Plot complexities... to serialize or not...

[atlhivemind]

I have a WiP that's very complex and I'm trying to figure out how to make this work as anything but a big, sprawling epic. I started with an idea for a novel that got out of hand, creatively as the plot took many twists and turns that made it a lot bigger. I've been trying to rework it in a more serialized format but I'm having trouble finding stopping points in the right places.
There are multiple POV characters and multiple sub-plots all working towards an end. That combined with my verbose style

The story is a sci-fi tale set in an alternate-present (starting in a slightly altered 1999) that revolves around a stranded group of technologically-advanced humans (the off-world decendents of a 100,000-years-gone space-faring civilization based on Earth) to rebuild their society after it was destroyed in an interstellar cold-war scenario gone bad.

The main protagonist is a 21-year-old boy whose parents (unbeknownst to him) were adopted by the off-worlders and follows him as he goes from slacker aeronautical engineering student to starship captain (and having to design and build the thing first). As the story progresses he and the others face a dozen obstacles, including an attempted planetary invasion by a group of robots who destroyed their creators, a world-killing asteroids and a fragile geopolitical situation that sees China against the US in a new Cold War thanks to meddling from another gang of off-worlders the good guys have to hunt down.

Yes, it's complicated, and that doesn't even go into the fact there are at least three other characters who are protagonists of their own tales set in this realm.

Since this is shaping up to be a multi-POV story that lends itself to serialization I have a few issues.

THere are multiple characters on multiple parallel paths that occasionally intersect (covering 12 years of time). Each one has enough plot-detail to make up its own story yet there are plenty of pivotal moments where everyone is together. How can I split the story up such that these parallel tracks that occasionally cross are each their own story set in the same universe?

The first part (about 30-40k) is an intro that sets up the 'verse and the principal characters and is a story (a mystery as the main protagonist and his friends and family (most of whom are destined by be those other heroes) unravel the strange things going on around them that ends with a "we need your help to save the world" moment.

Confused yet?
Me too. The universe map is very wibbly-wobbly.

 

[Esfires]

Sounds like you just need to cut out some of the characters, and their plot lines, entirely.

 

[James Coote]

Yes, it clearly won't all go in one book. I'd concentrate on writing from the start and trying not to open too many threads too early on. And have some resolution

Your chapters are what keeps the reader turning the pages. The books break things up into manageable chunks. The short, intra-story arcs give dynamism to each book. The inter-story arcs help bind the disparate books together and the epic arc is what gives the reader a grand sense of something going on that is greater than the sum of the individual stories

Some of those arcs might be characters, others might be events or mysteries in the universe. The more resolutions you have (the more arcs / lines that all come together in a single moment), the more dramatic the endings

However, readers can't keep a handle on too many threads. People can only keep so much in their short term memory (around 7 or 8 pieces of information at any one time).

Finally, you need to grab the reader right from the start. Especially if you present the story/universe as open ended, the longer you spend building up to something, the more readers will think "this is just going on and on and I'm not prepared to wait that long to find out"

 

[Venusian Broon]

Hi atlhivemind,

Even with the information you've provided it's difficult to tell about how to proceed. Luckily I my WiP has about 4 main characters so I'm sort of in the same boat, hence we can compare and contrast!

The below is how I'd approach it:

My first advice to you is not to worry about splitting it or serialising it - just write it all down as you have imagined it - although later on you may be culling parts of this and removing characters (a task in itself that will be great practice), it'll be much easier to see where your going when you have everything in one big pile, so to speak, I believe.

How many words does this WiP then have? I've taken as a very rough rule of thumb that a SFF novel is about 120k +/- 20%. How far above that are you? You may actually have an estimate already. For example I've estimated mine will come in at ~180k - which as you can see is significantly above. However I'm confident that my flabby, info-heavy first-draft verbosity flecked with purple will easily shed 10% and I think I could sweat another 10%+ to get it close to the range for a single book.

The reason I'm aiming for a single book is, as I am an aspiring author, I'm pretty sure no publisher will take an unknown appearing on their doorstep with a trilogy. Hence I'd assume that my first book needs to be strong and standalone.

