Former Ramblings of an Insane, Lesbian, Book Writing Crip
Well, I just went over 100,000 words for this WIP. But I’m not at The End yet. So I moved my goal to 115,000 and am still writing.
Today is my self-imposed deadline to get it finished. I don’t think I will reach The End today but that’s fine. I am more certain now how I will get there and it is just a matter of writing it out.
I am barely 7000 words from my goal. Yet, there it sits. I know, now, I think, maybe, where the end will happen. It will take many more words than those 7000 and that’s just fine. A lot from the beginning will face the chopping block and come out the loser.
The end will be the conclusion of the cliffhanger I mentioned earlier. It will end with survival but with the big “Now What?” question hanging. Just enough to entice the reader to be interested in Book Two but not so much that Elena will hurt me.
I’ve not written much in the past few days. I just feel as if my time is up and I still have a lot to say. Annoying.
Cliffhanger, n. – An episode that ends in suspense
Since I know that Simple Sarah is Book One, and as I near The End, I am wondering where is the best place to end it. I can end it with a big cliffhanger, leaving the reader clawing my email box with demands for the next book. Or I can end it on a good note, leaving the reader satisfied yet calmly wanting to know happens next.
Personally, I hate it when a book ends with a huge bang and there be tough questions left unanswered. I say bad things about the author. Really bad things about their parents, too.
But now, as an author, I understand why sometimes it is a good thing. In terms of sequels, you want something (called a hook) that will make the reader want the next book. Some say that a good cliffhanger leaves some questions unanswered as applies to that book/episode, not a preview to the next. Others say cliffhangers in books are not good because, unlike the old radio shows or regular films in the movies, the next book will be at least 6 months away.
Most agree that a cliffhanger can be good (they were talking mostly about television series’ end of season) but most fail miserably in the first episode of the next season. Three sites that I looked at all mention the season ending in Star Trek: Next Generation when Riker tells Worf to fire at the Borg ship that has Picard as Lucotus. The season ended with that word: fire. Then the first episode is a total dud. Nothing happens with that shot, literally. All that mentioned this were rather pissed about it. And I agree.
It isn’t just the cliffhanger itself that can be bad, but the strength of it and its follow through. Riker saying Fire was heavy. He was ordering the crew to attack a vessel on which their own Captain was aboard. We watch Eureka on the Sci-Fi channel (I refuse to spell it the “new” way). One season ended with Sheriff Carter being fired. Big ending and he kinda deserved it. We spent the off season wondering how they would get him back. The cliffhanger was enough for us to look forward to the next season, yes, but it wasn’t OMG!! worthy. And when the season started again, they didn’t resolve his employment status that first episode. I think it wasn’t until the second one. The follow through was great. Kept the suspense.
Perhaps that is how I will end Simple Sarah. On a tense note but with few questions left unanswered. And that means that I must get to writing the next book! Oy.
Simple Sarah is now over 70K words! I want it to get to no less than 100K before I say “The End”.
It is progressing nicely. Editing will be easy-ish I think. This is a book I have written and rewritten so many times a’ready, ya know?
Thing is, at 70K, I am not very far into the book, story wise. There’s still a lot to go. I am now rethinking of where the stopping point will be. Since it is Book One, I am wanting to end it nicely but at a spot where folks will want to figure out what will happen next.
I know the graph on the side says “Trilogy” but I am thinking it will be only two books. The middle one was to be Lea’s story in the form of storytelling as they travel along. But it’s a bad idea. Instead, it may wind up being just two books with Lea’s story standing on its own. I will have to advise readers of the chronological order vs order it should be read.
Details! The devil is in ’em. And I hate it.
During editing, I will be working on the synopsis. I hate synopsiseseses, too. If I had to do a synopsis now, it would be far too long and not say much but say everything. And I have to do it right because synopsises tend to be what is put on the back of the book to entice the reader to fork over nearly $17.
Almost two years ago, Lorna and I were outside working in the yard when she saw this fairly large bird land in our bamboo. I grabbed my camera and got several decent images of it. We have no clue what it was. We were making it rather nervous so we left it alone and went inside. An hour later, it was gone.
Because I have so many pictures of it, I’m doing the “read more” thing so the page doesn’t take long to load for those who don’t want to see them. Not that it would hurt my feelings any. Well, maybe just a little.
We had another snow the other day and in the midst of it, I looked out and the ground was slowly being covered by red-wing blackbirds. As in tons of the things.
Some of those in the photo are grackles and, when I looked at some other, blurry images, there were some cowbirds in there, too. We had to put plastic up on the inside of my window which is why the images are so weird. With both plastic and glass, they are far from perfect.
By the end of the day, I was seeing more and more of them. With one group, I stopped counting at 30. When Lorna came home, the birds weren’t around and I was about to tell her about them. But she came in saying “Holy cow! What a racket outside! The pecan tree is covered in birds!” Later that afternoon, the biggest amount I had seen so far blanketed the ground from one tree to the next. I didn’t bother trying to count but if the other group was at least 30, then this had to be nearly a hundred. Lorna had scattered a whole bunch of sunflower seeds over the area so they’d not overcrowd each other.
They’ve not left yet. I see them more in the afternoons, though. Lorna thinks it is their stocking up for the night.
We are right on the cusp of their year-round area and their summer breeding area. With it being almost completely males (today I think I saw the first few females) it means they are migrating through. They travel in flocks with grackles and, it seems, cowbirds. As I type this, they’re congregating again only to all disappear in a flash of black and red. They are certainly nervous!