chapters; I always worry when I stuff things like that into one or two chapters that I'm not getting the vibe that I want across. And it is, actually, a Big Deal.) Normally I don't write chapters that end on cliffhangers or jump immediately from one scene to the next, partially because I have a number of different POVs and subplots and I don't want to stay with any one for more than, at most, two chapters. Also because, let's be honest, I can go a really long time between chapters and I'm mean enough as it is, so it's better for both me and the reader if I can end a chapter on a natural stopping point. But for various reasons, I have a four chapter arc where each chapter either follows (a) immediately on the heels of the previous chapter or (b) overlaps slightly. In total this arc will probably come out to around 35K.
Here is my problem: under normal circumstances, even for a multi-chapter arc, I would intersperse the arc chapters with chapters from the other subplots, and in fact, in my notes this is what's supposed to happen. (Yes, I finally broke down and started making notes for upcoming chapters. Given the fact that this arc was supposed to be one, maybe two chapters, that has clearly gone sailing out the window.) I did not count on the fact that I would have four chapters that immediately followed each other, which is problematic when the non-arc chapters (or, should I say, different arc chapters) take place days to a week apart. (And in at least one case the timing is crucial because two subplots are going to collide.) I'm sure I've read commercial fiction that does this before -- Stirling and GRRM spring to mind, but I'm not positive, and I don't have the books here with me to check how other authors do it.
So I'm curious: is it jarring, as a reader, to have that kind of timing issue in a story? Chapters that immediately follow each other interspersed with chapters that could be taking place at any time? Would it be more jarring to do that or to have one large 35K chunk of subplot in the middle/end of the story?
(For reference: Dust II is, as of now, 113,857 words, 10K of which is part of the 35K chunk. At a very, very rough estimate, not counting the arc chapters, there may be about 63K remaining of Dust after that. That is if everything goes as planned, as long as none of the planned chapters spin out into multiple arc-chapters, no interludes, with an estimate of 7K for each chapter, as long as I don't suddenly decide to add in new plots and new chapters (this is part of the reason this arc suddenly exploded, but not the only reason), as long as I don't cut any plots, etc. (That is nine chapters, not counting the four arc chapters. One of these, one, not the next one, is half-written. The others are at this moment only theoretical.) Dust I topped out at 148,191.)
For the sake of honesty: one of the arc chapters is up (Dust 31) and two of the arc chapters are complete; one is about to go into edits and one has just gone to beta. (POVs are a new OC, Edmund, and, for the one that hasn't been written yet, probably Elizar again, though it might be the new OC or Edmund.) There is a very good chance, though I'm not guaranteeing anything since I have two papers due in a month, that if I decide to put the arc up together, that I could for the first time in an age have three chapters of Dust up within the next few weeks. Which is extremely tempting for me as a writer, because alternately I end up sitting on them for who knows how long. (With my track record, up to a year, at which point I'll completely forget what I was hoping to do, sigh. Also I have a dissertation to write this summer, HELP.)
What I have at the moment are three, probably four, chapters that take place immediately after each other. Initially it was supposed to be one, and then two, chapters, but as often happens, it grew in the telling. (It was also supposed to be three, but, ahahahaha, apparently it's jumping to four. On the bright side, this lets me build the tension and the sheer wrongness of the setting across multiple chapters; I always worry when I stuff things like that into one or two chapters that I'm not getting the vibe that I want across. And it is, actually, a Big Deal.) Normally I don't write chapters that end on cliffhangers or jump immediately from one scene to the next, partially because I have a number of different POVs and subplots and I don't want to stay with any one for more than, at most, two chapters. Also because, let's be honest, I can go a really long time between chapters and I'm mean enough as it is, so it's better for both me and the reader if I can end a chapter on a natural stopping point. But for various reasons, I have a four chapter arc where each chapter either follows (a) immediately on the heels of the previous chapter or (b) overlaps slightly. In total this arc will probably come out to around 35K.
Here is my problem: under normal circumstances, even for a multi-chapter arc, I would intersperse the arc chapters with chapters from the other subplots, and in fact, in my notes this is what's supposed to happen. (Yes, I finally broke down and started making notes for upcoming chapters. Given the fact that this arc was supposed to be one, maybe two chapters, that has clearly gone sailing out the window.) I did not count on the fact that I would have four chapters that immediately followed each other, which is problematic when the non-arc chapters (or, should I say, different arc chapters) take place days to a week apart. (And in at least one case the timing is crucial because two subplots are going to collide.) I'm sure I've read commercial fiction that does this before -- Stirling and GRRM spring to mind, but I'm not positive, and I don't have the books here with me to check how other authors do it.
So I'm curious: is it jarring, as a reader, to have that kind of timing issue in a story? Chapters that immediately follow each other interspersed with chapters that could be taking place at any time? Would it be more jarring to do that or to have one large 35K chunk of subplot in the middle/end of the story?
(For reference: Dust II is, as of now, 113,857 words, 10K of which is part of the 35K chunk. At a very, very rough estimate, not counting the arc chapters, there may be about 63K remaining of Dust after that. That is if everything goes as planned, as long as none of the planned chapters spin out into multiple arc-chapters, no interludes, with an estimate of 7K for each chapter, as long as I don't suddenly decide to add in new plots and new chapters (this is part of the reason this arc suddenly exploded, but not the only reason), as long as I don't cut any plots, etc. (That is nine chapters, not counting the four arc chapters. One of these, one, not the next one, is half-written. The others are at this moment only theoretical.) Dust I topped out at 148,191.)
For the sake of honesty: one of the arc chapters is up (Dust 31) and two of the arc chapters are complete; one is about to go into edits and one has just gone to beta. (POVs are a new OC, Edmund, and, for the one that hasn't been written yet, probably Elizar again, though it might be the new OC or Edmund.) There is a very good chance, though I'm not guaranteeing anything since I have two papers due in a month, that if I decide to put the arc up together, that I could for the first time in an age have three chapters of Dust up within the next few weeks. Which is extremely tempting for me as a writer, because alternately I end up sitting on them for who knows how long. (With my track record, up to a year, at which point I'll completely forget what I was hoping to do, sigh. Also I have a dissertation to write this summer, HELP.)