If in your case I'm assuming that you are way above my total and in the 'definitely' 2-3 books word count limit. You could go a number of ways:

A) Reorganise/Re-write your material so that you have a cracking self-contained novel. The rest of the material forms the basis for a further book or two.
B) Reorganise/Re-write your material so that you have a cracking self-contained novel. The rest of the material is superfluous for your story and can be ditched as unnessary padding.

The question to ask yourself is "What is the principle story that you want to tell?" Probably the easiest way to do this is to explain your entire plot in one sentence. Are all of the four main characters required to tell this main plot? Do they all move the main plot forward in their individual strands? Or are they sometimes spinning in interesting, but unnessary sub-plots, and in fact could be protrayed as a relatively minor character in the main plot? (Nothing wrong with sub-plots mind you, but too many though and they'll swamp the novel...)


Is it your slacker-to-Captain Kirk journey that sits at the core of the WiP? Perhaps the defeat of the evil robots will give a satisfactory ending. Further tribulations, such as the asteriod from the basis of a new book (and perhaps a completely different main character to deal with this situation and the political tension...)

 

[Jammill Khursheed]

While I don't do prose (script-writer) I have a similar problem, having recently worked out that my entire planned series of films/mini-series/tv-series weighs in at just under 120 hours (oww), which is basically 60+ film scripts...

The way I break it down is into what I call "EXTENDED THREE-ACT STRUCTURES" as every story/film/play basically follows the three act structure. First 1/4 is set up, middle half is the meat and bones of the story, last 1/4 is conclusion and pay off. Of course there are certain 'pointers' it is prescribed you hit at certain places in the structure, but that's not important at this point.

Basically, every episode (or book in your case) should follow the 1/4, 1/2, 1/4 rule, and the series as a whole should do the same, i.e...

Star wars episode IV is about stopping the Death Star
first act - Tatooine up to leaving for Mos Esiley
second act - escaping Tatooine, being captured by the death star, Obi-wan dying
third act - Assault on the Death Star and resolution (medals...YAY)

The whole series is about Vader's redemption

First Act - Outlining young Anakin's personality and setting up the stuff that will turn him to the darkside. from the start of Phantom Menace to him killing the Sand People in Clone Wars.

Second Act - Showing Anakin's descent into the dark-side and his role as the Emperor's henchman, from killing the Sand People to his confrontation with Luke in Empire Strikes Back where he is making his play for overthrowing the Emperor to bring peace to the universe.

Third Act - Vader's redemption and resolution. the different way he treats Luke after their duel and all throughout Jedi, eventually killing the Emperor and bringing balance to the force (Fireworks and dancing Ewoks... YAY)


When you analyse them, EVERY story that works pretty much can be broken down the same way (and once you know how it works in-depth, it almost ruins films cos you know its only so many minutes till such and such an event needs to happen.) You can do the same with each part of Lord Of The Rings (counting each of the two 'books' in each of the three novels as a separate three-act structured story, and the trilogy as a whole as another three-act structure)

The problem with big epic series is if you DON'T plan it out that way to begin with and the subsequent books/films/whatever aren't a trilogy but are just a film with two sequels (i.e. you can't apply the over-arching three act structure to Transformers, or the first three Police Academy films), and these tend to drag as a series.

Basically plan it out as if it's one story using the three act structure, remembering to start slowly when it comes to introducing plot-threads, and then break it up into the separate books and make sure each part of the series also follows the structure, BUT have some sort of succinct conclusion to each individual story (ESPECIALLY the first one) and don't leave it as a 'to be continued...' between each one unless you want to put people off who haven't read the previous books...

Hope that helps...


Jammill

 

[atlhivemind]

Hi atlhivemind,

Even with the information you've provided it's difficult to tell about how to proceed. Luckily I my WiP has about 4 main characters so I'm sort of in the same boat, hence we can compare and contrast!

The below is how I'd approach it:

My first advice to you is not to worry about splitting it or serialising it - just write it all down as you have imagined it - although later on you may be culling parts of this and removing characters (a task in itself that will be great practice), it'll be much easier to see where your going when you have everything in one big pile, so to speak, I believe.

