It’s been another big week for my current work-in-progress, Samarkand. Characters are taking on a life of their own, the plot is unfolding before my eyes, and at long last a long-held dream is being realized. It’s more than just an idea now: this is a story, the characters no longer notes, but people, and I for the first time since writing Wide Horizon I find myself consumed by a story, immersed this time in a story far less fanciful and much more gritty and real.
On that note, let’s talk about…
Samarkand
I took a day off from the story today, but mostly to gather myself for what’s to come: the penultimate chapter of the first phase of the story. While I know writing the next chapter will be exhausting, I’m usually pretty good with action sequences. I was far more worried going into the previous chapter, and as I wrapped that one up yesterday, I dare say the hard work on this portion of the story is done.
The last chapter, Correction, was the fourth chapter of phase one (and the novel itself), and while it may have lacked any action, it was a vital bridge chapter, rich in character development and dialogue. I will freely admit that, upon retrospect, I was nervous heading into it mainly because I still hadn’t fully developed the characters that make up the Susan Constant‘s crew. Luckily, a lot of things clicked into place while I was writing, and I feel even better about everything now.
As I had hoped, placing the characters into conversations with one another really helped me to flesh them out; to make the leap from generic characters with basic personalities into distinct individuals with their own lives, their own voices, and their own ways of approaching any given situation. The chapter also helped me to finalize the last bits of the layout of the Susan Constant, leaving me with a very clear vision of what the ship looks like and how it operates.
Tomorrow I will begin the next chapter, Gravity. Though I’m not yet certain, I believe this will be the final chapter of phase one, and if that’s so I will be stepping back from active writing on the story for a few days, possibly up to a week.
For those unfamiliar with my process, when I’m writing a novel I progress slowly, which is intentional. After each chapter I put things aside until the following day, at which point I make revisions (I’ve found that revising a chapter immediately after, or even sometime the same day, is generally unproductive). I usually take several days after every three to five chapters (unless doing so would risk disrupting the flow), and every part (or phase, in this case) of the book, I take a week off and go through everything. Each time, I read through what I have so far and make revisions, so as to maintain continuity.
In this instance, I’ve just been plowing through phase one. I’ve been loath to stop, mostly because I’ve finally hit my stride and don’t want to risk slowing down. But this first revision will be both extensive and important. Suffice to say I have a much, much better feel for the story now than I did even a couple chapters ago. As such, I’ve no doubt that what I’ve written thus far will change considerably. On my first pass, I kept reminding myself that the important thing was to get everything down: to start telling the story, establish a flow. In that, I feel I succeeded. Now, the next step will be to impart what I’ve learned since then into the earlier chapters, as well as form a synthesis with the original material, which I largely set aside. I feel there’s still value to what I’d originally written a few years ago, but when I resumed writing, I felt it wise to set everything aside and start again from scratch. And, I would argue, that approach paid off.
Once phase one is revised, the next step will be phase two. The first few chapters have already been written, though character interactions will likely change significantly. However, the revisions to those chapters will likely be minimal, which means it won’t be long until I get to the meat of phase two, in which several of the colonists will finally set foot on the distant planet they’ll call home. And that will be fun.
At this point, as I’ve said, the story has been consuming my thoughts, and each day I’m looking further and further ahead, seeing how things will progress. Lately, I’ve been toying around with the idea of introducing another spacecraft near the end of the story, but that’s an idea for a later date. I must remained focused on the here and now. That approach has worked out very well so far. – MK
Michael T. Kuester 
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