12/15/24
Hey, y'all!
No major updates today. I took it easy after yesterday's post. Better to say, I forced msyelf to take it easy. I'm not regretting it. Now I've really dug deep today. (But I told myself that was okay!)
For today, I'd like to write something short, so I'll dicuss my goals for each book. As my mind has started moving towards my third book, it's easy now to look back and see the major steps I've taken to improve my writing between each novel.
Foundations was focused on chekhov's gun. That is to say, everything that's seen or stated within a story will eventually have a use. I believe Foundations did this well. Everything that's mentioned in Foundations is used for that book. In Origins I stepped it up, now some things reference books to come, for the series as a whole. This expands the purpose of the story.
In Origins, I focused on making character interactions and personalities unique. As I just finished the book, I'm still rather critical of the outcome, but I believe characters feel more unique in Origins than in Foundations. (I'm not saying I aimed for life-like or perfect character writing, just saying I wanted differences in characters that couldn't be seen as well in my earlier writings.)
I recieved a comment a few weeks back that a reader couldn't tell who was narrating Foundations. Perhaps if the character's narrative was more specific, this wouldn't be such a major issue. Origins makes this easy by taking a first person perspective. The only scene described in third person feels different from the rest of the book. This helps set it apart and not blur any lines. (But I wont say everything's perfect either.)
My next book I want to focus on descriptions. This is a facet that's fallen by the wayside in my previous books, though I believe Origins stepped it up from Foundations. Most specifially here, I want to focus on objective descriptions. That means all things are viewed from the characters frame of reference. For example, Ai Yuki would compare things to what she knows already. Her world view has been built under the reference of the Lower Strata and the Society. She would compare a lot of things to these major facets of her life. (This means I need to understand my character's backstory well.)
What will come after that? Hard to say. I just started writing Origins II. I'd like to say each thing I learn will be present in the next book and improved as well. But there's a lot of parts to writing a good novel. I'm not trying to write five good novels and call it a day. I'm trying to write continually, building a bigger and better world with each book. As such, Rome won't be built in a day.
Each story should work to grow my writing abilities and shine more light on the world. I'm trying my best to make everything good. One bad story could ruin everything, but an effort to change and improve will hopefully push me in the right direction. My books aren't meant to work as a solo act, though I'd love if they can stand on their own as well.
This is the current state of things. I hope these efforts are clear, or better yet, no one even notices. The best work goes unnoticed.
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