Are you reading the latest chapters as well as catching up on older ones? I’m curious about what you know/don’t know about what’s coming up!
And yes, I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the squad that had to go back into that house.
When I wrote this storyline, in the back of my mind I had a real news story about a boa constrictor that escaped from a neighbour’s flat and got into the neighbour’s, killing the occupants. That’s lingered in my brain as a slightly irrational fear.
I admit I've been saving the latest chapters to read and haven't been reading them in detail, although in the course of saving them I've seen bits, so I know generally that, if I remember right, the election goes bad, portal travel is closed off, and the SDC gets into big trouble (the fan is impacted by excrement, I think one memorable subtitle had it) but I don't know specifics, I.e., I don't know where Lola, Clarke, Holland/Hobb, Robin, Kaminski/Chakraborty, and/or Miller are at this point and how they're doing.
Once in college I had a job at UPS unloading boxes, and in one container near mine a large snake had somehow gotten loose and was just sitting there. No one was hurt or anything: they called the hazmat people and dealt with it: but I still remember my coworker moving back very VERY fast. I don't blame him: I would've moved too.
I had to stop in the middle of the read to specifically note the second and third paragraphs, which are a beautiful character assessment of Clarke and a stunning mini-treatese on the nature of bias and trying to overcome it. Ok, scrolling back to the top, now...
*reading*
And we're back!
Clarke is gonna need a new partner, soon enough - and that's a new character in SDC, which opens up a lot of possibilities. Of course this also means Lola chapters will bring in more Palinor, which also opens up possibilities. It's very "Act II" in that you're really shaking up the status quo here and are ready to really start twisting your tapestry.
Speaking of twists, you noted, "There’s a fair bit of storytelling shortcutting going on...," and it's something I've been semi-conciously mulling over with this book (this week in contrast to the Dresden Files, which I am in the midst of re-reading to catch up to the two novels and one novella I haven't read yet). Structurally, you do skip over a lot of nuts and bolts storytelling. It does work. Since Dresden is urban/Pl fantasy, there's some points of comparison - with the main difference being Butcher always stays in Dresden's POV (except a few short stories, but those are also single-viewpoint). But that's the significant difference.
In a Dresden book this sub arc would be a lot longer - we'd stay with Dresden beginning to end and see every step... Sitting in hospital overnight with Nisha, the battle to take down the dopur, the search of the apartment, and the pet shop owner would absolutely be eaten by a Palinor beastie, cuz Butcher loves his irony. He'd also spend 50-to-100 pages on it all.
It's your multiple viewpoints that are holding it all together and allowing you to skip forward so much. Clarke and Styles are Detectives. We can accept that a different group - animal control or SWAT (Police Special Ops in the UK, correct?) handles the dopur off-page, and just go with the jump into the end of the investigation.
Ending with an exciting chase would have been fun, but your instincts took you the right way. We get some nice anticlimax in the pub, more illuminating character bits, and then... "Did Holland bring down the government?" That is a damn good "Oh, shit!" moment. SDC might have pissed off some very powerful people.
Makes it all the more likely the next SDC Detective will be a "political hire..." Maybe another fox in the henhouse?
Fortunately, SDC is no henhouse - it's a kennel. Hounds can take down a fox.
(I am unreasonably happy with myself for the prior paragraph.)
On video games and narrative structure, AND the structure of Triverse: part of my conscious analysis is related to my own game narratives. Over six years (off and on as we rotate games) and three campaigns I've generated over 400 pages of first-draft narrative, and am toying with reworking the entire shebang (most heavily drawing from the "Vert Valliant" campaign) into a single coherent narrative. There's a lot to parse through - several dozen characters, lots of world building events, having to pare away un-needed events (game events generated specifically to allow PC advancement which don't impact on main plot points can largely be discarded), while expanding roles that were NPC events happening off-screen are creating lots of notes and outlines. Here, changing viewpoints are going to allow me to skip over events. There will be changes in chapter format between classical "narrative" structures to characters expressing themselves via letters, to proclamations, maps, and charts. And, yeah, Triverse is a structural influence. So, take that, Simon!
