Well, Miss Vivian Locke had gone back to her life of not dealing with exorcisms, divorces cases and whatnot. Back down into The Gills with it’s static rain and Cookie’s coffee. Mr. Cross is not what he might seem on the outside, but isn’t that always how it is?
I had fun writing Sunny Day Parasol Co., but I will readily admit that it went off in a direction I hadn’t anticipated when I started writing the story. In fact, I thought it had maybe 10,000 words and was solidly in the short story realm when I started. Turns out I was wrong at more than double that amount (~ 21,500 words, roughly 65 printed pages on A4 — for those who care about such things).
One of the factors that played a huge role in the length was the internal dialog common to noir; both in the occult or standard flavors. Haven’t never written in that style, it was always surprising when a final edit of an episode would go from 1000 words in the draft to my looking for ways to pare it down to <1500 words before calling it final. In fact, a few episodes just couldn’t be split or edited down (one was was well nigh on 2300 words before I trimmed to a more svelte 1800).
So much for my mantra of “an economy of words”. Noir seems to resist such things.
I enjoyed it, but I was ready to be done with it by the end. Sunny Day was the longest-running story I’ve written in a few years and I significantly changed my process while writing it. Other longish stories I have told (finished and unfinished) have gone above and beyond that count easily, but took a fifth of the time to get there.
“In-The-Past” me was 100% pantster-ing it, though. No looking back, no outlining, no nothing. Just hammering at the keyboard. This was different in that I would take a look into the next chapter, write some rough goals, go back to the current chapter, plan out some narrative “beats” that would carry me to that rough goal, look at the draft, and compare it to the goal, adjust goal or draft, rework things in the first episode to fit the next goals (old or revised), make goals for the following episode, set up beats for the middle episode, go back and check for continuity on the first episode, before writing the… ad nauseum.
Lots of back and forth. And then there was trying to keep in with the noir somewhat corny tone without repeating myself endlessly. At some point I had to go through and say, “Oh, wow, you said that same exact nerdy phrase already three times (or some variation thereof)”. Then I’d go back and find a different way to phrase it that caught the flavor of the passage, which often resulted in making that chapter longer.
A lot more editing work than I’ve employed in the past, in other words. It was good training in my mind, learning how to be an “on-call editor”, especially because I find the idea of serialized fiction so appealing.
But it is done now and I have already been looking to the next thing for a week and a half, maybe longer, my gothic western thingy: Vengeance, My Heart.
It is (so far) a story that is more in “my register”. A little dark, a little (eventually) violent, even if the violence is only hinted. Lots of morally grey characters and situationally grimdark — the world doesn’t take sides in conflicts. Wearing all white doesn’t mean you win at the end of the day. In fact, you might be dead by noon if you announce your affiliation as good/evil in that way.
It is a slow burn kind of thing, this story I’m working on. Most of it will be intended be read as stand-alone pieces. But, like X-Files, there is a larger thread moving through the serial. Hopefully, that adds to the discovery element for folks arriving late to have it encapsulated but opening up in a way that encourages “catching up” if a reader finds it compelling. Lots of thinking and noodling about this feature, believe me.
One thing I’ve struggled with as I think about length of posts (yes, buckets of brain sweat poured for this too): While I still think that some types of fiction work best online with 1200-1500 word sections, there are some types that resist that metric, as parts of the new series has been proving to me. Cutting off a narrative without a “hook” seems like bad manners and not all narratives develop “hooks” within 1500 words. While each episode is targeted for <5000 words, the splits for each post don’t fall naturally within those goal-posts. I expect it will vary a bit until I can get a sense of the matter within the writing itself.
In reading other serialized fiction online that I’ve read, there is the other extreme: posts of 500 words or so, also lacking a “hook”. I don’t know that is any better of an approach — it feels like wait staff in a restaurant taking away you plate when your food is half-eaten and you have your fork in midair, ready to grab another bite.
I’m sure I’ll eventually figure it out. Or just live with it. I’m probably being too OCD about the matter.
I’ll have to admit, I’m not sure I’m doing myself any favors by continuing to post longer stories on the site. Or fiction at all. Most of my readers discovered me via poetry. Maybe the runes. Maybe (unlikely) the little musical experiments I post on occasion. But, I don’t think that most people came here for the prose. And yet… that’s where my head is right now, for better or worse.
Thank you to everyone who endured my somewhat fantastic take on the noir genre. Apologies are in order to anyone who found flaws or errors within the tale or, if in my zeal to capture the era I ended up using unskilled language that didn’t resonate well with today’s value systems. If you enjoyed it and said so, thank you even more.
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