How many words does this WiP then have? I've taken as a very rough rule of thumb that a SFF novel is about 120k +/- 20%. How far above that are you? You may actually have an estimate already. For example I've estimated mine will come in at ~180k - which as you can see is significantly above. However I'm confident that my flabby, info-heavy first-draft verbosity flecked with purple will easily shed 10% and I think I could sweat another 10%+ to get it close to the range for a single book.

The reason I'm aiming for a single book is, as I am an aspiring author, I'm pretty sure no publisher will take an unknown appearing on their doorstep with a trilogy. Hence I'd assume that my first book needs to be strong and standalone.

If in your case I'm assuming that you are way above my total and in the 'definitely' 2-3 books word count limit. You could go a number of ways:

A) Reorganise/Re-write your material so that you have a cracking self-contained novel. The rest of the material forms the basis for a further book or two.
B) Reorganise/Re-write your material so that you have a cracking self-contained novel. The rest of the material is superfluous for your story and can be ditched as unnessary padding.

The question to ask yourself is "What is the principle story that you want to tell?" Probably the easiest way to do this is to explain your entire plot in one sentence. Are all of the four main characters required to tell this main plot? Do they all move the main plot forward in their individual strands? Or are they sometimes spinning in interesting, but unnessary sub-plots, and in fact could be protrayed as a relatively minor character in the main plot? (Nothing wrong with sub-plots mind you, but too many though and they'll swamp the novel...)


Is it your slacker-to-Captain Kirk journey that sits at the core of the WiP? Perhaps the defeat of the evil robots will give a satisfactory ending. Further tribulations, such as the asteriod from the basis of a new book (and perhaps a completely different main character to deal with this situation and the political tension...)

I definitely have enough material for two books. The problem I'm having is thus:
While the slacker-to-Captain Protagonist, his primary love interest and mentors and minions make up the bulk of the main story, there are other characters doing other things to move the plot along at the exact same time.

So if I have one story, with enough material, about the good captain and another full-blooded plot about rebuilding a dead society and recruiting local talents, and another that's basically a spy story that turns to political drama, all of these threads form the basis of the much, much larger world and all three threads happen simultaneously.

A major element in the plot has all the characters scrambling from "deflect an asteroid in ten years" to "defeat an alien invasion in five years" as the second element only comes to light later and ultimately, the doomsday rock becomes itself an afterthought to the characters. I'm not necessarily married to this, but I needed to give the characters something to do...

What I'm trying to figure out is:
- Do I tell multiple but self-contained stories, paying appropriate lip-service to the other lines as needed to make it feel like a larger world, with each individual tale sharing a timeline? (same events, multiple character viewpoints over time)

or:

- Do I cut out entire plots (something I am loathe to do) which will make the world feel much smaller and strain plausibility? (how did he save the world on so little resources?)

 

[Jo Zebedee]

One thing I'd stick in is that advice on trilogies is conflicting. Some say as vb has mentioned publishers won't touch first timers with a trilogy. Other advice is it makes you more attractive as they know you material in place should book one take off and you're less of a risk.
For e publishing a trilogy/ series is a strong model as the first can be a loss leader and build sales for the others.
I've tried to make it that book one of mine can be a standalone in the sense there's a resolution but its open for book 2 and 3.

 

[Peter Graham]

One thing I'd stick in is that advice on trilogies is conflicting. Some say as vb has mentioned publishers won't touch first timers with a trilogy. Other advice is it makes you more attractive as they know you material in place should book one take off and you're less of a risk.

I think the disagreement might come about because of the distinction between a series and a trilogy. Publishing houses and agents are business people, so need to make money from their writers. Best way to do that is to take on writers who can keep cranking the handle and churning work out. That might mean authors who use the same characters (Cornwell, Fraser), authors who use the same world (Pratchett) or authors who write varied works, but in a certain style (Dickens, Buchan). All of these could be seen as a "series" of books.

Trilogies, by contrast, are merely one specific type of series, loved by fantasy authors in particular. I think they got popular following the success of LOTR, which isn't actually a trilogy at all in the proper sense. It's just a very long book divided into six sections.

