Keeping Tabs

The adventures of writing for a 50+ ensemble cast.

Granted, I just killed a bunch of them off, so maybe it's closer to 40 now.

I think the final book in a series is hard to write. Not just because I'm having difficulty (because it's likely that I'm inept), but because most of the loose ends you've had stringing about throughout the preceding books need to no longer be loose. I'm a fan of leaving some things unexplained simply because it'll give the audience a chance, if they so choose, to make up their own story to explain it.

Anyway, I'm into a section of the book where I dragged a bunch of characters together to talk things over and figure stuff out, primarily their next step. When I started writing the chapter, I just wrote. The problem with that is, I'm a fan of making sure everyone says something. So I usually make a "conversation tally" to keep track of who speaks and how often. I'd hate to mention someone at the beginning of some serious meeting and then ever have them say anything. Why were they there then?

I stopped mid-writing-rampage and made up a conversation tally sheet. It alarmed me that I was short around 6 characters from the last time I had to keep tabs on who was speaking and how often and I was having more difficulty with it now that there were less characters. I think that's simply because what I was writing was harder. I had to take what had already been hinted at, discussed, brought up, abandoned and discarded and ensure that it was brought into the conversation at a likely point.

Now that I finished the chapter, I think I'll have to really hard core edit it later. Just 'cause there's so much going on in it.

I'm off to write the next chapter of the book.

Happy writing!

Currently Writing: Revelation (chapter six)
Currently Reading: Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: the CD Illusions by Thomas Bergersen

P.S.!!! My BFF Dana just e-published a book of her poems! They're available on Amazon, so if you search "Heart Wanderings" by Dana Kristi, you'll find it :) It's a good little collection of poems and I strongly recommend looking into it.