Side note - Laura's "Moridin," was conceived by her as a woman in disguise, which she dropped from her play as a result of how I wrote Moridin as being six-foot-six with a rumbling basso voice and five-foot broadsword. Well, I'm returning Moridin to that concept. Moridin will now be six-foot-one and wear a scarf to "cover" the "horrible neck scar" which has reduced "his" voice to a "rasping whisper." Oh, and a five-foot broadsword. I already have the scene where another character discovers the deception, but Leon (who is gay) isn't telling anyone else... That'll teach Moridin to lock the door before sticking her entire torso into a barrel to wash up!
Thanks, glad that Clarke stuff worked for you! I've not tried to write a character like that before, and it's really exciting to poke at his inner thoughts. Triverse lets me play in subtleties that my previous books haven't really allowed, due to its core cast before fairly down-to-earth. That struggle of having an older man be aware of his biases, attempt to address them, but find it difficult every step of the way.
Definitely expect some political wangling coming up. Unintended consequences, and all that.
The pacing stuff you talk about is really interesting. I think if I was writing this more as A Novel, I'd probably indulge in more of that 'downtime'. The serial publishing nature encourages me to always be pushing forwards, though - which I think lends me stories a particular flavour.
It also makes me think of a critique I once read of the Star Wars films, which is that seeing a spaceship land or take off is a bit like seeing a car drive into a parking lot. In most films, the filmmakers don't show a car arriving and leaving the scene: it usually starts as the characters are getting out of the car to begin the ACTUAL scene. With the Star Wars films, you can assess how focused they are by the number of spaceship arrival/departure scenes. It's a fun and slightly silly observation, but from a pacing point of view it really stayed with me.
I think part of why the Clarke bits worked for me is my own mother, who was very open about that sort of thing herself. In her case it was homosexuality, which can sum up as, "I don't get it, if I think to hard about how things would have to fit together, I'm a little grossed out by it, but it doesn't affect my life, it doesn't affect YOUR life, it only affects THEIR lives, and I'd rather people be happy in their lives, so I just don't think hard about it and let them be happy."
Mom was pretty cool.
Triverse pacing might have been different if written as "the NOVEL," but, since I blazed through almost 50 chapters in a row when getting caught up, I can say that the slightly fragmented nature of the stories do work both when reading in a serialized nature and when reading through things contiguously. It also helps it's "TALES" (plural) "from the Triverse." Up front that implies a series of connected short stories and vignettes connected via settings, characters and themes. Good thing you nailed down that title!
Star Wars pacing: I made the same observation the second time I watched EP III - which I wasn't enjoying, so was counting how many scenes had spaceships landing/taking off and how long the shots were. Almost 10 minutes of that film is "parking cars." If I did stand up comedy, I'd have had a routine comparing "Star Wars" to "Law and Order." Roughly like:
Law and Order: "We gotta go to the crime scene!" Dun-DUNH! "Here we are at the crime scene!"
Law and Order with Star Wars pacing: "We gotta go to the crime scene!" *mimes driving, sings* Dah-daaaah Daaaaaah dah-dah-daaaah dah. Dah-daaaah dah dah-dah-dah-da-da-Daaaaaah! Da-d-daaah d-dah d-dah d-DAAAAAH Dah dah-d-d-daaah da-d-da da d-DAAAAAAH! *mimes parking brake* "Here we are at the crime scene! A wretched hive of scum and villainy."
*Edit* repeated above joke to Laura. She just have me a blank look and walked out of the rook halfway through the singing. Glad wifey appreciates my humor!
Also, it wouldn't even be 'exciting driving'. Half of it would be reversing out of the parking space, fiddling with the gears, getting the curve of the exit from the parking lot wrong and having to reverse a bit...
Also, you just reminded me of the pain of thinking of titles for these things. ugh! But, yes, 'Tales from the Triverse' seems to be working so far. :)
Yeah, when I did the full routine for Laura it involved miming reversing in, dealing with seat belts, the whole shebang... Full commitment to the bit and she didn't appreciate it. It slayed in 2004.
Titles and logos are HARD to nail down. "Tales from the Triverse" just happens to be the right title for this effort. If I had to critique any of your titles, it would be "No Adults Allowed," which sounds more like a fun, contemporary adventure than a dystopian book with a positive message - which is why I gave the input I gave on the cover design.
Now "A Day of Faces..." that's a great title. Mysterious and evocative as all hell.
Just imagining the squad taking the dopur down offscreen...I imagine a lot of the apartment was broken up along the way.