The problem with trilogies - as amply evidenced by Pullman - is that the central story runs over three different books, meaning that authors have all sorts of difficulties with providing enough pay-off at the end of each book so that it resolves in some way, whilst leaving the way open for a sequel and the ultimate resolution of the big theme. US drama series have the same problem, which is why so many of them (Lost, Heroes and, I'll wager, Homeland too) go so massively off the boil so quickly.

My view is to keep it simple. James' colourful diagram is intriguing, but implies a level of complexity which is most certainly not a prerequisite of good storytelling. What the reader wants is to know whose story it is, what they want, what stands in their way and how they get it. The OP may actually have several unconnected stories which taken together amount to a series. Fine - tell the first story first and if that gets picked up, there's plenty of film left in the can for the next six! Keep it snappy and to the point - not the literary equivalent of Tales From The Topographic Oceans.

Regards,

Peter

 

[Boneman]

But then John Berlyne of Zeno agency has this to say about trilogies and serialization:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5619859&postcount=55

 

[Venusian Broon]

What I'm trying to figure out is:
- Do I tell multiple but self-contained stories, or:

- Do I cut out entire plots (something I am loathe to do)

Personally I would continue writing it all out the way you want to - the first way I assume - because you will feel better doing that way and hence will probably do better work and get it down faster. It may be that when you have it all there and are going through the re-drafting process, that naturally it shrinks dramatically in size and this discussion about 1, 2 or 3 books will be superfluous. Worry about this issue if the manuscript draft 3 or 4 remains stubbornly high in its wordcount.

Some say as vb has mentioned publishers won't touch first timers with a trilogy...I've tried to make it that book one of mine can be a standalone in the sense there's a resolution but its open for book 2 and 3.

I'm sure there is some discussion from people that have published regarding this somewhere on the site! As for aspiring authors trying to sell triliogies, I'm sure there must be examples of it really happening, and I'm not against writing triliogies as your first major work, but I would definitely go the springs route and have the first book as standalone - just to maximise your chances of being picked up.

 

[atlhivemind]

... I would definitely go the springs route and have the first book as standalone - just to maximise your chances of being picked up.

I like that idea, though I'm having trouble distilling down a short tale.
I've been tinkering with several prequel ideas set in the same 'verse with a few of the same characters, not involving anyone from contemporary Earth, but rather the off-worlders before they even get to Earth.

The problem I have with that is is spoils the mystery of the first few chapters of the main story and the reader then goes from wondering along with the hero who the 'new girl' in his life really is to watching him figure things out. Which, now that i think about it goes on it's own merits.

If I make a 'prequel' story, it'll help eliminate a lot of the exposition and backstory elsewhere. Those would probably be more short-story length.

The trick is keeping it from looking too much like a BSG clone (from which I've drawn a LOT of inspiration)

 

[Anne Lyle]

I've tried to make it that book one of mine can be a standalone in the sense there's a resolution but its open for book 2 and 3.

This is exactly the right way to approach the problem, particularly for a first-time author. John Berlyne is my agent, and the first thing he asked about, once he'd seen some sample chapters and a synopsis, was "how a second and possibly third book would pan out"

A trilogy doesn't have to be one big book cut into three - it can (like mine) be three episodes in an overall story arc, like some TV series. Book One needs enough closure that the reader isn't left hanging, but it can still have plot threads left open for the next book.

To the OP, I'd suggest writing each storyline as a standalone novel and see how that works out - you're looking at around 100k words, give or take, for a commercial SF novel. However you need to finish at least one book before you worry about selling them!

 

[atlhivemind]

thanks.
Hmm...
It might be interesting to see things from just one character's perspective.
I could have plenty of mentions of other goings-on to create a larger world...
For the bits that I've written from other character's plots, they could end up as flashbacks for a later book... or written as a 'perspective flip' companion.

As for moving the plot along, i have plenty of ideas that would fit a series. I've just been hung up on trying to tell a multithreadded story all at once.

Now that i think about it, watching one character go through a world that's literally built around him and he is only one small piece rather than the all-powerful hero would be an interesting take on things.