{"id":28768,"date":"2015-04-16T06:30:15","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T18:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=28768"},"modified":"2015-04-14T11:07:57","modified_gmt":"2015-04-13T23:07:57","slug":"the-hazards-of-writing-big-books-or-more-stuff-wot-i-do-as-a-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/04\/16\/the-hazards-of-writing-big-books-or-more-stuff-wot-i-do-as-a-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hazards Of Writing Big Books — Or More Stuff Wot I Do As A Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Yesterday I talked about sketching maps of “what’s happening” in a geographic sense with the story and constantly checking and rechecking timelines.<\/p>\n

Constantly checking and rechecking is a bit of a theme, however, because one of the hazards of a big manuscript and a large cast of characters is that you run the risk of repeating yourself. AKA the moment when you think, “Haven’t I read this before?”<\/p>\n

Examples of this can include having your fight scenes unfold and\/or resolve in a certain way, or an adept using the same magical jiggery-pokery to resolve an issue. Partly this is driven by practical constraints. For example, given a certain range (era) of armor and weapons, there will be limitations on the possible\/plausible means of injury and death, putting one together with the other. Similarly, the limitations built into a magic system may also push the protagonist in certain directions, problem resolution-wise.<\/p>\n

As the author, however, my job is to check over those scenes and details to try and ensure that both I and my characters aren’t doing the same thing multiple times—unless, of course, the story I’m telling turns out to be a version of groundhog day, in which case it’s game on for repetition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I talked about sketching maps of “what’s happening” in a geographic sense with the story and constantly checking and rechecking timelines. Constantly checking and rechecking is a bit of a theme, however, because one of the hazards of a big manuscript and a large cast of characters is that you run the risk of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28768"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28773,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28768\/revisions\/28773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}