I wonder if Lola would've still gone had she known about the early election and everything that happens after? I suppose we'll never know...
Are you reading the latest chapters as well as catching up on older ones? I’m curious about what you know/don’t know about what’s coming up!
And yes, I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the squad that had to go back into that house.
When I wrote this storyline, in the back of my mind I had a real news story about a boa constrictor that escaped from a neighbour’s flat and got into the neighbour’s, killing the occupants. That’s lingered in my brain as a slightly irrational fear.
I admit I've been saving the latest chapters to read and haven't been reading them in detail, although in the course of saving them I've seen bits, so I know generally that, if I remember right, the election goes bad, portal travel is closed off, and the SDC gets into big trouble (the fan is impacted by excrement, I think one memorable subtitle had it) but I don't know specifics, I.e., I don't know where Lola, Clarke, Holland/Hobb, Robin, Kaminski/Chakraborty, and/or Miller are at this point and how they're doing.
Once in college I had a job at UPS unloading boxes, and in one container near mine a large snake had somehow gotten loose and was just sitting there. No one was hurt or anything: they called the hazmat people and dealt with it: but I still remember my coworker moving back very VERY fast. I don't blame him: I would've moved too.
I had to stop in the middle of the read to specifically note the second and third paragraphs, which are a beautiful character assessment of Clarke and a stunning mini-treatese on the nature of bias and trying to overcome it. Ok, scrolling back to the top, now...
*reading*
And we're back!
Clarke is gonna need a new partner, soon enough - and that's a new character in SDC, which opens up a lot of possibilities. Of course this also means Lola chapters will bring in more Palinor, which also opens up possibilities. It's very "Act II" in that you're really shaking up the status quo here and are ready to really start twisting your tapestry.
Speaking of twists, you noted, "There’s a fair bit of storytelling shortcutting going on...," and it's something I've been semi-conciously mulling over with this book (this week in contrast to the Dresden Files, which I am in the midst of re-reading to catch up to the two novels and one novella I haven't read yet). Structurally, you do skip over a lot of nuts and bolts storytelling. It does work. Since Dresden is urban/Pl fantasy, there's some points of comparison - with the main difference being Butcher always stays in Dresden's POV (except a few short stories, but those are also single-viewpoint). But that's the significant difference.
In a Dresden book this sub arc would be a lot longer - we'd stay with Dresden beginning to end and see every step... Sitting in hospital overnight with Nisha, the battle to take down the dopur, the search of the apartment, and the pet shop owner would absolutely be eaten by a Palinor beastie, cuz Butcher loves his irony. He'd also spend 50-to-100 pages on it all.
It's your multiple viewpoints that are holding it all together and allowing you to skip forward so much. Clarke and Styles are Detectives. We can accept that a different group - animal control or SWAT (Police Special Ops in the UK, correct?) handles the dopur off-page, and just go with the jump into the end of the investigation.
Ending with an exciting chase would have been fun, but your instincts took you the right way. We get some nice anticlimax in the pub, more illuminating character bits, and then... "Did Holland bring down the government?" That is a damn good "Oh, shit!" moment. SDC might have pissed off some very powerful people.
Makes it all the more likely the next SDC Detective will be a "political hire..." Maybe another fox in the henhouse?
Fortunately, SDC is no henhouse - it's a kennel. Hounds can take down a fox.
(I am unreasonably happy with myself for the prior paragraph.)
On video games and narrative structure, AND the structure of Triverse: part of my conscious analysis is related to my own game narratives. Over six years (off and on as we rotate games) and three campaigns I've generated over 400 pages of first-draft narrative, and am toying with reworking the entire shebang (most heavily drawing from the "Vert Valliant" campaign) into a single coherent narrative. There's a lot to parse through - several dozen characters, lots of world building events, having to pare away un-needed events (game events generated specifically to allow PC advancement which don't impact on main plot points can largely be discarded), while expanding roles that were NPC events happening off-screen are creating lots of notes and outlines. Here, changing viewpoints are going to allow me to skip over events. There will be changes in chapter format between classical "narrative" structures to characters expressing themselves via letters, to proclamations, maps, and charts. And, yeah, Triverse is a structural influence. So, take that, Simon!
