After multiple false starts, the braid is well on its way…and it gets easier as it goes along.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It would have been nice to be here a month ago…no, two months ago…but all the braids back then tangled into impenetrable knots.\u00a0\u00a0 And all because I kept starting at the wrong point.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you mistake the beginning,\u00a0 nothing else fits.<\/p>\n
You would think, after twenty-five previous books and more stories than that, I would have this beginning thing down.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But no.\u00a0 Experience does not prevent me from making elementary mistakes.\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, it can generate mistakes.\u00a0\u00a0 I knew months ago that the beginning I had then wasn’t the right beginning.\u00a0\u00a0 But I thought I knew that the real beginning of must be chronologically later<\/em>.<\/p>\n Usually it is, when a beginning is misplaced.\u00a0\u00a0 Usually writers–including me–start too early, chronologically…in the past history of the story, not where the story itself starts.\u00a0\u00a0 So usually, when a story has sort of floppy beginning, it makes sense to look beyond the beginning and find the place where the story firms up, gains momentum–where the trouble starts, where the important question is asked, when the first plot-relevant decision is made.\u00a0\u00a0 It may be half a chapter or five chapters on down the road.<\/p>\n But not always.\u00a0\u00a0 And (hindsight tells me) never when a scene has been stuck in your head, and keeps playing in your head at night before you go to sleep.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If that happens, do NOT tell yourself that the scene can’t fit because (in a group of books) it came before what happened at the end of the previous book and ignore it and try to start the book somewhere else.<\/p>\n The real beginning of Crown of Renewal<\/em> starts before the end of Limits of Power<\/em> because it has to.\u00a0\u00a0 Because this time there’s a spiral progression, so that following the way from Oath of Fealty<\/em> to Crown of Renewal<\/em> means that you are always in some odd relation to a straight line of chronology drawn vertically on the side of the cylinder.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So the real beginning is now in the book, and the real endings are now in the book, and most of the space between those is now full of chapters, in the right order.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The gaps are annoying, but being filled .<\/p>\n I cannot thank you all enough for taking over the job of amusing yourselves in this space while I rattle the keyboard getting those gaps filled.\u00a0\u00a0 You are wonderful guests and–when I snatch a little down time to read what you’re doing with the children and the extras and so on,\u00a0 I’m delighted.<\/p>\n And now…back to the current gap being filled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After multiple false starts, the braid is well on its way…and it gets easier as it goes along.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It would have been nice to be here a month ago…no, two months ago…but all the braids back then tangled into impenetrable knots.\u00a0\u00a0 And all because I kept starting at the wrong point.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you mistake the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,100],"tags":[62,11,20],"class_list":["post-1843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft","category-crown-of-renewal","tag-craft-of-writing","tag-mistakes","tag-progress-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1843"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1845,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions\/1845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}