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So though I don’t do it often, I’m gonna discuss some writing things for a few. I have two large projects I am gonna try to run simultaneously starting in spring but they might also both have an early burst start in a few weeks. That’s what holidays you can’t seem to go anywhere for are all about, right? Having ideas of trips dashed and losing yourself in extra work.

Anyway!

It’s interesting to me here. I tend to write in small scenes of about 1000 words each. Sure there might be three or four of those mini scenes put together to make a real scene but I think in terms of the 1000 word chunk. Within every chunk things have to happen, they each have to push things forward and add to what came before as well as set up what happens next. I reduce every story to chunks of a grand of words and work upwards from there.

Moving it upwards starts to show the differences in the projects.

One is a 3 act structure. The thing is broken into three sections of sorta of equal size. The equal size doesn’t really matter, so much as the emotional ends and plot weights match up right. But 3 acts, while really well known and fairly simple to work with, are still juggling acts. Each act needs to complete, move and spread all at the same time.

The second project is larger, not being really a 3 act (though in some deep structure it is still the same shape as a 3 act just a lot looser in terms of how that affects structure), and deals with seven equal units of time, with each unit being a section of the project.

But to go back to the 1000 word chunk, the second project will take roughly 100 to 140 of them. Sure the first project will take 80 of them, or so, but there is a difference there. At least for my head. 80 chunks of that size for a straight 3 act structure is fairly easy. I can already see where they fit. But the other is a new super-structure for me to work in. Seven sections, each roughly 20,000 words (between 15 and 30 really) long. They are not all built the same, of course, because the underlying sub-structure will still be 3 act based, though it may work as a 5 act even better – so potential there too.

Still, on the other angle of looking at this, the seven sections are all the same structure-wise. They have to be at a core level, they only split and branch in happenings not in concept. The concept itself demands they all, on some levels, be the same.

So it’s just been interesting for me over here. I haven’t had to really get my hands dirty with structure like this for too long. I had to poke at Strange Angel for a while, but that was just 3 act with harder breaks, so it was a question of finding the right hard breaks (and to be fair I messed it up first pass and realized midway through the second story and then fixed it). But otherwise I’ve been doing short stories, which while they have their own structure, aren’t really as interesting as this is.

I can sit and mess with structure, tweaking it and finding the right angles to tell a story, for days on end if I’m not careful. If I change this pattern here, what does that do to the story itself? If I ensure that this section has to mirror one four over how will that reflect the plot, and show a bend where there is none, and do I want to show that bend or not?

This is, honestly, the stuff I think about at night, when the lights are out, before I sleep.