Side note - Laura's "Moridin," was conceived by her as a woman in disguise, which she dropped from her play as a result of how I wrote Moridin as being six-foot-six with a rumbling basso voice and five-foot broadsword. Well, I'm returning Moridin to that concept. Moridin will now be six-foot-one and wear a scarf to "cover" the "horrible neck scar" which has reduced "his" voice to a "rasping whisper." Oh, and a five-foot broadsword. I already have the scene where another character discovers the deception, but Leon (who is gay) isn't telling anyone else... That'll teach Moridin to lock the door before sticking her entire torso into a barrel to wash up!
Thanks, glad that Clarke stuff worked for you! I've not tried to write a character like that before, and it's really exciting to poke at his inner thoughts. Triverse lets me play in subtleties that my previous books haven't really allowed, due to its core cast before fairly down-to-earth. That struggle of having an older man be aware of his biases, attempt to address them, but find it difficult every step of the way.
Definitely expect some political wangling coming up. Unintended consequences, and all that.
The pacing stuff you talk about is really interesting. I think if I was writing this more as A Novel, I'd probably indulge in more of that 'downtime'. The serial publishing nature encourages me to always be pushing forwards, though - which I think lends me stories a particular flavour.
It also makes me think of a critique I once read of the Star Wars films, which is that seeing a spaceship land or take off is a bit like seeing a car drive into a parking lot. In most films, the filmmakers don't show a car arriving and leaving the scene: it usually starts as the characters are getting out of the car to begin the ACTUAL scene. With the Star Wars films, you can assess how focused they are by the number of spaceship arrival/departure scenes. It's a fun and slightly silly observation, but from a pacing point of view it really stayed with me.
I think part of why the Clarke bits worked for me is my own mother, who was very open about that sort of thing herself. In her case it was homosexuality, which can sum up as, "I don't get it, if I think to hard about how things would have to fit together, I'm a little grossed out by it, but it doesn't affect my life, it doesn't affect YOUR life, it only affects THEIR lives, and I'd rather people be happy in their lives, so I just don't think hard about it and let them be happy."
Mom was pretty cool.
Triverse pacing might have been different if written as "the NOVEL," but, since I blazed through almost 50 chapters in a row when getting caught up, I can say that the slightly fragmented nature of the stories do work both when reading in a serialized nature and when reading through things contiguously. It also helps it's "TALES" (plural) "from the Triverse." Up front that implies a series of connected short stories and vignettes connected via settings, characters and themes. Good thing you nailed down that title!
Star Wars pacing: I made the same observation the second time I watched EP III - which I wasn't enjoying, so was counting how many scenes had spaceships landing/taking off and how long the shots were. Almost 10 minutes of that film is "parking cars." If I did stand up comedy, I'd have had a routine comparing "Star Wars" to "Law and Order." Roughly like:
Law and Order: "We gotta go to the crime scene!" Dun-DUNH! "Here we are at the crime scene!"
Law and Order with Star Wars pacing: "We gotta go to the crime scene!" *mimes driving, sings* Dah-daaaah Daaaaaah dah-dah-daaaah dah. Dah-daaaah dah dah-dah-dah-da-da-Daaaaaah! Da-d-daaah d-dah d-dah d-DAAAAAH Dah dah-d-d-daaah da-d-da da d-DAAAAAAH! *mimes parking brake* "Here we are at the crime scene! A wretched hive of scum and villainy."
*Edit* repeated above joke to Laura. She just have me a blank look and walked out of the rook halfway through the singing. Glad wifey appreciates my humor!
Also, it wouldn't even be 'exciting driving'. Half of it would be reversing out of the parking space, fiddling with the gears, getting the curve of the exit from the parking lot wrong and having to reverse a bit...
Also, you just reminded me of the pain of thinking of titles for these things. ugh! But, yes, 'Tales from the Triverse' seems to be working so far. :)
Yeah, when I did the full routine for Laura it involved miming reversing in, dealing with seat belts, the whole shebang... Full commitment to the bit and she didn't appreciate it. It slayed in 2004.
Titles and logos are HARD to nail down. "Tales from the Triverse" just happens to be the right title for this effort. If I had to critique any of your titles, it would be "No Adults Allowed," which sounds more like a fun, contemporary adventure than a dystopian book with a positive message - which is why I gave the input I gave on the cover design.
Now "A Day of Faces..." that's a great title. Mysterious and evocative as all hell.