So I’ve written enough of Wizards now that it’s a bit unwieldy to think of it as a single whole. But it doesn’t seem to break into chapters sensibly. I’ve been calling paired scenes ‘chapters’ but they’re not. They’re just two scenes. Which becomes particularly obvious when a conversation breaks off in a scene in one chapter and picks up in the next. That’s just weird. I mean, maybe if there was a cliffhanger or something but… no. So chapters is not a thing that is happening.
But then… I’m not sure it needs to. Maybe there are no chapters, maybe it’s just scene following scene. That’s possible. There aren’t any time jumps really because the whole book takes place in about four hours. And it’s just the two characters mostly, and they spend a lot of their time running… Actually, the whole book kind of feels like a sprint. So no breaks could work for that. And there are good words for that kind of thing, right? Frenetic, fast-paced, relentless. Like that.
Doesn’t stop me from wanting to break it down into sections though, just to keep it manageable mentally. Unfortunately, when I start to break it into parts the sections so far come out labelled, ‘Hello’, ‘Who the fuck are you?’, ‘I was expecting smugglers, not <redacted>’ and ‘Fucking reckless muppet’. Which, um, yeah… maybe not.
I mean, it’s not important if it’s just for me but… there’s this thing? Where I give things ludicrous names or make jokes about them? And then someone hears me? Like my PhD supervisor? And then it… ends up in print? So… quite nervous about making jokes.
Kandace Mavrick
Paul McLaughlan
Sassamifrass (@sassamifrass)
20/04/2012
I’ve only read Cat’s Cradle, so I can’t speak for his other books, but Kurt Vonnegut has literally a BILLION (totally counted them) chapters in that book and some of them were only a paragraph long. And it was AW?ESME. AWESOME. Typos left in for comedic potential.
If he can make a praragraph…paragraph an entire chapter, then you can totally break off mid sentence in one.
Kandace Mavrick
22/04/2012
I think I like drunk!Wendy commentary, with humorous typos. My question though, has to be why were you drunk at 5 in the afternoon? Was it because you fear the weekend? Does part of your work involve challenging potential vendors to competitions of skill and stamina, such as shot glass chess? Did you trip and fall in a vat of delicious schnapps?
Sassamifrass (@sassamifrass)
23/04/2012
I went to a pub lunch… and then we didn’t really leave the pub. It was a bit like Pokemon but with different kinds of wine.
Half-days are awesome. My favourite part is the other half!
Wait… am I still drunk?
That said, your idea about the vendor challenges has merit. It could be a valuable strategic move. I will recommend this course of action to upper management at the next steering committee meeting *dies of businessitis* (Or alcohol poisoning, who’s to say).